Solar Wind, Earths magnetosphere. Image: NASA
The Solar Wind is a torrent of space weather cruising past at 500 — 800 kilometers per second which is around 1.5 million miles per hour or, if you prefer, Mach 2,000.* It’s so powerful it erodes rocks on Mars, ejects particles up high and creates a kind of atmosphere of tiny rock particles which we can study. Then it blows that Martian atmosphere away.
In this new research people realized it was not just the rain of tiny high-speed protons fritzing Mars at 800 km per second that were carving up the rocks — the main role was from the heavy and highly charged He2+. (Now there’s a molecule you don’t see too often).
You might think that a variable torrent of charged particles that are constantly changing speed and direction might have an impact on our atmosphere, but you’d be wrong (or at least, politically incorrect). On Earth the solar wind “just causes the northern lights”. How do we know? We’ve got climate models. In all known GCMs the total global forcing for solar wind is “zero”. Must be true.
Thus and verily the IPCC can conclude that a flow of high speed charged particles *definitely* doesn’t change jet streams or affect ozone in any way, nor does it change cloud cover. Don’t bother looking. CO2 can cause droughts, floods, volcanoes and belly fat, but the solar wind is just a trace gas, I mean, a magnetized plasma. Whatever.
In IPCC “Science” our magnetic field and dense atmosphere protects us from the solar wind like a perfect Level 3 Containment field — see the USS Enterprise, Stardate 2369. Obviously.
Nobody mention that the Solar Wind correlates with the surface temperature of the North Atlantic, or that it dumps energy into the far upper atmosphere.
But anyhow — for the astrochemistry buffs – another example of a model gone wrong:
The true power of the solar wind
The planets and moons of our solar system are continuously being bombarded by particles hurled away from the sun. On Earth this has hardly any effect, apart from the fascinating northern lights, because the dense atmosphere and the magnetic field of the Earth protect us from these solar wind particles. But on the Moon or on Mercury things are different: There, the uppermost layer of rock is gradually eroded by the impact of sun particles.
An Exosphere of Shattered Rock
“The solar wind consists of charged particles — mainly hydrogen and helium ions, but heavier atoms up to iron also play a role,” explains Prof. Friedrich Aumayr from the Institute of Applied Physics at TU Wien. These particles hit the surface rocks at a speed of 400 to 800 km per second and the impact can eject numerous other atoms. These particles can rise high before they fall back to the surface, creating an “exosphere” around the Moon or Mercury — an extremely thin atmosphere of atoms sputtered from the surface rocks by solar wind bombardment.
This exosphere is of great interest for space research because its composition allows scientists to deduce the chemical composition of the rock surface — and it is much easier to analyse the exosphere than to land a spacecraft on the surface.
Forgot the charge — it’s only physics:
Charge matters
However, this requires a precise understanding of the effects of the solar wind on the rock surfaces, and this is precisely where decisive gaps in knowledge still exist. Therefore, the TU Wien investigated the effect of ion bombardment on wollastonite, a typical moon rock. “Up to now it was assumed that the kinetic energy of the fast particles is primarily responsible for atomization of the rock surface,” says Paul Szabo, PhD student in Friedrich Aumayr’s team and first author of the current publication. “But this is only half the truth: we were able to show that the high electrical charge of the particles plays a decisive role. It is the reason that the particles on the surface can do much more damage than previously thought.”
They forgot the ol’ double-plus-helium
When the particles of the solar wind are multiply charged, i.e. when they lack several electrons, they carry a large amount of energy which is released in a flash on impact. “If this is not taken into account, the effects of the solar wind on various rocks are misjudged,” says Paul Szabo. Therefore, it is not possible to draw exact conclusions about the surface rocks with an incorrect model from the composition of the exosphere.
Protons make up by far the largest part of the solar wind, and so it was previously thought that they had the strongest influence on the rock. But as it turns out, helium actually plays the main role because, unlike protons, it can be charged twice as positively. And the contribution of heavier ions with an even greater electrical charge must not be neglected either.
REFERENCES
- Paul S. Szabo, R et al (2018) Solar Wind Sputtering of Wollastonite as a Lunar Analogue Material – Comparisons between Experiments and Simulation. Icarus, 2018; DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2018.05.028
*Though in space, no one can hear you break the sound barrier.
Image: NASA
The prayer of every modern PC academic;
Please grant me another grant, and if possible make it bigger.
On the other hand we could contemplate how fortunate we are to have been given this planet to live on and experience this brief moment in time.
Let’s make the most of it and leave greed and war for another time.
KK
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The solar wind can be used to generate electricity from our atmosphere. This has been proven by experiment and scaled up to small scale circuits involving very large super-caps. Water in the troposphere is ionized to hydronium (H3O+) and hydroxide (OH-). These ions are rapidly hydrated with up to 20 water molecules forming micro droplets (proven by experiment).
The solar wind is one of the major drivers of our climate. Any climate model that does not include solar wind variables cannot predict an outcome with ANY confidence.
However, a model of the solar wind is useless for mining Government grants and should not be applied in computer models used for such as it will prove that CO2, the major driver of such grants, has almost no affect on our climate.
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Some related links.
High-speed solar winds increase lightning strikes on Earth.
http://www.iop.org/news/14/may/page_63245.html
“For decades, scientists have argued over whether there is a link between cosmic rays and cloud cover, which in turn could affect climate. Now two atmospheric physicists in the UK have discovered that global atmospheric electricity – which itself is altered by cosmic rays, space weather and El Niño – affects the base height of certain types of clouds.”
https://physicsworld.com/a/atmospheric-electricity-affects-cloud-height/
“In this letter we investigate possible relationships between the cloud cover (CC) and the interplanetary electric field (IEF), which is modulated by the solar wind speed and the interplanetary magnetic field. We show that CC at mid–high latitudes systematically correlates with positive IEF, which has a clear energetic input into the atmosphere, but not with negative IEF, in general agreement with predictions of the global electric circuit (GEC)-related mechanism. ”
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/045032
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And this from the Electric Universe people . . . . .
https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2018/03/28/charge-exchange/
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And this from the Electric Universe people . . . . .
“The Sun is returning to a more passive state, otherwise called, “solar minimum”.”
TSI could be climbing again. Have been watching it fall, fall fall.
http://lasp.colorado.edu/data/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_3month_640x480.png
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“The Star-Sun-Earth connection has the potential to influence the thermosphere, atmosphere, ionosphere and lithosphere. Initial correlation of the cosmic and Sun-Earth connection has shown the possibility of predicting earthquakes, sudden changes in atmospheric temperatures and erratic rainfall/snowfall patterns.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3790986/
“How the Solar Wind May Affect Weather and Climate”
“The Sun over Antarctica. New research suggests the link between solar wind and atmospheric pressure seen in Antarctica (the Mansurov Effect) may be driven by atmospheric electric effects on tropospheric clouds. Credit: Kirk Watson”
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/solar-wind-may-affect-weather-climate
Oxygen escape from the Earth during geomagnetic reversals: Implications to mass extinction . https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X14001629
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I plead ignorance on solar particle physics, although wouldnt high speed particles passing through an atmosphere at least have an effect something similar to static charge, which logically might lead to charged dust particles sticking together to create clouds or even hail? Happy to learn….
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Or stick dust to water?
“I plead ignorance on solar particle physics,” ditto but the electrical theory parts gel well here.
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I need to get on with other things atm but want to follow up more of this. It’s reawakened my interest in stuff that fascinated me in earlier years.
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You guys are slow. I learned all this stuff from the professor in all those Michael J. Fox time travel movies! In effect, to be serious, you mean those movies actually predated the science you are discussing? Amazing!
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Geoff
June 14, 2018 at 7:05 am · Reply
“The solar wind can be used to generate electricity from our atmosphere.”
A great little video of a home made atmospheric electric motor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhXxSAv6rMg
Then the guy meets up with a crew that are collecting atmospheric electricity and hooks his motor up to there gear to run a fan. Fans need a surprisingly high amount of power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENeDkGce5-4
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There are natural motor / generators as well.
“NASA and university researchers discovered that dust devils on Earth have unexpectedly large electric fields, in excess of 4,000 volts per meter (yard), and can generate magnetic fields as well.”
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2004/0420marsdust.html
Oddly the atmospheric voltage varies with time UTC not local time. I think this may be to do whith rotating land masses because it also varies from summer to winter.
https://malagabay.wordpress.com/2014/06/13/the-carnegie-curve/comment-page-1/
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Yes it works! NASA hung a wire in the upper atmosphere but the current flow melted it. Engineers have known about this for a VERY LONG TIME. CO2 proponents will ignore any data that does not agree with their religion.
The possibility that clouds can be made top down is a very recent one (2005). It is now apparent that the Earth’s magnetic field is maintained by the movement of charge particles in the jet stream. This explains the magnetic pole movement and sudden pole reversals. It also explains why there is no magnetic field on Mars (no water in Mars atmosphere) and suggests that Mars may have been located closer to the Sun or the Sun’s activity was far greater earlier after our solar system was formed. If Mars was hit by something big and moved there will be evidence in its natural frequency. Not sure if anyone has looked for this evidence.
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“suggests that Mars may have been located closer to the Sun or the Sun’s activity was far greater earlier after our solar system was formed.” Interesting. does that fit with Velickovsky’s ideas?
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Mars, Venus and the Earth in some sort of collision? These are big masses. Too big. There is a lot of space for planets to miss each other. A smaller mass like a large asteroid would do. Not sure we should worry about what happened. Better to understand how we could start up a magnetic field on Mars.
The Earth’s atmosphere does not have enough mass to stay on the Earth’s surface by gravity alone. So why does it remain?
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Because the gravity is strong enough to hold the atmosphere.
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The solar wind is trying to blow it away and it is a greater force than gravity which is a weak force.
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“Gee Aye
June 14, 2018 at 2:56 pm
Because the gravity is strong enough to hold the atmosphere.”
Where did you get that weird idea?
“Overall, about 1 kg of material is escaping our atmosphere every second, amounting to almost 90 tonnes per day.
https://phys.org/news/2016-07-curious-case-earth-leaking-atmosphere.html#jCp
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Siliggy… the implication of Geoff’s incorrect comment was that the amount of gravity was insufficient to account for the observed atmosphere. This does not preclude the fact that it is also being lost.
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Gee Aye is correct, Earth has a bigger mass than Mars, the gravity keeps our atmosphere and oceans hugging the planet.
There is a big dust storm on Mars at the moment and the Rover is in its path.
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Large parts of the upper atmosphere must be ionized and it is held to the Earth by its charge. Not by gravity. There will be a very large potential between the Earth’s surface and the top of the troposphere.
This charge moves in the jet stream maintaining the Earth’s magnetic field. It ionizes water and forms droplets and a long list of other things.
None of this is in ANY climate model and makes the current models ridiculous. No real science by climate scientists, just a means to get government funding from simpletons.
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Gravity holds it down here but up there is where the low orbit satellites are and the force is far far weaker than the magnetic forces. So they just win in any battle.
“There will be a very large potential between the Earth’s surface and the top of the troposphere.” More accurately the charge plates of the big capacitor are the ionosphere and the ground. The ionosphere is conductive and also refractive to many radio frequencies.
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Good explanation of the ionosphere as a capacitor plate.
click here.
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Nice summary of the ionosphere. Did not see CO2 mentioned anywhere. As it is not Politically Correct, it must be morally wrong to consider such facts as …… proven facts. We must therefore ignore such facts for the sake of PC science. That is when PC scientists get paid for making up bull to get more money to make up more bull etc.
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For the general reader.
https://www.space.com/11187-earth-magnetic-field-solar-wind.html
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“For the general reader.” Oh that’s me.
It says “She believes Earth’s magnetic field could have made the difference in the past when the solar wind was presumably stronger.” But but but wasn’t the sun meant to have been weaker when the CO2 was at 5000ppm?
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That was called the Space Tether Experiment.
https://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/wtether.html
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The Solar wind doth blow,
but modellers won’t show
effects of charged particles…
though well do modellers show
effects of political charges,
know well how to play the mann.
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How ever do astronauts survive?
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They wear lead impregnated underwear.
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At least they wont rust if the air circulation in the space suits is low…..
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Hmm, the last time I checked, helium is an atomic element. Hmm, 800km/s velocity for He2+ would have quite a bit more total KE than H+, the bare proton. True enough the v^2 dominates. Heck, just getting fully ionized helium takes a fair amount of energy itself.
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Shows just how powerful the sun is, as Jo suggests above the IPCC version of science is very different in reality.
Everything is equal until its not.
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But just think of the whole new world of chemicals and chemical processes we might gain if someone could get He+ to stick around long enough to bond with something else? We might get steel that’s lighter than air. Floating cities have been the dream of science fiction writers for a long time. Maybe we could actually achieve them if He+ could be made to behave itself. And airplanes could be made without those ugly space wasting wings that get in the way of your view from the window and the planes would survive a crash with ease.
Lighter than air steel…remember you heard it here first.
The possibilities are endless.
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Until it’s claimed a pronoun….
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A new gender? Male with possibilities … 😉
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Helium is oppression! It must be shelia, Sh2+
*[superscript added 🙂 Jo]
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Why superscript doesn’t work?
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Superscript doesn’t work because it was outlawed last year by the Interplanetary Association of Climate
MedlersModelers for being superior to other characters. Anything superior is strictly non PC anymore and cannot be allowed. Both Al Gore and Bill Nye say so. Only the climate modelers are allowed to be superior.10
A neutral helium atom consists of two protons, two neutrons and two electrons. Thus a doubly charged helium atom will have lost its two electrons. So in nuclear physics terminology it is just an alpha particle. Alphas are emitted in some radioactive decays but presumably have less kinetic energy than those emitted by the sun in the solar wind.
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There are streams of protons and electrons (beta particles) in there too, ie: stripped hydrogen atoms.
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As for wind effects from the sun,
The warmists conclude there are none,
Being ‘carbon’ addicted,
As the models predicted,
So all other forcings they shun.
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When do you suppose someone will invent solar-wind mills? Surely someone can think of a way to take advantage of this powerful resource we’re now wasting. Once someone can do that the warmists’ game would be over.
Te-he, chuckle, chuckle. 😉
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Good idea Roy. Don’t forget to patent it. 🙂
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The Green Loonies will find a way to ban it. Remember their goal is to destroy western civilisation and return us back to medieval dark ages
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Patent it? Let me see now, would the blades rotate clockwise or counter clockwise. And would that be as viewed from the front or the rear… Then there’s the problem of the composition of the blades and should they rotate around a horizontal or vertical axis… and… and…?
Nope, too tough a problem for a mere mortal. Maybe Bill Nye…?
But I’ll sue his pants off if he steals my idea. Maybe take his coat and shirt too. That ought to fix him real good.
Wait a minute, how did he sneak in here anyway?
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.
Roy Hogue @ #5
.
“Surely someone can think of a way to take advantage of this powerful resource we’re now wasting.”
Will this do Roy?
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Science fiction writers have been using such sails for a long time already. Their only trouble is the the sail needs to be humongous and even then your rate of acceleration is so low that it takes gazillions of years to get anywhere.
I don’t know where NASA gets those numbers but I’ll believe the sci fi writers before NASA until NASA has actually built and flown one.
Problem: how do you get back from the heliopause? Magic maybe?
😉 😉 😉 😉 😉 😉 😉 😉 😉
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Wollastinite. A typical moon rock ???
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Nope. Read about it here. It’s a Lunar Analogue Material, which I take to mean a proxy rock. YMMV
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Sometimes I truly wonder whether these scientists believe that the sun revolves around the earth and that the earth is flat.
I wonder if any of these scientists have stood around a blazing campfire and noticed that it has an effect on those standing around it and the surrounds.
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Yes, but man lit the campfire using matches, ergo man is to blame.
Solution? Ban matches!
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Some would like to ban life.
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More likely, they’d put a tax on matches.
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Easy fix, I just removed the link to my renewable energy post. Weird that words are banned.
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The shell game of CAGW has worked so well for so long now. I don’t think solar wind will ever be allowed by the scam artists to be presented as an important element to climate change as it would very easily and quickly destroy their shell game. The other half of the picture has to include our magnetic field that shields us from much of the solar activity streaming towards earth, and the magnetic field is weakening. I bet you will never hear that from the scam artists.
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On the other hand, any phenomenon invoking the buzz phrase, “ït’s worse that we thought” must, perforce, attract a blizzard of research funds of solar wind proportions!
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Lets move to Mars.
No magnetic field and no substantial atmosphere = total exposure to solar wind and cosmic rays.
Alarmists and rent seekers promote moving to Mars as “Plan B” to ensure humanity’s survival after climate change kills all of us.
I say the sooner we can send ’em there the better.
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Are you thinking of an improved B-Arc to include climate scientists and UN officials?
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What happened to all those middle managers and telephone sanitizers? They became Climatescientologists….
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…..and telephone sanitizers….
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Actually I think it is the A-Arc that we needed to worry about.
If I remember my Adams correctly one Arc was going to be filled with all the artists and the thinkers and the other all the people who actually did all the work.
I mean you can say what you like about hairdressers and used car salesmen, but the vast majority of the population do have hair and do like owning a car.
After all, Adams was mildly aware of what he was doing and did wipe up the rest of that planet by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone.
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Excess cold kills, as does excess heat. I enjoy living in the “Goldilocks zone.” Mars isn’t in there with us. Nor is Venus. I’m not going anywhere. So we can give ’em a choice! What more could they want?
Want warm? Send ’em to Venus. If they get past the clouds of SO2 and Sulphuric Acid, the 1600 pounds per sq inch of atmospheric pressure will crush them and the 460°C of warmth will evaporate them. Instantly.
Want cool? They’re off to Mars. All that pretty snow is actually Dry Ice at c. –78°C. Enjoy,
Sound good?
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Want cold? Send them to Pluto. Want hot? send them to the sun. I agree – earth is just fine. It puts the hysteria of CAGW even if it were true (which it ain’t) into proper perspective as being simply a derangement syndrome, much like the current Trump derangement syndrome being exposed by so many Hollywood actors and climate scientists.
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Darn. That was nearly a waste of good hot tea when I read
What do they think causes most of our extreme weather? Could it possibly just possibly be something a million times larger than The Blue Marble? A lot more powerful than volcanism?
Sun spot activity, coronal holes and Solar wind velocity is part of what is called Space Weather. Solar Flares and Coronal Mass Ejections are part of the set.
Space Weather affects Terrestrial weather. (The Sun and Storms.) “Lumps” in the Solar Wind, ie a step change in the SW’s velocity when higher speed SW from a Coronal Hole hits, is what kickstarts thunder storms into Tropical Cyclones, of Cat 1 or even Cat 2 strength. It takes a Solar Flare and the CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) from it hitting our magnetic field, creating bigger geomagnetic storms, to kick the Cyclone to a higher category. X class flares routinely produce Cat 4 and Cat 5 storms. M class, (weaker) flares will drive a TC to Cat 2 or Cat 3 depending on its strength.
This cyclone season, (late March or early April, I think. Could have been earlier), I watched a whizzy whirly storm on the western coast of the Carpenteria peninsular (courtesy of BOMs radar) trying to start. It wizzed up then fell apart, pulled itself together, whizzed up and disintegrated again. (A time-lapse loop). Luckily, it couldn’t get its act together because:
1. The Solar Wind was running at about its normal velocity, no coronal hole pointing at us.
(I’m simplifying, Will!) There were no speed steps in it to act as a shock wave.
2. No sunspots at all. It takes a sunspot group (magnetic exit hole and loop re-entry hole) with unstable Beta-gamma-delta fields to spark a solar flare. (Hissy spitty spots.)
The suns’ magnetic field and the earth’s are linked through the solar wind. The highly magnetised CME (it’s mostly highly charged particles—protons, electrons and stripped helium atoms—beats up the terrestrial Magnetic Field and we have a geomagnetic storm. This creates VLF sound waves in the upper atmosphere. Call them `down ward pressure waves.’ These reach the toposphere and whizz the potential TC up into a real one.
The earth’s magnetic field has weakened by about 5% or more over the last 15 years or so. Ergo smaller solar flares and smaller changes in the Solar Wind velocity are having creating bigger geo-magnetic storms than they would have 30 years ago. The planet is shaping up to swap its magnetic poles. At the same time, the Sun seems to be slipping into a minimum and not just the usual one between Sunspot cycles. The combination of the two is “situation unknown” or “Interesting Times.”
And those prats from the IPCC say the planet’s magnetic field means the solar wind can’t affect us or our Climate? I swear their literature searches are more and more perfunctory and getting worse and worse. That’s an egregious statement. I’m not a researcher but I’ve read about all this. I’ve also found sites which put informative videos together from the same information. These particular researchers are at best ignorant and I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. With statements like that, the IPCC should be collapsed and withdrawn.
A coronal hole emits higher velocity Solar Wind. When that higher velocity wind arrives, it’s effectively a step in SW pressure. That’s what I mean by lumps in the solar wind. That step velocity can push a storm trying to turn into a cyclone into a Cat 1 beasty. A really big step in velocity and hey: it’s Cat 2. No effect on us? The IPCC don’t seem to have heard of the Aurora Australis, either. But the Northern Hemisphere for them is the world, so I guess a second Aurora just over-complicates things for the poor things. Iggorant!, I tell you, Iggorant!.
No, I know what it is! The IPCC bureauprats only have three brain cells each so they have only enough storage for TSI, CO2 and CH4 etc. Nothing else. Must be.
Why do they think NOAA tracks all this information about the sun?
This is some of what Piers Corban found during his solar research in the 1980’s and part of his SLAT method of long range weather forecasting. Must be something in it because he regularly out-performs the UK Met Office Super Computer. His is only a PC. :-).
It beats the MO’s Cray (or whatever it is they use) hollow. But then GI giving GO is always a problem for computing.
Oh, and keep an eye on spaceweatherlive.com to get the good (?) news first. The MSM won’t report it. This is far too scary for them: it’s Real Science 🙂
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Thanks Sophocles – very useful post and of no interest because the MSM can’t manage anything ‘more complex than Kim Kardashian instagram feed’.
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Who?
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Thanks for the spaceweatherlive.com link. I’ve added it to my list of other related sites:
http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu//spaceweather/welcome.html
http://spaceweather.com/
http://spaceweathernews.com/
https://www.helioviewer.org/
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php
http://www2.irf.se//Observatory/?link=Magnetometers
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I enjoyed your comment Sophocles.
One small point….it’s Piers Corbyn (not Corban). He is the brother of Jeremy.
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Sophocles,
a really good comment which got me thinking rather deeply I’m afraid, so I have a really important question for you.
What tea do you drink?
Tony.
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Annie:
Thank you. My error and I stand corrected. (Can’t even use keyboard position as an excuse for that error! 🙂 )
Yes, I’m aware that Piers and Jeremy are brothers.
====================
PeterS:
https://www.suspicious0bservers.org/ which contains a wealth of information. It’s the top site for:
http://spaceweathernews.com
http://magneticreversal.org/
Thanks for the other links.
spaceweather.com, even though run by a NASA staffer, seems to be aimed at schools and their students. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you’ve wondered about the simplistic information, and kiddies’ toys brushing the edge of space that’s why. Good school-age interest material.
===============
Tony:
Okay, the hard ones first eh? 🙂
Several:
Mornings: a reasonable Ceylon tea (in NZ we get everything from sheer rubbish and up)
Most of the day: whatever takes my fancy from a selection of China teas.
At & after dinner: a good green tea.
(if you’re ever in NZ, don’t buy green tea from a supermarket: it’s processed grass and is only drinkable using the second water technique, if then. There are a few Asian supermarkets and plenty of smaller shops around who stock good drinkable green teas.)
None are brewed at all strongly. My method is to brew until an even colour is reached and pour. That way I get all the subtle flavours. It’s got to be hot! and that’s what creates the trouble.
Getting it all over the screen, keyboard and desktop is not an option! 🙂
I used to drink a lot of coffee but when it started lighting bonfires in my stomach, I returned to tea which is not so impolite.
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It’s very rare to see the earth and sun drawn to the correct scale. Probably because it’s not possible to fit them both in the same image. At a scale that fits the sun on a A4 sheet the earth is microscopic. Perhaps this is why it’s power is so often down played.
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The bureauprats in the UN can’t get their minds around the scale so they ignore it—not just the scale but the sun too.
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Not only that, they don’t pay attention to the vast areas of the planet they fly over on their way to this ‘climate’ whoop-it-up and that, adding vast amounts to their ‘carbon’ footprints. I think most people haven’t the slightest idea of the scale of things on this planet, let alone in relation to the sun and the other planets. Too busy dozing or watching some mindless drivel on their individual screens.
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I have this ongoing discussion with my wife ( who works in corporate HR ) about how techies see the world ( complex, detailed, interconnected awareness ) and how “corporates” ( non-techies ) see the world ( big picture, group hugs, dont-bore-me-with-details ).
Its a bit like the android ( techies ) vs iphone ( corporates ) debate. Granted its not that cut and dried but you get the idea.
Most beaurocrats are corporate types, as are a lot of politicans, so to get them to drill down is a challenge. Often the best way to get their attention is to just turn stuff off and wait for the squeals…… which is why I think the power grid failing will wake up more people than yelling at them about it.,..they cant grasp it….
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Annie said
That’s what parties are for: it starts on take-off on the way there and it ends the day after they’ve touched down on the flight home.
You’re right about no insight into scale: their minds are far too small to even think about contemplating infinity, let alone Orders of Magnitude. `Billion’ is just a word to them which is why bureauprats are so enamoured of nonsense and have absolutely no sense of proportion.
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Not microscopic on that scale but it is small of course – except for the flat earthers who believe the sun has a diameter of some 50 km and is located approximately 4800 km above the surface of the earth (craziness). One place to see the real relative sizes is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESk2WMJVskk
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So, a raging voluminous torrent of sizzlingly kinetic clumps of highly positively charged alpha particles (2+) emanating from a solar hemisphere some 12,000 time larger than the terrestrial hemisphere it faces, in the form of helium nucluei of which there number several isotopes containing differing numbers of neutrons, and therefore having variable atomic mass, some carrying an additional 2 neutrons, He-4 being even heavier than He-2, are saturation bombing the outer terrestrial atmosphere, never mind the rocks on the Moon, or poor old Mars. Doubtless here on Earth the ionosphere does a better job in comparison to Mars, where it is patchy and weaker but nevertheless still exists.
I want to know what the consequences are of such an unimaginably colossal atmospheric bombardment. The lunar rocks are interesting but not quite as much. The orders of magnitude in scalar difference mean that the Earth looks like a pin head in a riverine rapid. Atmospheric molecules and species should be pulverised, forming new molecules and species. The chemistry is fascinating. And, what are the physical effects of TOA heating from this energetic stream? That we hang onto our atmosphere at all is a marvel in its own right.
Finally, does the IPCC honestly have any credibility beyond that of being a poodle of political ideologue these days?
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The UNFCCC was formed because some bureauprats thought (if it could be called that) that the mass burning of fossil phules had to be doing something nasty to the atmosphere. The IPCC was formed to prove it.
How can you convince someone they’re wrong when their pay depends on it?
How come after 23 years of not being able to prove it, they’re still trying? (see above question…)
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sophocles:
Are you serious? Second rate (I’m being polite) researchers find out how to live a very comfortable existence, with lots of money for international
holidaysconferences and travel and interviews on national broadcasters with hosts who never ever ask difficult questions, and you suggest they should bring it to an end.100
Of course I’m serious, Graeme No. 3. I’m merely “Presenting the Facts” and “Asking the Questions.” I don’t consider beliefs to be relevant but that is all which underlies this whole CAGW charade—it’s based on some bureauprats’ collective uninformed opinions and prejudices. To wit: Beliefs.
Some researchers can live a comfortable life, but it’s much more a minority than thought. The “publish or perish” pressure always collects some scalps every year. Why do you think so much research is so trivial, bad, and almost em>never retracted? (Hint: a retraction reduces the published research count by one and makes journals more wary about accepting papers from that researcher for publication. All researchers here are audited each year and the audit relies on quantity not quality. Mr Mann, in his institution knows exactly what he’s doing and understands well the consequences.
As for me, I like collecting hats/caps of various types and nationalities and always get one or two each year from colleagues returning from such
jauntsholidayspartiestripsimportant meetings… ah … conferences in `foreign parts.’ It’s aperquisite, andpart of the job, this sharing ofopinionsthoughtsprejudices… ah … research. Very important and to be taken very seriously indeed.So is my national hat collection. So I’m being … collegial and fully supporting them.
My all-time favourite hat is a Greek fisherman’s cap. I like berets, too. 🙂
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The greatest error Margaret Thatcher made was to encourage the formation of the IPCC. She regretted it and later disavowed her initial position, stating succinctly in 2002:
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Consequences? Well if we could switch off our magnetosphere life would eventually cease, atmosphere or no atmosphere.
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I’m not so sure of that. Look at Chernobyl and it’s surrounds. The wildlife has and is returning and is thriving. Most animals have short lifetimes relative to humans who are very long lived for a mammalian life form. There are others which are longer. At worst, lifetimes will shorten. For the long-lived species, this would be a certainty.
People become alarmed at any mention of “radiation,” associating it with instant death. Ah, well, no. Many aren’t sufficiently well educated to know the difference between electromagnetic and particulate (nuclear). We actually have a very good survivability. This world is more radioactive than most realize.
Beyond a certain threshold, quick death is a certainty: the organism is cooked from within. Bone marrow is perhaps most vulnerable. But below that threshold, we are a hardy species. The further below that threshold, the longer is the individual life span. It could be anything from twenty years to nearly seventy. For most animals (like cats and dogs) twelve to fifteen years is considered long-lived.
Richard Feynman (1918 – 1988, aged 69) was highly likely overexposed during WWII while at Oak Ridge Laboratories. They didn’t know a great deal about it then. Even less was known during Marie Curie’s lifetime: 1867 – 1934 aged 66. So late 60’s for human lifeforms would not be unreasonable.
Chernobyl shows life is resilient. Cosmic rays pass through us continuously. Remember: these are charged particles at high energies created in the nuclear atom smasher of our atmosphere: particulate radiation. Vitamin D is our frontline anti-cancer defense.
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OMG it’s force X!!!
Or is it Y?
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This is the penultimate year comrade, all shall be revealed in due course.
The Arctic Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation, Indian Ocean Dipole and ENSO are all neutral, a perfect test bed for solar theory.
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There appears to be a link, I would appreciate a critique of the abstract.
https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/qj.2782
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It would seem that Ye Olde Average Solar Cycle, the one which is about 11 years long, produces an average sealevel pressure over Christmas and New Year which lags the [solar cycle] by 3-4 years. But wait! There’s more! Apparently there are two systems of influence with the other one having a lagged signal of 0-2 years. The blocking frequency, though shows a statistically significant 1 year (approx) lag.
Um. Now that is very useful information about … um … something. But you have to know what that something is first for it to be useful. It’s doing a very good job of not letting that out. It’s something to do with the Solar Cycle. (Hello, becoming circular here!)
I wondered if this was one of those computer generated nonsense papers. So I set out to read the rest of the paper. The first part, labelled Introduction was actually useful. I was able to discover what the paper was actually about. In fact, the Introduction made a better abstract than the abstract, but it was too long to meet the requirement for a short summary of the paper’s content as an abstract is supposedly to do.
But that abstract? Well, it satisfies the requirement for an abstract so that box can be ticked. Enlightening the reader to paper’s content? Que? It’s more impenetrable than a virgin raw potato. I’ve read a very large number of abstracts and that one I would award a prize to. It uses the word “blocking” in it. Ah, that describes it perfectly: it Blocks almost any amount of understanding brilliantly. About all it doesn’t block is that it has something to about the 11-year Solar Cycle and 0-2 and 3-4 year lags.
My opinion of the abstract: so low it’s subterranean.
As Neddy Seagoon famously demanded *”Lag my legs!” Unfortunately Neddy only has two legs, not three, to lag.
Does this help?
*The Last Goon Show of All.
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Thanks sophocles, that saves my legs.
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There is a good reason why the UN’s IPCC promoted “AGW Ideology” with such vigour. It was all about the money.
“YOU CAN’T TAX THE SUN” (so tax CO2 instead – simples).
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The fact is CO2 is a essential for life so by taxing it they are taxing life, which shouldn’t be a surprise given the left leaning UN hates the human species except themselves of course although that’s debatable given their level of insanity and twisted view of the world is extremely evil.
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As the CAGW and CO2 descend into an SJW and identity politics phase, which they have always been, what will be the next big lefty cause to keep their ABC, Faifax and the Guardian occupied?
The first big failure of the Eastern Grid should kill off sunshine and breezes so a new money making scam will need to developed.
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My current guess for the next green racidcal and rabid leftist project as the climate change meme dies in the a-se is the “hated” white skinned, misoginistic, supremist male racists, destroyers of civilisations, economic slavers of other skin coloured races and etc and etc.
Leftist activist inspired apartheid type anti male specific legislation will be introduced and enforced by afore said left leaning politicals who themselves will eventually be caught up in the political maelstrom they created to their horror and their future prospects of brown envelope backed gainful employment where taking advantage of the narrowly based legislation they personally introduced into parliament was to be personally very lucrative.
White skinned Academics, bureacrats, activists, greens , a section of the mixed gender ” claimants”, a goodly percentage but not all man haters of the female gender, the female misandrist section and associated persons with white skin colouration will be deemed exempt from any action against the aforesaid hated white skinned misoginistic and supremist male racists and economic slavers of coloured skin races.
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Important new research, via Tim Blair, relating to the CO2 caper:
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Never mind. NASA needs to break out some plush art work and Mars yarns from time to time. (For some reason nobody practises for Mars by paddling a canoe to Antarctica then living in a snow cave with a hydroponic kit and an x-ray machine. You’d reckon those would be good baby steps.)
The sun? The sun is mainly for selling solar panels and 15+ cream.
We’ll soon be back to carbon and pics of steam towers made to look like smoke stacks.
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A possibly apocryphal yarn from a long time ago but which was current when I began my flying in Tiger Moths in late 1959.
Mildura airport in those days of piston engined propeller driven aircraft still had a resident weather forecaster to inform the aviators on local conditions as well as the general and aviation forecasts as modelled for Mildura in those long gone days by the then BOM equivalent.
The weather forecasting section was based in a brick albeit windowless office room on Mildura airport which was a left over from the frantic airbase construction of WW2.
Legend had it that the forecaster in his windowless office one day was happily telling all and sundry in the aviation business that the Mildura region was CAVOK.
[ Laypersons explanation is CAVOK via wiki=
Acronym of Ceiling and visibility [are] OK., sometimes alternatively interpeted as “Clouds and Visibility OK”, a weather status report for pilots when visibility is at least 10 kilometres, there are no clouds below 5000 feet or minimum sector altitude (whichever is higher), and there is no current or forecast significant weather such as precipitation.]
The pilot of a passenger aircraft on its way into Mildura but still tens of miles out reather sarcastically questioned the forecaster and commented that he couldn’t see the airport at all due of the heavy rain right across the Mildura area.
A long pause as the forecaster headed for the door and took a look outside.
And then the forecaster;
Er! Amended forecast for Mildura; Heavy precipitation in the Mildura area. Visibility limited to x miles. Winds such and such.
.
All of which just goes to show that when it comes to models and modellers not much has changed for the last 60 years except that the models on climate in particular and even weather in some cases have got far more complicated and even less accurate and the modellers even less accepting that they might be wrong.
But most importantly, the weakest link in the whole chain, , the modellers still haven’t learnt to look outside of the closed off doors of their minds and the closed off to alternatives of today’s academic environment to actually try and see and accept what is happening in the real world outside.
Instead they just blindly rely on and promote their models as the true replication of climate and weather but which models when analysed are little more than highly complicated versions and reflections of their own usually rigidly held biases and beliefs .
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12 Jun: NoTricksZone: P. Gosselin: Coal Use To Explode By 43% Worldwide! …German Energy Expert: “Foundation Of The Paris Accord Has Collapsed”
Yesterday German energy expert and scientist Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt commented at his monthly column at Die kalte Sonne site here on solar activity, CO2 and coal power in Germany.
Sun factor grossly underestimated
Lately the sun’s activity has been very quiet as the star at the center of our solar system transitions over to a new solar cycle. April sunspot activity was very low in May. Vahrenholt then cites a recent study by Lewis and Curry showing that climate sensitivity to CO2 is in fact “up to 45% less than what the IPCC and the mainstream of climate science would like to have us believe.” Vahrenholt comments…ETC
According to Vahrenholt, the phase-out of coal will mean the decarbonization of Germany, which in turn will mean its deindustrialization. This, according to Vahrenholt, all coming to the great delight of the Chinese
A dismayed Vahrenholt sums up:
“Trump was clever enough, to exit the Paris absurdity early enough.”
http://notrickszone.com/2018/06/12/coal-use-to-explode-by-43-worldwide-german-energy-expert-foundation-of-the-paris-accord-has-collapsed/
13 Jun: NoTricksZone: P. Gosselin: Swedish Researchers Confirm 20th Century Warming “Does Not Stand Out” Over Past 2500 Years!
http://notrickszone.com/2018/06/13/swedish-researchers-confirm-20th-century-warming-does-not-stand-out-over-past-2500-years/
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After World War 2 the Allies contemplated turning Germany into a purely rural country with no industry. And it is happening – voluntarily – 75 years later.
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This is a fascinating thread, thank you Jo. I’ve yet to follow up a lot of the links, so even more interesting stuff to come!
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Just in case anybody here such as any recent newcomers to Jo’s site haven’t got the message on the role of the IPCC which is constantly quoted as the authority on global warming / climate change, here is the actual role of the IPCC directly from its charter.
.
[ Bolding is mine ]
.
PRINCIPLES GOVERNING IPCC WORK
Approved at the Fourteenth Session (Vienna, 1-3 October 1998) on 1 October 1998, amended at the Twenty-First Session (Vienna, 3 and 6-7 November 2003), the Twenty-Fifth Session (Mauritius, 26-28 April 2006), the Thirty-Fifth Session (Geneva, 6-9 June 2012) and the Thirty-Seventh Session (Batumi, 14-18 October 2013) _________________________________________________________________________________
INTRODUCTION
.
1. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (hereinafter referred to as the IPCC or, synonymously, the Panel) shall concentrate its activities on the tasks allotted to it by the relevant WMO Executive Council and UNEP Governing Council resolutions and decisions as well as on actions in support of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process.
.
ROLE
2. The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.
. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they may need to deal objectively with scientific, technical and socio-economic factors relevant to the application of particular policies.
3. Review is an essential part of the IPCC process. Since the IPCC is an intergovernmental body, review of IPCC documents should involve both peer review by experts and review by governments.
———————
———————
My comments;
The role of the IPCC does NOT include or require a full comphrehensive scientific analysis and assessment of the global climate and any changes taking place in that climate that may be due to natural causes and events.
It is limited as above to; the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.
The funding of climate research globally is entirely designed to fit these “Human-induced climate change” criteria as laid down in the IPCC’s charter.
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I’d like to hear Svensmark’s view on this one. How many more fatal flaws does it need in IPCC logic before our “leaders” wake up and guide us out of the “FOG”.
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Its irrelevant…if as it seems, our “leaders” have decided to create the fog in the first place…
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.
John Watt @ #22
As well as the ever more accepted Svensmark’s theory of the cosmic ray effects on the planets cloudiness , there only needs to be an approximate 3% change in global cloud cover for the global climate to switch from a warming cycle to a cooling cycle or vice versa , Svensmark also has another theory on the impact that nearbye Super Nova and their immense energy outouts might have had on our planet over the ages.
The late Nigel Calder, a former editor of “New Scientist” in the 1960’s and early 1970′ when NS was amongst the most respected science publlications in the english speaking world, was a very strong supporter of Svensmark and his theories.
The outline of Svensmark’s cosmic Super Nova theory along with a lot of graphs that appear to show a close link between possible Super Novae events that coincidentally seem to be in close proximity to the Earth, close proximity being relative on the scale of the Cosmos, and mass extinction events along with major shifts in the Earth’s climate can be read on the late Nigel Calders blog site.
It makes for some quite interesting reading.
Svensmark’s super nova theories have of course been dismissed out of hand by the establishment in paleo science but just recently there has been a couple of mentions, I lost track of the publications, that there might just possibly be some significant examples that might show that Svensmark is also on to a brand new line of thinking with regard to many, so far , far from understood let alone explained events in earth and it’s life form’s past three billion years of history.
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From the late Nigel Calder’s Blog; Calder’s Updates
A stellar revision of the story of life
Svensmark’s Cosmic Jackpot
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Svensmarks paper; [ pdf ] Evidence of nearby super novae affecting life on Earth
&
The short laymans version;
.
https://physicsworld.com/a/nearby-supernovae-could-have-affected-life-on-earth/
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ROM:
Good choices. There are also some interesting bits ‘n bobs from Nir Shaviv at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem:
http://sciencebits.com/ice-ages
http://sciencebits.com/sunspots_2.0
http://www.sciencebits.com/sights-field-trip-milky-way
His last paper (in this list) is interesting: basically measuring the nutation of the Solar System in its Galactic Orbit.
Svensmark’s Super Novae paper is fascinating. I pounced on it within days of it being published back in 2010.
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I have Nir Shavivs blog listed on my book marks although it is a while since I opened it.
I also got onto Svensmarks theory on the cosmic ray effects on the climate back in the late 2000’s when we had some roaring arguments with the leftist trolling alarmists on the now closed Weatherzone climate forum.
After Fairfax bought out Matt ?? the Weatherzone developer and owner, Fairfax of course took a very dim view of anybody who dared to doubt the consensus let alone provide facts and figures that catergorically showed how so much data and claims of global warming were just faked up claims.
So they threw our small group of skeptics including a couple of very bright and very smart individuals off their Weatherzone climate forum and then closed it down.
Thats how Jo got stuck with me on her forum and blog.
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… an impressive history :-).
That about describes Nir’s up keep of it too. He does keep posting these really interesting bits and pieces.
It was getting my hands on one of the first copies of Calder and Svensmark’s book “The Chilling Stars” in [late] 2007 followed by Calder’s blog which first alerted me all was not well in climate land. I was still exploring this Monster of CAGW because I remembered the “Next Ice Age” furor from the late 1970s and it was suddenly warming. I remember well the famous/notorious Time Magazine article from 1974.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time since following up Calder’s galactic Cosmic Ray research, finding it interesting, The info on the Internet about it just keeps growing as more and more astronomers make it available.
I can’t remember when I first started reading here. It would be somewhen about then. I’d found WUWT and was avidly following it.
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“I can’t remember when I first started reading here. It would be somewhen about then. ”
Sophocles, your first comment was Dec 31, 2011 and you’ve posted 2,578 items since then. Thank you. (At least, that’s with this current email you use, perhaps there were others?)
Any other serious regular can ask for their stats, (but I might be slow). Happy to search the vaults! You might be next ROM….
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.
🙂
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ROM – Truly one of the first, Your first comment was Nov 29, 2009 and you have made 3,140 excellent and interesting comments since.
Thank you!
Did you arrive thanks to ClimateGate or was that just a coincidence?
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Thank you, Jo. [Tips hat …] I’ve been trying to post this thank you in reply for a while now … finally!
I don’t question the count because I’ve never been tempted to use another email address. I’ve never been tempted to post from my work email address for the same reason I use a pseudonym: employment protection. 2011 was at the peak of the warmist anti-skeptic blitz.
Given the liberal editorial policies here, I’ve not needed to try. Anyway, why would I? It’s not as though discussing topics here has any desperate life-or-death need like some—Stoat springs to mind, but his blog seems to have been ignored off the Internet, despite his soliciting.
First post on New Year’s Eve, just before 2012 … makes me feel like a newb. Must have been waiting for 2012 and gotten bored. In that state, I’ve been known to do silly things but then that describes quite a few of my posts 🙂
Sometimes, I just can’t resist …
Wotch it ROM, she’s got her eye you, she has …
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How about Mary F Johnston, my great grandmother, when did she start?
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Blimey Jo, I knew I had been around for a while but didn’t realise it was from that far back.
The arrival here was made with considerable trepidation as to how I would be recieved / perceived and was due to being thrown off the Weatherzone climate forum along with half a dozen other skeptics for what was in reality a very careful and low key continuing disagreement on the warming of the climate and any potential cause for that unproven warming compared to some of the stuff I have seen on other more robust climate forums.
So I had to find a new home and this is it possibly to the dismay of some of the denizens here.
I spent a lot of time getting my head around Steve McIntyre’s “Climate Audit” analysis of the Hokey stick which for a raw uneducated layperson [ I left school at 15 and half years old ] provided some heavy going.
I was beginning to get a bit involved in Judith Curry’s site “Climate etc” a few years back but then Judith changed the requirements to be able to enter the commentary using Facebook and Twitter, both of which I refuse / d to have anything to do with although I am registered with Facebook just to catch up with the local and regional farmers markets where I sell my sheet steel treadle type chicken feeders and sparrow / rat traps I have designed and make in my shed.
Nearly 300 chicken feeders built and sold in the last less than four years and some 300 sparrow traps built and sold in the last 2.5 years.
One sparrow trap in one single fixed location under our patio where I feed the wild crimson and eastern rosellas and about 20 plus thieving top knot / crested pigeions most mornings has now yielded just over 1500 sparrows caught in almost exactly two and half years. They are given a deep immersion hydro therapy treatment and relocated.
Even the greenies laugh at that !
I have thinned them out a bit but with a 13000 [ human] population in Horsham , the sprogs have whole armada’s waiting in the wings ready to fly in replacements by each morning.
Due to a couple of deputations of local gardeners asking for a blackbird trap I am now part way through developing and debugging a blackbird trap before beginning to build same if the market numbers sold says its profitable.
Then there is my OBE coming up in another fortnight which the family tells me they will be around to see it happen
[ OBE = Over Bloody Eighty ]
Cheers to anybody who can get through this above.
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Now, don’t you go and get a swollen head from all this attention, ROM but I can
say I have completely read every post of yours which I have seen.
Always interesting 🙂
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I love your posts ROM. I’m sorry to hear about the blackbird traps though. Blackbirds are nothing like as damaging as the wretched sulphur-crested cockatoos; I can well cope with a bit of mulch being kicked about because they eat so many pests. I guess their not being native offends some people but I love them, especially their song.
I wouldn’t mind being able to acquire one of your chook feeders but live too far from you to come and buy one!
Best wishes for the big 80! 🙂
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KK — regarding MaryFJohnston (searching via the email she used) has made 1,349 thoughtful and interesting comments starting way back in mid 2011. 2011/07/07
Though comments by other emails won’t be included in that tally. 🙂
Send me an email if you want me to check any other friends.
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I can’t remember when I started reading here but it was well before we left Gloucestershire in 2011. I rather think I came to it through WUWT but have no idea where I first heard about that. It’s been a long and interesting journey. I was always sceptical about the CAGW nonsense anyway and it was great to discover like minds and learn more.
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Annie, my great, great grandfather was born in Gloucestershire, and moved from there to work as a miner in Abersychan in Wales.
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I have some Welsh/ Black Country mining ancestry but have a very mixed background.
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Annie, wow, 3,288 comments since 2013. starting here.
Where would we be without you?!
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An oft repeated news item on ABC today (http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-06-14/antarctica-sea-level-rise/9859828) about the catastrophic melting of the Antartic ice shelf and the subsequent ocean rise is treated as gospel truth. Is there no way or no one who is able to refute this stuff or at least give an alternate view. The ABC is NOT biased —-Baaah!!
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Indeed. If the ABC was any more biased it would have to start chopping the heads off climate change sceptics on live TV.
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Dont give them ideas……
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Scientists behaving badly in China will find themselves in hot water.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05417-1
In the hypothetical future Royal Commission the ABC will get a tongue lashing for being catastrophist, like the Guardian and Fairfax. The Australian Brainwashing Collective.
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I prefer the “Australian Bolshevik Collective”, which I think may be equally valid…
00
See wattsupwiththat.com: search there.
There have been at least a couple of posts by people in the know recently.
Antarctica melting is pure bunkum. “Cargo-cult Science.” as Feynman used to label it. (A visible representation of Magic.)
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Just posted on this though this paper could be picked apart another 20 ways I’m sure.
http://joannenova.com.au/2018/06/antarctic-ice-loss-tripled-from-near-zero-to-an-extremely-tiny-number-nobody-mention-volcanoes/
Do check my numbers (I’m tired) but it is in the same ballpark as the round of this we just went through in April.
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.
The “in a nutshell wrap”
Which one of these would you trust to try and give a true and accurate account on any subject you might wish to raise?
.
One of the world’s leading climate scientists-
.
We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.
Or
The unpaid skeptic and increasingly widely recognised climate blogger;-
.
Do check my numbers (I’m tired) but it is in the same ballpark as the round of this we just went through in April.
——–
The scientist; Phil Jones , former head [ ret ] of the Climate Research Unit ,[ CRU ] University of East Anglia, Jones collected of over 20 million dollars of british tax payer’s funding for the CRU up to about 2015 ].
The quote is Jones reply to Warwick Hughes here in Australia following Hughes request to have a look at the alarmist CRU’s climate data .
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The unpaid Skeptic and increasingly widely recognised Climate blogger; Joanne Nova; Skeptic climate blogger extraordinaire publicly requesting that some of her smartest blog denizens just check her work through to see that it is correct .
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as the thread begins with “solar wind”, I figure it’s not o/t to post the following, perhaps the most positive endorsements of wind and solar yet, beginning with WSJ!
11 Jun: WSJ: Global Investment in Wind and Solar Energy Is Outshining Fossil Fuels
In 2016, about $297 billion was spent on renewables—compared with $143 billion on new nuclear, coal, gas and fuel-oil power plants
By Russell Gold
(Russell Gold is the senior energy reporter for the Wall Street Journal and is based in Texas. He is responsible for covering all facets of global energy with a particular focus on the U.S. energy boom, power generation and the global energy transition. His writings appear regularly in the print and on-line editions of The Wall Street Journal)
In 2016, the latest year for which data is available, about $297 billion was spent on renewables—more than twice the $143 billion spent on new nuclear, coal, gas and fuel oil power plants, according to the IEA. The Paris-based organization projects renewables will make up 56% of net generating capacity added through 2025…
Renewable costs have fallen so far in the past few years that “wind and solar now represent the lowest-cost option for generating electricity,” said Francis O’Sullivan, research director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Energy Initiative.
This is beginning to disrupt the business of making electricity and manufacturing generating equipment. Both General Electric Co. and Siemens AG are grappling with diminished demand for large gas-burning turbines and have announced layoffs. Meanwhile, mostly Asian-based manufacturers of solar panels are flourishing…
Renewable-energy plants also face fewer challenges than traditional power plants. Nuclear-power plants have been troubled by mostly technical delays, while plants burning fossil fuels face regulatory uncertainties due to concerns about climate change. And ***pension funds, seeking long-term stable returns, have invested heavily in wind farms and solar parks, allowing developers to get cheaper financing.
“It is just easier to get renewables built,” said Tony Clark, a former member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. “There is that much less opposition to it.”…
Last year, the percentage of electricity from renewable sources reached 12.1%, more than double that of a decade earlier, according to a joint report by the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and the United Nations Environmental Program. These figures don’t include electricity from large hydroelectric dams…
The rise of renewable power generation is raising concerns and sparking a political backlash in the U.S. The Trump administration is weighing actions to subsidize the operation of coal and nuclear plants, arguing that these units are needed for the reliable operation of the power grid…
In the U.S., more than two decades of government tax credits, some of which will soon go away, have propelled renewables. About 17% of the country’s electricity last year came from renewable sources, including wind, solar and hydroelectric dams, according to federal data. The government said that just under half of large-scale power generation added was renewable last year.
Last week, Xcel Energy Inc. announced a $2.5 billion plan to add 1,800 megawatts of new wind and solar generation, plus a substantial amount of batteries to store the power. The plan, which needs to be approved by state regulators, would retire 660 megawatts of coal-burning generation and result in savings for consumers, the Minneapolis-based utility said.
“I think, across the nation, you could get to 40% renewable energy,” said Xcel Chief Executive Ben Fowke. “Ten years ago, I would have told you 20% was the max.”…
In 2017, the global average cost of electricity from onshore wind was $60 per megawatt hour and $100 for solar, toward the lower end of the $50 to $170 range for new fossil-fuel facilities in developed nations, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
The combination of falling costs and large pools of available capital is also spurring renewables growth in developing countries…
Earlier this year, an auction in Saudi Arabia awarded a contract to build a 300-megawatt solar facility for $17.90 a megawatt hour. Very low labor costs in the Middle East and India are resulting in record-breaking low bids for solar…
In Canada, an auction in Alberta in December awarded four wind contracts for an average of $37 a megawatt hour, subsidy-free. The Albertan government planned to award contracts for only 400 megawatts, but bumped it up to 600 megawatts when it saw the prices offered, which were slightly below the average price for electricity on the province’s grid in 2018.
In India, the push into solar has been driven partly by a desire for cleaner energy sources, but also because there is more financing available for solar than for coal, said Rahul Tongia, a fellow at Fellow at Brookings India in New Delhi…
***Renewable output varies, based on when the sun is shining and wind is blowing, and cannot always be dispatched when needed like a coal or gas plant. That can pose a challenge to grid operators.
But industry observers say that is now a concern only in certain markets, such as California, where renewable penetration is at its highest.
“We could see aggressive build rates for several years to come before we see issues in many markets,” said Tom Heggarty, an analyst with energy consultant Wood Mackenzie. “Ten, 20 years down the line, it might be a different story.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/global-investment-in-wind-and-solar-energy-is-outshining-fossil-fuels-1528718400
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check the TEN “STATS”. keep in mind it’s about electricity; hydro is often included; some claims depend on political action, such as EU approving higher percentage of “renewables” etc:
13 Jun: Motley Fool: The world is turning to renewable energy
by Maxx Chatsko
(Maxx has been a contributor to Fool.com since 2013. He graduated from SUNY-ESF (2012) with a Bachelor of Science in Bioprocess Engineering and from Carnegie Mellon University (2016) with a Master of Science in Materials Science & Engineering)
If humanity wants to limit the rate of climate change and reduce its impact on the natural environment, then it needs to transition to clean and renewable sources of electricity within the next several decades. Good news: we’re well on the way…
To prove that a renewable future is possible sooner than many think, simply consider how we got here — and where we’re headed in the next decade — with these 10 incredible renewable energy stats.
CLICK NEXT
1. Global renewable energy capacity has doubled since 2008
In 2008 renewable energy produced 18.5% of the world’s total electricity, mostly from hydroelectric power. An onslaught of wind and solar capacity installations in recent years has pushed that number to about 25% today — and it could reach 30% by 2022.
In fact, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the world has doubled the amount of installed renewable power capacity in the last decade, from 1,058 gigawatts of mostly hydropower in 2008 to 2,179 gigawatts in 2017. The world added 399 gigawatts of wind and 375 gigawatts of solar in that time.
Why didn’t electricity generation from renewables double along with installed power capacity? That has to do with the fact that wind turbines and solar panels operate at a fraction of their full rated capacities (a measure of power), which means they’re not always sending electricity (a measure of energy) to the grid…READ ALL 10 PAGES
https://www.fool.com/slideshow/10-incredible-renewable-energy-stats-around-globe/
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AFR carries Bloomberg’s rosy interpretation of “renewable” groups SEIA & GTM Research(GreentechMedia) report:
13 Jun: AFR: Solar surpasses gas and wind as biggest source of new US power
by Christopher Martin, Bloomberg
Despite tariffs that US President Donald Trump imposed on imported panels, the US installed more solar energy than any other source of electricity in the first quarter.
Developers installed 2.5 gigawatts of solar in the first quarter, up 13 per cent from a year earlier, according to a report Tuesday from the Solar Energy Industries Association and GTM Research.
That accounted for 55 per cent of all new generation, with solar panels beating new wind and natural gas turbines for a second straight quarter…
The growth came even as tariffs on imported panels threatened to increase costs for developers.
Giant fields of solar panels led the growth as community solar projects owned by homeowners and businesses took off…
Total installations this year are expected to be 10.8 gigawatts, or about the same as last year, according to GTM.
By 2023, annual installations should reach more than 14 gigawatts.
“Solar has become a common-sense option for much of the US, and is too strong to be set back for long, even in light of the tariffs,” SEIA chief executive officer Abigail Ross Hopper said in a statement.
https://www.afr.com/news/world/north-america/solar-surpasses-gas-and-wind-as-biggest-source-of-new-us-power-20180612-h11az7
Greentech itself is more sober:
12 Jun: GreenTechMedia: Residential Solar Capacity Additions to Remain Flat in 2018, and That’s Good News
Though amended from GTM Research’s previous growth forecast, the flat year is “actually pretty good” for a sector struggling with change.
by Emma Foehringer Merchant
After a year of 15 percent contraction from 2016, the residential sector will remain flat through 2018, according to the latest U.S. Solar Market Insight report from GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association…
“Coming off a year in which we saw such a downturn and consistent quarterly contraction, the news that the residential solar space was flat in Q1 is actually pretty good news,” said GTM Research senior solar analyst Austin Perea. “What that potentially shows is some of the bleeding may have stopped in the residential segment. It’s either stopped or slowing.”…
While the Q1 report is generally positive, challenges persist in residential markets that have historically set the pace for the entire industry, such as California and Massachusetts.
California was responsible for 40 percent of the residential market in 2017. It was also hit with 50 percent of the total 475-megawatt loss last year. Its residential market dropped 19 percent over 2016.
The Massachusetts residential market dropped an eye-popping 49 percent — the lowest in four years.
Those markets are bouncing back, but slowly.
“A lot of the major state markets, like in the Northeast and California, are still pretty weak,” Perea said. “But we’re not seeing the same levels of quarterly contraction that we saw in 2017.”…
According to GTM Research, Arizona and Utah were the only states among the country’s top 10 markets that didn’t see a decline in residential installations from 2016 to 2017…
At the same time the new rooftop solar mandate, which requires all new homes in California to install solar panels, have set the state’s market to grow exponentially in coming years (check out our comprehensive guide on that mandate here)(LINK)…
But in all markets, customer acquisition remains a persistent problem. Perea said companies are “bottoming out” as early-adopter markets become saturated. Loss of state incentives and pullback from companies such as Vivint and Sunrun are also causing difficulties for residential growth.
***Perea cautioned that the Q1 results are preliminary, and outlooks can change as the year advances. But based on expectations from GTM Research and SEIA, the U.S. solar market, across all market segments, will continue to see growth in the coming years after remaining flat in 2018…
More results from the report, including the executive summary, can be found here (LINK).
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/residential-solar-capacity-additions-flat-2018-smi
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Had all the money spent on renewables, instead been invested more wisely there would now have been long term facilities guaranteeing cheap reliable electricity from HELE and Nuclear sources requiring minimal upkeep over the next 30 plus years.
Instead they are guaranteed to be attending major servicing problems every two years or so with windturbines and solar fields. The decommissioning of these plants and replacement will be a task that may be avoided and left for the future. No doubt this is what is meant by intergenerational considerations.
Stupidity always has a price and Europe is going to pay it. Apparently the Germans have just acknowledged that fact.
On a population basis, Australia probably has similar problems with turbines and rooftop. The law suits relating to VLF pulsing from turbines will be another huge cost.
The chickens always come home to roost.
KK
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Absolutely KK.
“Stupidity always has a price ”
And we are all going to pay it, whether we agreed with it or not. The Chickens are now coming home to roost. The sooner we can reverse the crazy notions the less the damage will be.
Sadly we are not winning yet.
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In a way, I’m hoping the grid will collapse…its about the only way the lies the Green Monster ( which includes all involved politicians ) will be exposed for what it is.
I suspect too that the general populace wont take to it too kindly…..
The irony would be that the hospitals would go down, but useless stuff would stay up….
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Nice piece of sophistry, Pat 🙂
Pat yourself on the back!
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The sun’s flatulence is wot done it? Tis worserer than they thunked!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-06-14/antarctica-sea-level-rise/9859828
From your ABC today, “Antarctic policy expert Professor Rob DeConto warned that Antarctica may contribute more to sea-level rise than previously thought.” From the article’s cartoon, it’s about 7 mm over 20 years – quick, run while you can! “But the good news is that a reduction in emissions in line with the aspirations of the Paris Climate Agreement dramatically reduces the risk of flooding our coastlines in future decades and centuries.” Phew, thank Gaia for those non-binding Parisian champagne aspirations…
Cue spooky music: as of Monday 11 June, DMI’s Arctic sea ice graph showed record-breaking volume –
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/images/FullSize_CICE_combine_thick_SM_EN_20180611.png
yet by Tuesday 12 June, it had vanished completely –
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/images/FullSize_CICE_combine_thick_SM_EN_20180612.png
Seems that man’s carbon pollution [sic] can now not only cause solar gas and monster dust storms on Mars, it can ‘disappear’ Danish data too. Cap’n, we’re doooooomed!
P.S. Enjoy this weekend’s snow blizzard down south: boarders & skiers rejoice 😉
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Antarctic sea ice is a little under average.
https://sunshinehours.net/#jp-carousel-13553
Its obscene that they include West Antarctica, as we all know its volcanism causing the melt.
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NZ is also going to cop this cold air outbreak, the high pressure belt has completely collapsed and there is a swarm of lows coming your way.
http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDY65100.pdf
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Winter as usual. I do expect a week of fine weather (what everyone else would call a “drought”) towards the end of July—well, more than four days. Up to then, NZ winter weather is “wash, rinse and repeat.” and “ cold with the occasional warm (ish) day.” What else is new?
(Warm (ish) means about 10°C)
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Looks like the ABC has taken over CSIRO. They have released what they believe is a very important question.
Antarctica in 2070: what future will we choose?
The fools don’t understand that it’s not up to us – it’s up to nature, which is much more resilient to impacts on climate than they understand. It would take a lot more than the human species to alter the climate in any significant way. As a result they miss the real significant agent, like what has been discussed on this thread, ie, the sun.
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They got the idea from Nature and there are two scenarios, both of which are wrong.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0173-4
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You sit in your glider at say at 12000 feet in the lat e afternoon on a clear cool late spring day when you can see hills and even silos and small towns if the sun is right, a hundred kilometres or more away in a great circle around you.
You can see the smallest details and people and animals on the ground far below you for a few kiolmetres around your position.
You have a sheet of clear perspex about 3mms thick covering most of the upper front part of the glider and therefore the front half of your body almost down to your feet, a thin perspex cockpit cover from which you have an immensity of view, an immensity of view rarely seen by others .
A fibre glass or carbon fibre sheet maybe about 2 mms thick makes up the lower part of the fuselage cockpit and the reclining seat position and that covers the back part of your body.
So you sit there almost in silence except for the air stream quietly whistling past and only millimeters of mankind’s material creations between you and Nature in all its rawness.
You contemplate and try and wrap your mind around the true immensity of the vast regions you can see around you and below you and into the far, far distance that you can see from your fragile looking aircraft .
You look at the blackness of the mass of Australian native trees when they are seen over long distances , a blackness that goes on and on forever into the furtherest distance where the sky meets the land in a diffused colour change..
And you know that everything you can see is only a tiny microcosm, a tiny part of the immensity of Nature and natural creation that makes up our planet.
And think to yourself, just how the blind ignorant stupidity of the greens and the climate alarmists and fanatical hypocritical climate activists and their running dogs in the media and their ignorant followers and the self promoting politicals and rigid in every way, academics who all imagine and even believe that they have the power to change the true immensity of Nature as it is seen even from a tiny glider in a small area of the planet.
And your ever growing contempt for the sheer intellectual narrowness and gross ignorance allied with a hubris and arrogance of those climate alarmist believers and hypocrites, a hubris and arrogance and ignorance that is rarely surpassed.
Your contempt grows evermore when you think how that group of know nothings believe and imagine THEY have the power and influence over Nature, a power and influence that is capable of and will change the natural world and Nature into an imagined climate nirvana of their own making and a climate nirvana shaped and fitted to their own mentally and intellectually warped and mindless ideology .
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I got a “Fat finger” syndrome near the finish of that post above unfortunately and accidently hit the” post comment” button.
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Ok.
A few typos’s there, but less than my usual response.
As for looking down on the world from 12,000 ft in a glider, I have only had the experience once. At Horsham!
Lots of other people have had the experience of seeing the world from a jet airliner at 35000 ft. I am often surprised by how few people take the opportunity to look out of an airplane window. Mostly their window curtains are closed.
Last year I flew across the North Pole in June. It was day light because it was almost at the summer solstice, which means 24 hours of daylight at the pole! I think I was the only person on the airplane who thought that might be some thing worth seeing. I had to go the rear of the aircraft and look from the galley window. The stewardesses were nonplussed as I knelt at the window and aimed my camera down at all that ice.
My point is that lots of people have the opportunity to see the world from the unique perspective of high altitude but very few take the opportunity.
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I have had the same sort of experience Peter C. I too have crouched or knelt down to look out from the galley, to the amusement and bemusement of the cabin crew! One time it was an astonishing view of the Maldives from at least 36,000 ft, another time it was amazing views of Greenland and Baffin Bay (in late Sept with still mind-boggling quantities of snow and ice, seemingly going on forever), another time it was the Iranian and Turkish mountains with immense amounts of snow on them, then the beautiful rugged mountains of Oman too. Years ago, before such things were banned, I was on the flight deck of a Qantas 747 watching the dawn and the peaks of tall mountains peering through the mist and cloud…amazing. I’ve yet to manage the North Pole; I’m jealous!
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Can’t resist and have hundreds of shots through plane windows. Love the view.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/jo.nova/photo/myshots/desert/IMG_6268-kimberley-plateau-mountain-pass-web.gif
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Peter, I have the same experience when sailing a 35′ yacht 60,000 miles around the world. When you cross 3,000 nautical miles of ocean taking three weeks to do it and see only water and sky mankind seems so insignificant and powerless. Since coming ashore permanently I have been trapped in a small overpopulated microcosm of the world where no one else sees beyond their back yard, and their minds are trapped as well.
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I had a good experience in the middle of the desert in upper Australia for a couple of weeks sleeping outdoors most of the time although occasionally spending a night or so here and there in a run down old hotel. It was actually a good feeling to get away from the crowd but it was also nice getting back to civilisation. The contrast is amazing and does wonders to the mind.
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Actually, it’s just the right length ROM—a most effective one.
I enjoyed that post.
Thank you.
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Science!
Cat discovers refraction:
https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/8qpp2k/shes_discovered_refraction/
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following on from the previous comments on the so-called Antarctica studies –
13 Jun: Imperial College: How to save Antarctica (and the rest of Earth too)
by Hayley Dunning
To see what the future might hold, an international team of researchers, ***including scientists at Imperial College London, has predicted what would happen under two future scenarios…
Co-author Professor Martin Siegert, from the Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial, said: “Some of the changes Antarctica will face are already irreversible, such as the loss of some ice shelves, but there is a lot we can prevent or reverse…
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/186668/how-save-antarctica-rest-earth/
ABC was promo-ing the following AM segment with mention of some exaggerated sea level rise, but without mention it was a future prediction:
AUDIO: 3mins: 14 Jun: ABC AM: Climate scientist paints bleak future of Antarctica in 2070, ravaged by the effects of climate change
By Rhiannon Shine
Guest: Dr Steve Rintoul, climate scientist CSIRO
(NO LINK TO ANY REPORT)
Related Articles:
The rate of Antarctic melting has nearly tripled in the past five years
Massive iceberg poised to crack off Antarctica, scientists say
Australia urged to spend more on ‘criminally underfunded’ Antarctic program
http://www.abc.net.au/radio/adelaide/programs/am/climate-scientist-paints-bleak-future-of-antarctica-in-2070/9868124
14 Jun: TheConversation: Antarctica has lost 3 trillion tonnes of ice in 25 years. Time is running out for the frozen continent
by Steve Rintoul, Research Team Leader, Marine & Atmospheric Research, CSIRO
and Steven Chown, Professor of Biological Sciences, Monash University
(Discosure:
Steve Rintoul receives funding from the Australian government through CSIRO, the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC), and the National Environmental Science Program. He is affiliated with CSIRO, the ACE CRC, and the Centre for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research in Hobart.
Steven Chown receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Antarctic Science Program and the Wellcome Trust. He is affiliated with Monash University and is President of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research)
http://theconversation.com/antarctica-has-lost-3-trillion-tonnes-of-ice-in-25-years-time-is-running-out-for-the-frozen-continent-98176
Antarctica overload!
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14 Jun: ClimateChangeNews: EU sets 32% renewable energy target by 2030 in late-night deal
After lengthy negotiations, lawmakers and member states agreed on a renewable energy law, including support for electric vehicles and rooftop solar panels
By Dave Keating and Frédéric Simon for Euractiv
Talks on renewable energy policy in Europe reached an unexpected breakthrough early Thursday morning after negotiators from the European Parliament and EU member states were able to reach a compromise on a 32% objective and a complete phase-out of palm oil use in transport by 2030.
Talks carried on until early into the morning hours, despite the fact that negotiators were left with no interpreters after midnight.
The deal on the Renewable Energy Directive finally came at around 03:30, according to Sean Kelly, one of the lawmakers sitting on the Parliament team, who tweeted a picture of ***ecstatic MEPs posing with Miguel Arias Cañete, the EU’s climate and energy commissioner who was acting as a mediator in the talks.
(CHECK “ECSTATIC MEPs” PIC)…
Details were still sketchy on Thursday morning, but the outline agreement is now clear.
The deal includes a legally-binding EU-wide target of 32% for renewable energy by 2030, with “an upward review clause by 2023 at the latest,” according to Claude Turmes, a Luxembourg MEP who represented the Greens political group in the Parliament’s team.
Germany had clearly stated at a ministerial meeting last Monday that “it wouldn’t support a target above 32%,” Turmes explained after the talks concluded this morning, saying this left no room for negotiators to go higher.
That came as a relative disappointment for environmental activists at Greenpeace who said the 32% target “is far too low” and “falls dangerously short of the level necessary to prevent catastrophic climate change”.
One key aspect of the agreement is a target for renewable energy in transport, which was eventually set at 14% by 2030 – a move seen as a way to encourage the take up of electric vehicles.
As part of the transport objective, the European Parliament also managed to clinch an agreement to phase out palm oil by 2030, starting with a freeze on existing quantities of imported palm, Turmes told EURACTIV.
That is likely to anger Malaysia and Indonesia, the world’s two biggest producers of palm oil, which have threatened of trade retaliation measures in case a ban is agreed…
The biofuels part of the deal also includes a freeze on so-called first generation biofuels like ethanol, which are produced domestically, at the levels of production reached by each EU member state in 2020. A corresponding 3.5% target was set for so-called second generation biofuels coming from non-food crops, like wood residues.
Another hotly debated point in the talks related to renewable energy “self-consumption”, a term which mainly covers solar panels mounted on rooftops of homes and small factories. Installations of 25 kilowatts will be exempted from certain grid obligations, a move likely to please advocates of small-scale renewables, and the solar PV industry.
The agreement between the European Parliament and EU governments establishes the right of European citizens, local authorities, small businesses and cooperatives to produce, consume, store and sell their own renewable energy, without being subject to punitive taxes or excessive red tape, said Greenpeace…
The new EU directive “now contains a strong definition of ‘renewable energy communities’ as well as a definition of ‘self-consumption’,” REScoop.eu explained, praising the European Parliament for sending “a clear signal” that citizens and communities are key to the success of the energy transition.
(CHECK SECOND, EVEN MORE “ECSTATIC MEPs” PIC)…
ETC ETC
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/06/14/eu-agrees-32-renewable-energy-target-2030-late-night-deal/
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Gotta wonder, as always, what the governments of this insignificant speck of dust called Earth will do when their great global tax grab of AGW totally falls apart in the face of the reality of cyclical global cooling. ie GSMs or Grand Solar Minimums.
No-one can predict the future..
BS. Know history and you know the future, for everything in the known universe is dictated by interacting waves and cycles.
Contemporary (tow the government line or lose your jobs and funding) FAKE science is disturbingly similar to human medicine both now and throughout history.
Backward voodoo-like bombastic inconsistent hypocritical chest-beating “how dare a layman question me!” BS at best.
eg Chemotherapy – take the patient to the brink of death and HOPE that you kill the disease but not all other organs essential for life.
Never even think of trying well known cures (with little/no side effects) known for millenia FIRST.
They should all hang their heads in shame at what they’re doing.
Ditto all so called scientists towing the AGW line/lie.
See the truth, live the truth, show some conscience, some integrity for dawgs sake.
Reality first, profits second.
Now… what happens when the 400 year GSM kicks into high gear, starting in weeks ?
Massive hikes in food prices, severe weather events, power outages for weeks.
Go ahead – ask the governments to tax you every cent you make and make it all go away…
Best of luck, suckers.
I’m set for 10 years without “the system”. How many would last a week eh…
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the CAGW mob on a frantic mission to save “renewables”, in the wake of China’s solar announcement? or what?
13 Jun: ClimateChangeNews: World Bank reconsidering support for its last coal plant
Kosovo C is the last exception to the bank’s policy against backing coal plants, but a new assessment looks set to favour renewable alternatives
By Karl Mathiesen
The World Bank is reassessing its support for the only coal power plant project left on its books.
The bank was considering guaranteeing loans to the Kosovo C lignite-fired power station, proposed to be built just outside the Kosovan capital Pristina. It was the last exception to a policy against backing coal projects.
But on Wednesday, a World Bank spokesperson told Climate Home News it was finalising work on a study of the country’s options for rebuilding its crumbling power sector.
The bank conducted a similar study in 2011 and concluded that a new coal power station was the preferred option to supply Kosovo’s electricity.
The spokesperson hinted the bank may be reassessing that finding.
“The pace of technology change in the energy sector is moving fast, especially in renewables, such as solar, wind, and storage, where prices continue to decline. Our analysis is taking into account these developments and we are keeping the government informed,” he said…
Climate Home News tried to contact Kosovo’s minister of economic development Valdrin Lluka but he did not respond.
Lluka met with the World Bank’s Europe and Central Asia vice president Cyril Muller and senior energy director Riccardo Puliti in Pristina on Tuesday…
Visar Azemi, co-ordinator of the Kosid, a network of Kosovan NGOs, said: “The price of renewables has been going down repeatedly every year, so we have a completely new reality now.”
Azemi said a combination of renewable energy, energy efficiency measures and interconnection from Albania would make better economic sense for the country.
He told Climate Home News that Kosovo’s dream of inclusion in the EU would have been damaged by the project…
***The project has long been championed by the US embassy in Kosovo. US-owned company ContourGlobal won a single-bidder tender to build the plant.
In December, ContourGlobal and the Kosovo government signed a deal, including a power purchase agreement, for the plant. Construction was due to begin in “late 2018 or early 2019”.
ContourGlobal said it would not comment before the World Bank’s decision was made final. The US embassy in Kosovo did not respond to a request for comment.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/06/13/world-bank-reconsidering-support-last-coal-plant/
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REALITY:
13 Jun: CarbonPulse: Global energy emissions hit record after three flat years, with Asia, Europe leading the way – BP
Global CO2 emissions from energy use climbed 1.6% in 2017 as output rose in both rich and emerging economies amid a pick-up in industrial activity, according to oil major BP.
BP: CO₂ emissions
Global CO2 emissions from energy in 2017 grew by 1.6%, rebounding from the stagnant volumes during 2014-2016, and faster than the 10-year average of 1.3%
Declines were led by the US (-0.5%). This is the ninth time in this century that the US has had the largest decline in emissions in the world. This also was the third consecutive year that emissions in the US declined, though the fall was the smallest over the last three years.
Carbon emissions from energy use from the US are the lowest since 1992, the year that the UNFCCC came into existence. The next largest decline was in Ukraine (-10.1%).
The largest increase in carbon emissions in 2017 came from China (1.6%), a reversal from the past three years when the largest increases in emissions came from India. China’s emissions in 2017 were 0.3% higher than the previous peak in 2014. China has had the world’s largest increments in carbon emission every year this century except in four years – 2000 and between 2014-16.
The next highest increment came from India where emissions rose by 4.4%, though lower than its 10-year average (6% p.a.).
Together, China and India accounted for nearly half of the increase in global carbon emissions.EU emissions were also up (1.5%) with just Spain accounting for 44% of the increase in EU emissions. Among other EU members, UK and Denmark reported the lowest carbon emissions in their history.
MULTIPLE DOWNLOADS
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy/co2-emissions.html
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Tonights 730 report segment on Peter Ridd was quite interesting.
“James Cook University staff avoid using emails after climate change sceptic sacked”
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/james-cook-university-staff-avoid-using-emails/9872040
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Wouldn’t you?
The University Administration have shown what they are by trawling Peter’s email. When you’re looking for fault, even humour can be used against their victim.
How many use a pseudonym on the Internet to protect themselves?
The more who avoid the University’s system, the better.
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REALITY:
13 Jun: EcoWatch: Global Carbon Emissions on the Rise Again Due to Coal Comeback
Global carbon dioxide emissions from energy use increased 1.6 percent in 2017 following three years of stagnation, according to a new report from British oil giant BP
The analysis, published Wednesday, further emphasizes worldwide failure to meet the goals struck by the Paris agreement to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
Spencer Dale, the BP’s chief economist, told the Guardian that the globe’s emissions rise was “slightly worrying” and a “pretty big backward step.”…
The report, called the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, also pointed out that the world’s fuel mix has “strikingly” not changed in the last 20 years.
The report revealed that the increase in greenhouse gas emissions was driven by a 2.2 percent increase in global energy demand last year, as well as increased coal consumption for the first time in four years, led by growing demand in India and China…
While renewable power generation grew by 17 percent, with wind and solar driving much of that growth, the success of clean energy was clouded by the world’s increased appetite for fossil fuels. Oil demand grew by 1.8 percent and natural gas consumption up 3 percent and production up 4 percent, BP found…
Bob Dudley, BP group chief executive: “As we have said in our Energy Outlook, our Technology Outlook and now our Statistical Review, the power system must decarbonize,” he said. “We continue to believe that gains in the power sector are the most efficient way to drive down carbon emissions in coming decades.”
https://www.ecowatch.com/global-carbon-emissions-2017-2577808055.html
00
nuclear advocate Shellenberger:
2 pages: 13 Jun: Forbes: Michael Shellenberger: Carbon Emissions Rose in 2017 Despite Record Solar & Wind — More Proof They Can’t Save The Climate
(Shellenberger: Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,” Green Book Award Winner, and President of Environmental Progress, a research and policy organization)
The data is further evidence that dilute and unreliable sources of energy like solar and wind cannot replace coal and other fossil fuels and will not lead to significant reductions in carbon emissions.
Coal grew one percent in 2017 — its first growth since 2013. For the last few years, energy analysts had speculated that we had reached “peak coal,” thanks to abundant cheap natural gas.
Natural gas consumption grew three percent globally and a whopping 15 percent in China in 2017.
The last few years have seen huge amounts of hype about India’s investment in solar, but according to BP, the global rise in coal consumption came mostly from India, and to a lesser extent, China…
And, “despite all the talk of peak oil demand, increasing car efficiency, growth of electrical vehicles,” BP notes, oil consumption grew 50 percent faster in 2017 than its decade-long average.
The growth of coal and natural gas was enough to wipe out any emissions reductions from wind and solar, which grew 17 percent and 35 percent, respectively.
Wind and solar account for just just six percent of total electricity globally, despite decades of subsidies…
According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), public and private actors spent $1.1 trillion on solar and over $900 billion on wind between 2007 and 2016. According to BNEF, global investment in these clean 10 energies hovered at about $300 billion per year between 2010 and 2016.
To put this roughly $2 trillion in investment in solar and wind during the past 10 years in perspective, it represents an amount of similar magnitude to the global investment in nuclear over the past 54 years, which totals about $1.8 trillion.
A big part of the problem has been the decline of nuclear. “The share of non-fossil in 2017 is actually a little lower than it was 20 years ago,” noted BP, “as the growth of renewables hasn’t offset the declining share of nuclear.”
My organization, Environmental Progress, was the first to alert the world about the impact that declining nuclear power as a share of global electricity was having on efforts to deal with climate change.
Over the last two years, renewable energy advocates have insisted that solar and wind can make up the difference. The new BP Energy data is further proof that they cannot
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/06/13/carbon-emissions-rose-in-2017-despite-record-solar-wind-proof-renewables-cant-save-the-climate/
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14 Jun: CarbonPulse: UPDATE – EU lawmakers strike 2030 renewables deal, fail to agree on energy efficiency
EU lawmakers struck a provisional deal on a 2030 renewables target of 32% early Thursday, but failed to reach agreement on an energy efficiency bill.
14 Jun: Reuters: EU agrees 32 percent renewables target for 2030
by Robert-Jan Bartunek
But at a meeting of energy minister on Monday, a group of EU leaders had pushed for a higher goal – one rejected by Germany’s Peter Altmaier as unachievable…
While crucial in the quest to reduce carbon emissions, some EU countries have been reluctant to back too high a target as their electricity production is still largely dependent technologies such as coal and gas.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-energy/eu-agrees-32-percent-renewables-target-for-2030-idUSKBN1JA0W5
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13 Jun: Daily Caller: Berkeley Declares A ‘Climate Emergency,’ Calls For Population Control
by Michael Bastasch
The California city that was home to 1960s radicals and known for excessively liberal politics declared a “climate emergency” on Tuesday evening, backing policies to “humanely stabilize” the human population.
The Berkeley City Council unanimously voted to mobilize other California governments “to initiate a just local, state, national, and global climate emergency mobilization to restore a safe climate.”
The council’s resolution, introduced by Council Member Cheryl Davila, warned that man-made global warming was “driving a global fresh water scarcity crisis and the sixth mass extinction of species, which could devastate much of life on earth for the next 10 million years.” The resolution calls for a World War II-level mobilization effort to fight global warming.
Davila’s resolution claims, “The community of Berkeley and surrounding counties, despite well-meaning efforts, have disproportionately contributed to dangerous greenhouse gas emissions and thus must substantially curtail use of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions on behalf of the larger planetary community to enable a rapid, just transition to a stable climate.”
“Reversing global warming and restoring a safe and stable climate requires an emergency mobilization to reach zero greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors at wartime speed, to rapidly and safely drawdown or remove all the excess carbon from the atmosphere, and to implement safe measures to protect all people and species from the consequences of abrupt warming in the near-term,” the resolution claims.
To accomplish this, “requires an effort to preserve and restore half Earth’s biodiversity in interconnected wildlife corridors and to humanely stabilize population,” the resolution claims…READ ALL
http://dailycaller.com/2018/06/13/berkeley-climate-emergency-population-control/
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behind paywall:
13 Jun: UK Times: Emily Gosden: BP flashes red light as growing coal use hits green power
The world’s reliance on burning fossil fuels for electricity has barely changed in two decades and global carbon emissions rose last year despite efforts to tackle climate change, BP has warned…
Spencer Dale, the oil major’s chief economist and a former member of the Bank of England’s rate-setting monetary policy committee, said that the analysis of the global power mix was “really worrying” and was a “wake-up call” for action on generating green electricity.
“How much progress have we made in 20 years? None,” he said…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bp-flashes-red-lightas-growing-coal-use-hits-green-power-6skthcjfv
Bloomberg writes “Still, the share of coal in power generation today remains around 38 percent, practically unchanged since 1997″…BUT, in real terms, 38 percent today represents a LOT MORE COAL than it did in 1997:
13 Jun: Bloomberg: Coal’s 20-Year Reign Masks a Brewing Revolution
by Liam Denning
Coal’s share of the world’s electricity mix was about 38 percent in 1997, and in 2017 it was about … 38 percent.
Fossil fuels overall have actually increased their share, from 63 percent to 65 percent. Not exactly what folks in Paris or (even further back) Kyoto had in mind…
It is sobering that two decades of efforts and actions to shift the global power sector to a more sustainable footing haven’t moved the overall mix more significantly…
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-13/coal-vs-wind-and-solar-a-brewing-revolution
13 Jun: Reuters: Coal comeback spurs new carbon emissions growth, says BP
by Ron Bousso
Demand for hydrocarbons rose across the board, led by a 3 percent increase in natural gas consumption, the fastest since 2010, followed by a 1.8 percent rise in oil demand which far exceeded the average of the previous 10 years, data in BP’s benchmark annual Statistical Review of World Energy showed.
The opening of new coal-fired power plants in India and China drove coal consumption higher by 1 percent, highlighting the difficulties developing economies face in meeting demand for electricity while fighting pollution…
Still, the share of coal in power generation today remains around 38 percent, practically unchanged since 1997, while the share of non-fossil fuels slightly dipped as nuclear power capacity shrunk, BP Chief Economist Spencer Dale said…
Rising exports of U.S. crude and new refineries in Asia and the Middle East have also led to a surge in global oil trading, which grew by more than 4 percent last year compared to a 10-year average of 1.7 percent, Dale said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bp-energy/coal-comeback-spurs-new-carbon-emissions-growth-says-bp-idUSKBN1J91TB
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14 Jun: Financial Times: Coal fades in developed world but is far from dead in Asia
Rising demand will maintain the most carbon-intensive fuel as part of energy mix
by Ed Crooks
In the energy business, perceptions of change often run ahead of reality. The 19th century is widely thought of as the Age of Coal. However, as environmental scientist Vaclav Smil points out, the dominant sources of total fuel use worldwide were wood, charcoal and straw.
On that basis, it was the 20th century that was the true Age of Coal. The lesson, Mr Smil told a conference of energy experts and policymakers in 2013, is that “these energy transitions to higher quality fuels . . . take a very, very long time”.
The survival of the global coal industry into the 21st century proves his point.
World coal use rose in 2017 for the first time in three years, and may well rise again in 2018. Prices for thermal coal used for power generation have risen strongly in recent months, driven by high temperatures in China and other Asian countries that have increased demand for air-conditioning and hence for electricity…
The outlook for China, which accounts for a little under half the world’s coal demand, is uncertain: the government is making efforts to curb emissions from coal, but power generators are still seeking to build new plants
Coal remains an appealing solution for countries that need to meet fast-rising demand for electricity, are seeking to minimise costs, and are not setting reductions in greenhouse gas emissions as the prime objective of energy policy.
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***Despite the growth of renewables as a low-cost source of electricity, emerging economies are still investing in coal to ensure 24-hour supply and to support industrial development…ETC
The Age of Coal may be entering its twilight years. But coal, as a contributor to global energy supplies, is some way from a museum piece just yet.
https://www.ft.com/content/cf717854-6818-11e8-aee1-39f3459514fd
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14 Jun: Reuters: UPDATE 1-China May coal output hits highest since December
* Coal output rebounds on higher prices, rising demand
* Coal-fired power output up 10 pct on-year in May
* Coal prices have surged since May (Adds detail, background)
by Meng Meng and Aizhu Chen
China’s coal output in May hit its highest level since December, as miners quickened production to meet rising demand ahead of summer, government data showed on Thursday.
China produced 296.99 million tonnes of coal in May, up 3.5 percent from the same month last year, according to the data from the National Bureau of Statistics.
In the first five months of 2018, coal output reached 1.4 billion tonnes, up 4 percent from the same period the year before.
Heatwaves across southern China and strong growth in power consumption in industrial sectors fueled 10-percent growth in coal-fired power output in May, the statistics bureau said.
Many households and businesses crank up ***air conditioners when the weather is hot.
https://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-output-coal/update-1-china-may-coal-output-hits-highest-since-december-idUSL4N1TG1LH
14 Jun: ABC: Queensland Budget: consumers ‘being squeezed’ in regions by ‘stacked’ energy market, LNP leader(Deb Frecklington) says
By Chris O’Brien
She also promised to put air-conditioning in every school in Queensland, despite the unspecified cost.
“Right now the Queensland Government only funds air-conditioning in state schools in tropical and western Queensland,” she said.
“I want air-conditioning in every one of our state school classrooms
“We air-condition our hospitals, our prisons and our Parliament, but we let our kids swelter.
“It will take time and will require a significant investment but I won’t accept the status quo.”…
14 Jun: ABC: NSW Budget: $500 million to improve air conditioning in schools
By state political reporter Sarah Gerathy
Fewer students will have to swelter through summer, with the New South Wales Government spending $500 million to put air conditioning in up to 1,000 schools across the state over the next five years.
The budget announcement steals the Opposition’s thunder — it planned to spend $300 million boosting air conditioning in schools.
The Government said classrooms and libraries in every new and upgraded school will now be air conditioned.
The criteria for retro-fitting older schools will be changed to include factors like humidity and classroom design…
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behind paywall:
13 Jun: UK Telegraph: Fossil fuel resurgence has already dashed Paris climate goals, says BP
By Jillian Ambrose
BP has warned that the global consumption of fossil fuels has increased for the first time in years, delivering a blow to the Paris climate goals…
14 Jun: Reuters: Austria’s energy regulator says climate protection goals hard to reach
Austria may find it tough to achieve its goal of producing as much energy from renewable resources as it consumes by 2030 due to public opposition to new dams and other projects that disturb nature, the head of energy regulator e-Control said…
Austria already generates about 75 percent of its annual energy consumption of 65 terawatt hours (TWh) from renewables thanks to its many rivers and lakes. The country, covering 84,000 square km, has about 130 large hydropower plants.
But adding more dams would require inundating an even larger area with water, which could spark protests.
“The real problem is the resistance on-site,” e-Control co-chief Andreas Eigenbauer told Reuters.
By 2030, Austria aims to generate the amount of energy it consumes each year from renewables, although it still expects to need fossil fuels to meet peak demand, but allowing it to export or storage excess levels…
As well as the challenge of building new dams, he said adding enough wind parks would be tough due to lack of space. The only available area big enough was in forests, which cover nearly half of the country’s land area.
“But in this area as well, resistance is mounting,” he said, even when wind turbine rotors rise above the tree level…
Eigenbauer said there was potential to develop solar power on residential buildings, adding that more family homes had photovoltaic installations and major property developers were installing more solar equipment.
The government’s solar target was reachable, he said. But for further expansion dedicated solar plants would be needed and these were also unpopular, he added.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-austria-renewables-regulator/austrias-energy-regulator-says-climate-protection-goals-hard-to-reach-idUSKBN1J9205
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