A new study by Steinke shows that the sun could have been a driver (somehow) of some of the monsoonal rain changes over the last 6,000 years over Indonesia and Northern Australia. h/t to The Hockey Schtick
In the spirit of the Perfect ClimateTM that existed prior to Henry Ford, we also find that Indonesia had a dry spell that lasted for a while, like say, 3,000 years. It ended about 800BC whereupon things got wetter, and mostly stayed wetter. The authors (Steinke et al) think this might have something to do with solar minima which was very low 2800 years ago. (Though I note the Greek Dark Ages also finished then, and “city states” arose, right, so it could have been that too. Ahem?)
To get straight to the action in Figure 6 the top squiggly line is AISM Rainfall (that’s the Australian-Indonesian summer monsoon). It shows how things were wetter in the last 2800 years ago and drier before that (annoyingly, the present time is on the left). The second part of the graph in red shows sunspot numbers. That gets flipped upside down and superimposed on the rainfall graph in the third part, and we can see a correlation that’s a lot like the CO2-and-temperature graph we see all the time, but is 5850 years longer.
Fig. 6. Changes in AISM rainfall and solar activity. (a) Ti/Ca ratios in core GeoB10065-7; (b) 10-year averaged reconstructed sunspot number (Solanki et al., 2004); (c) 10-year averaged ln-ratios of Ti/Ca (black) and sunspot numbers (red). 95% confidence intervals (in brackets) for the Pearson correlation coefficient (r) were calculated using a nonparametric bootstrap method, where autocorrelation has been taken into account (Mudelsee, 2003). 21-point running means shown in bold (aeb) to illustrate the long-term trends in ln-ratios of Ti/Ca and sunspot numbers. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.) (Click to Enlarge)
The big shift 2800 years ago is referred to as “drastic” and has been noticed in other places around the world:
Why the 2800 years BP event stands out so drastically in our monsoon record as well as in other records (see below), can currently not be answered conclusively.We suggest that in contrast to other solar minima, the 2800 yr BP minimum lasted longer than most other solar minima. This might have resulted in a stronger effect on the climate system, and also facilitates the detection in proxy records. Either way, there is clear evidence that the 2800 yr BP solar minimum affected climate conditions over much of the planet, including shifts of the Southern Westerlies (van Geel et al., 2000), the establishment of modern wind regimes in northern Africa (Kröpelin et al., 2008), and shifts in atmospheric circulation over Europe (Martin-Puertas et al., 2012). Moreover, the Dongge
Cave EASM record displays a decrease in rainfall around 2800 years BP but no change during other big events in solar output between 4000 years BP and 6000 years BP (Wang et al., 2005).
But nothing is simple. In far north west Australia stalagmites (Denniston et al., 2013, Fig. 5e) shows the “opposite behaviour of monsoonal rainfall with a decreasing AISM rainfall over the Mid-to-Late Holocene.”
They do try to explain the patterns, give them points for trying. It’s complicated. It looks like several big theories are going to be tossed out before this one is figured out:
In order to explain the generally higher rainfall levels after the 2800yr BP event we suggest that the combined effect of orbital and solar forcing is responsible for the long-term temporal behaviour of AISM rainfall over southern Indonesia as well as northern Australia. Despite an increase in austral summer insolation around 10 W/m2 between 6000 yr BP and 3000 yr BP, only a minor increase in AISM rainfall occurred between ~6000 yr BP and 2800 yr BP.We suggest that a long-term upward trend in solar output between 6000 yr BP and ~4000 yr BP (Fig. 6b) counteracts increasing orbital forcing such that the long-term trend in the Ti/Ca record is minor (Fig. 6a). After the 2800 yr BP event, enhanced orbital forcing keeps rainfall at a generally higher level than during the drier Mid Holocene. After ~1200 yr BP decreasing solar activity causes rainfall to increase
further for about 1000 years (Fig. 5a). The steady increase in rainfall after ~1200 yr BP is consistent with rainfall reconstructions based on dD of terrestrial plant waxes from Lake Lading (East Java; Konecky et al., 2013, Fig. 5b).
Overall, it’s interesting, but don’t draw too many conclusions. I thank the authors for their honesty. It’s fairly obvious that in the world of rainfall-propheses, scientists are struggling. This paper is filled (as it should be) with caveats and warnings as well as puzzling inconsistencies between proxy graphs of Australia, Indonesia, the Galapagos, and Ecuador. Things are just not neat.
Note the correlation is not too good, and the authors remind us this means a very vague amount — “some” of the variability is due to the sun.
In addition, we find a link between changes in AISM rainfall and solar activity with certain solar minima corresponding to stronger southern Indonesian rainfall, in particular at around 2800 years BP (see Fig. 6aeb). The correlation between the unsmoothed Ti/Ca and solar activity records is relatively low (r ¼ 0.319) but statistically significant for the past 6000 years (p < 0.05) when taking serial correlation into account (Mudelsee, 2003). The statistical significance of the correlation indicates that some of the variability in the AISM rainfall can be attributed to changes in solar activity (Fig. 6c).
I think what really limits conclusions here are the uncertainties in timing of things that happened so long ago, the Egyptians were building pyramids. It’s just too long ago. I mean, I presume if those dates are out by 20 years, the correlation gets shot to pieces. Imagine in the year 5050, trying to match up 1994 rainfall to solar activity in 2014?
Fig. 4. (a) Titanium (Ti), (b) iron (Fe) and, (c) calcium (Ca) intensity XRF logs in counts per second (cps) of core GeoB10065-7. (d) ln-ratio of Ti/Ca of core GeoB10065-7.
Here’s a tiny bit of technical info to give you an idea of how they figure out rainfall so long ago. Figure 4 shows the minerals they analyzed. They claim that increased amounts of Ti and Fe mean there was probably “an increased supply of siliciclastic material” from the rivers. The ln-ratio of Ti/Ca means lower rainfall to wash sediments in to this spot that was being analyzed. The Iron (Fe) is there as a check of some sort.
What about ENSO?
The authors try hard to look at El Nino and La Nina proxies as well, but end up concluding that thing are very not clear and rather than being causal, something is possibly driving both rainfall and the ENSO pattern. Frankly given that El Ninos etc have such a big effect in the space of a few months, it seems admirably ambitious to try to correlate things so long ago. Dare I say “Brave”?
It is expected that more frequent and/or intense El Niño events have resulted in reduced rainfall and subsequent
drought in the AISM region and, consequently, less riverine terrestrial supply to our site. Comparison of our Ti/Ca record with the lake sedimentary records from Ecuador (Moy et al., 2002) and the Galapagos Islands (Conroy et al., 2008) shows no correlation [r ¼ 0.089 with 95% confidence interval (0.296; 0.134)] and a high covariance [r ¼ 0.481 with 95% confidence interval (0.237; 0.605)], respectively. However, despite the
high covariance, comparison of our Ti/Ca record with the El Junco Crater Lake in the Galapagos Islands (Conroy et al., 2008) reveals that periods of more frequent and/or intense El Niño events after w3000 yr BP (Conroy et al., 2008) are associated with increased terrigenous supply and thus enhanced AISM rainfall (Fig. 8).
However, since El Niño events cause reduced rainfall and subsequent drought in the AISM region, the positive correlation between El Niño events and southern Indonesian rainfall, in particular after w3000 yr BP, does not imply a causal relationship, but perhaps a common forcing.
How does this solar connection work?
The authors do their best, and use their own models to try to figure out a hypothesis that explains all the puzzles. I’m grateful that they use the word “hypothesis” and don’t make any glorious claims. Though I don’t feel obliged to take those models seriously for a moment ; we all know how dismal climate models are on rainfall.
I wish them the best of luck. You get some sense for how tough their job is here. El Nino’s ought to make things drier over Indonesia, but according to one big theory (I see the name “Mann” in there below) solar minima ought give us El Nino’s, yet solar minima seem to inspire buckets of rain in Indonesia instead:
The most conspicuous shift in terrigenous sediment supply and thus AISM rainfall occurred at around 2800 yr BP, coinciding with one of the strongest grand solar minima of the Holocene (see also above; Solanki et al., 2004; Usoskin et al., 2007). As lower solar radiative forcing is usually associated with less surface ocean evaporation and, consequently, reduced monsoonal rainfall in tropical regions (Meehl et al., 2003), our finding of enhanced rainfall over southern Indonesia during times of reduced solar activity, in particular the 2800 yr BP grand solar minimum, seems counterintuitive. Moreover, according to the theoretical mechanism of a Pacific Ocean “dynamical thermostat” (Clement et al., 1996; Mann et al., 2005; Marchitto et al., 2010), solar minima should favour El Niño-like conditions and hence drier climate over Indonesia. To find a possible mechanism that could reconcile reduced solar activity with enhanced southern Indonesian summer rainfall, we analyzed the output from an idealized solar sensitivity experiment (Varma et al., 2011) using the coupled climate model CCSM3 (Collins et al., 2006). In this experiment, solar forcing is simply implemented through a change in total solar irradiance (TSI) with no wavelength-dependence and mostly affects the climate system through shortwave absorption by the surface. The TSI has been reduced by 2 Wm2 (corresponding to 0.15%) for a period of 70 years to capture the multi-decadal timescale of typical solar grand minima (Usoskin et al., 2007).
So file this away as another paper reporting a tantalizing connection, and note that there are some signs of hope that some modelers are adding in long term solar factors and looking for a connection.
a b s t r a c t
The Australian-Indonesian monsoon has a governing influence on the agricultural practices and livelihood in the highly populated islands of Indonesia. However, little is known about the factors that have influenced past monsoon activity in southern Indonesia. Here, we present a ~6000 years high-resolution record of Australian-Indonesian summer monsoon (AISM) rainfall variations based on bulk sediment element analysis in a sediment archive retrieved offshore northwest Sumba Island (Indonesia). The record suggests lower riverine detrital supply and hence weaker AISM rainfall between 6000 yr BP and ~3000 yr BP compared to the Late Holocene. We find a distinct shift in terrigenous sediment supply at
around 2800 yr BP indicating a reorganization of the AISM from a drier Mid Holocene to a wetter Late Holocene in southern Indonesia. The abrupt increase in rainfall at around 2800 yr BP coincides with a grand solar minimum. An increase in southern Indonesian rainfall in response to a solar minimum is consistent with climate model simulations that provide a possible explanation of the underlying mechanism responsible for the monsoonal shift. We conclude that variations in solar activity play a significant role in monsoonal rainfall variability at multi-decadal and longer timescales. The combined effect of orbital and solar forcing explains important details in the temporal evolution of AISM rainfall
during the last 6000 years. By contrast, we find neither evidence for volcanic forcing of AISM variability nor for a control by long-term variations in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). 2014 Elsevier Ltd.
REFERENCE
Stephan Steinke,*, Mahyar Mohtadi, Matthias Prange, Vidya Varma, Daniela Pittauerova, Helmut W. Fischer (2014) Mid- to Late-Holocene AustralianeIndonesian summer monsoon variability, Quaternary Science Reviews 93 (2014) 142e154
ENSO is an effect, a physical response of a system due to the flux of energy into and out of the system.
Somewhat related to rainfall, but more closely to Antarctic ice volume; my expectation for the next few years is more new temperature extremes (minima and maxima) as average humidity levels are likely to be lower, especially in the southern hemisphere. Less water vapour means that the air temperature will rise more for the same amount of heating (from the surface) and the air will cool more when the heat’s gone, because dry air has little thermal capacity. i.e. hotter, dryer days and colder nights, just like in the dry deserts.
Of course shifting rainfall patterns will appear to contradict that in some regions. SW Western Australia’s rainfall seems to be returning to the pattern of the late 1970’s to early 1980’s, with little rain after the summer before ANZAC Day.
Too bad that we don’t have good weather records from the first days of the Swan River colony; established around the Dalton Minimum.
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Actually, that is good science. They had an idea. They presented it, with the data. Now it is up to others to poke holes in it. But I suspect that each hole poked will actually make the authors search for new meaning and new data. So the next version will be a lot strong with a lot less caveats.
A shame that climate science cannot do this. But every paper they produce seems to be a new gospel in the bible of CAGW.
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It is good science but is pointless in the climate change debate because this relationship can only be used to “model” the future if we remove all the CO2 that humans have emitted in the last 200 years. We cant do that so its a useless indicator of the future. Its just another distraction.
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[…] Australian – Asian rainfall linked to solar activity for last 6000 years … Tags: africa, aism, australia, climate, ecuador, galapagos, holocene, indonesian, northern, Reviews […]
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Even I, handjive (not the sharpest tool in the shed @Jonova) can see the problem here.
One word: Tim Flannery.
No-one consulted his divine wisdom.
June 14, 2007
Wetter north only temporary: Flannery
“Computer models indicate that the increased rainfall is most likely caused by the Asian haze, which has pushed the monsoon south,” Professor Flannery wrote in the latest issue of New Scientist magazine.
“This means that as Asia cleans up its air, Australia is likely to lose its northern rainfall.
Prof Flannery wrote that growing evidence suggests that the drier conditions in Australia are caused by global warming and that the change is permanent.”
~ ~ ~
There you have it, m’ lord.
~ ~ ~
18/03/2008
Act now or repent forever
“Projections made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 indicate that to have the best chance of a stable future, global emissions need to peak within seven years …
What might the outcome be if Saint Augustine’s curse continues to blight our state governments, unions, industry and populace?
If you doubt me, fly over either city and try to spot a solar panel or solar hot water system amid the sea of unadorned roofs.”
. . .
I rest my case, m’ lord.
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I admire your persistence and dedication to actually read these papers all the way through Jo, and then attempt to understand them.
Even reading your summaries, enhanced with commentaries, for the average reader, gives me a headache.
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Jo Says: This paper is filled (as it should be) with caveats and warnings as well as puzzling inconsistencies between proxy graphs of Australia, Indonesia, the Galapagos, and Ecuador. Things are just not neat.
This is as you suggest it should be Jo. Having done some work collecting data in the natural environment; I can say that there is no such thing as a perfect correlation between cause and effect in the natural environment. Nature has many causes and one effect from a cause may also have it’s own effect. In fact I would be extremely sceptical of any study of causes and effects in the natural environment that shows a perfect or near perfect correlation.
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The past is a bit of a puzzle, as is the present. At least our climate experts can give us the precise details of stuff which hasn’t happened yet. Every cloud etc.
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I don’t care much for a simple correlation between insolation and rainfall.
A one percent less energy from the Sun (let alone 0.15%) might mean a down pour in Indonesia is 990 mm instead of 1000 mm. Hardly relevant so not counter intuitive.
Its also difficult to sea how small changes in insolation can directly change currents. Less humidity above the oceans means more energy from the Sun gets through (about 0.1% more). Surely there is something more important that is being ignored.
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Indeed, they are an inconveniently chaotic system. I always find that helpful to remember.
The deterministic efforts of Progressive left/green tipping governments and IPCC modellers, who have chosen climate and weather as the vehicle to change the World appears to have resulted on the one hand in a well identified epic fail of models to match empirical data, let alone predict The Pause, and on the other, disastrous impoverishing polices through tax related, energy stifling, de-development. The absence of ‘neatness’ may have inadvertently saved the day!
It seems to me that treating incoming solar radiation as a mean value, eg. ‘the daily average power of the solar radiation hitting the top of the Earth’s atmosphere at a given latitude and a given time of the year’ is as useful as the meaningless mean of global temperature 15C (approx. range -85C — +58C).
Mean values of insolation (solar energy) at the surface actually tell one very little about what happens in the physical world at a given moment and place.
I am thinking ignorantly and out loud that consideration of minute variations in the mean insolation value (downward and upward radiative forcing) at a particular place and time under specific conditions that vary hugely over small distances, with respect to the ‘mean value’ is simply meaningless. Knowledge instead, of the details and circumstances of the ALL conditions in a region AT a given moment, may yield considerably larger values of incident ground hitting solar energy wherein lies the required engine of climate instigation that does account for 1000mm instead of 10mm of rainfall.
Whether such specific knowledge of conditions is known, I am unsure, but doubt it. Generalisation around ‘mean values’ seems a fatal flaw in debates that rely upon extrapolating specific conditions from chaos and generalisation.
Then again, I am not a member of the priesthood.
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TSI varies roughly proportionally with the solar activity cycle, but the effect of the solar activity is more than TSI. There’s solar wind, and then there’s the sun’s magnetic field, and both can both modulate the energy being deposited in the upper atmosphere.
There’s different hypotheses about how that affects climate.
Svensmark says that increased solar activity increases the sun’s magnetic deflection of galactic cosmic rays. With less solar activity more GCRs get into the atmosphere and create ions that become the nucleation point for clouds. That makes clouds grow faster and bigger. More cloud cover means higher reflectivity of the atmosphere and cooler temperatures. See Neff 2001 for a well-known example of this cause/effect relationship.
Weather forecaster Piers Corbyn in the UK doesn’t believe the GCRs are the main cause, he thinks the solar wind is more likely to have a bigger effect on weather and climate.
One of the commentators you often find on climate skeptic blogs is Stephen Wilde, and he has a different hypothesis. I don’t quite understand his theory but you can read about it here. If I recall correctly, he’s more recently been suggesting that because the alteration of strength of UV light over the solar cycle is much more pronounced than the changes in visible and near-infrared, that this UV change alters the amount of ozone in the stratosphere in two specific mid-latitude bands either side of the equator. That somehow leads to the jetstreams changing their latitude. Well you have to give the guy points for innovation, and his theory does make testable predictions.
On rainfall there seems to be a puzzle.
If Svensmark is right, a decrease in GCRs will decrease cloud cover and increase insolation even when solar activity is low. Can the GCRs have decreased during this time frame and therefore caused less cloud cover and bigger rainfall events, even though TSI was low?
The wrinkle there is the GCRs change with the sun’s orbit around the galaxy, so a decrease in just one hundred years seems unlikely.
Maybe it was a circulation pattern change.
Maybe the Indonesian river they were measuring had such low flow that it changed course and temporarily flowed over rocks that were either higher in Calcium or lower in Titanium, before high rainfall restored the flow to the normal course, so their rainfall proxy gives a false positive. I know that’s approaching Area 51 levels of storytelling, but hey it could have happened.
OK I’m all out. No easy answers on this one.
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A problem with Svensmark’s idea is that the ionosphere starts well above the troposphere so whether there is a significant amount of ions produced lower down to make a difference is questionable. There is SO2 and NOx in the atmosphere that nucleate drops and other aerosols.
I’ve got nothing that is testable but just a gut feeling that effects of gravity on the Earth not only effect the sea but also the sea bed of the oceans.
For the non-scientists reading this, the air might be humid and cool enough (below the dew point) for there to be less energy if the water is a liquid in large droplets rather than existing as water vapour. That is not necessarily the case with very small droplets unless something like ions, sulfuric/sulfurous acid, nitric acid or a small speck of dust is inside the drop. These small drops need to exist long enough to grow into large droplets which is what cloud seeding does.
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Vic, slight variations in TSI can have profound effects on climate; even the AGW crew acknowledge that albeit in the context of regions. Shindell for instance details how slight decreases in TSI can affect the Jet Stream.
Jet Streams work counter-intuitively and we don’t need AGW to explain some of the extremes of temperature. In a cooling world there is a lower temperature gradient between the equator and the poles; this reduces the power of the climate systems that move the heat polewards.
This in turn allows the circumpolar jet streams to expand equatorwards. This lengthens their path and wavelength and reduces their velocity. Then they are more susceptible to blocking by continental high pressure systems.
This explains why during the Maunder and Dalton minimums there did not seem to be a great reduction in average global temperatures. There were however great frosts, capable of freezing rivers to a depth of eighteen inches, splitting oak trees three feet in diameter, causing the failure of winter crops, and then summer heat and drought causing the failure of spring plantings, with resultant famines.
All this has been documented by NASA:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/shindell_06/
Shindell, in the first link, says:
And:
Of course Shindell was wrong about the LIA not being global.
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I can see how places like Northern Europe and Northern US/Canada need the warm air to move up from the Equator or they would be much colder than what they are. There warmth though is usually attributed to ocean currents bringing the warmth up rather than air due to the massive difference in heat capacities.
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and the red thumb was not from me.
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I may being a bit dim here, but Indonesia is the most volcanic place in the world and Ecuador has volcanoes all the way down its spine; the Galapagos are highly volcanic, too. Isn’t all that going to influence rainfall a little bit?
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Owen, yes rather. Indonesia is home to Toba — the largest volcano to go off in the last million years. The researchers reported that they looked for volcanic links but there did not seem to be any evidence that this shift in 800BC had anything to do with volcanoes.
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“Indonesia is home to Toba — the largest volcano to go off in the last million years.”
Also to Tambora, the only one known to have sent four thousand feet of itself into the atmosphere in the last two hundred years (significant anniversary fast approaching). Actually, San Salvador, which obliterated a whole region of the Pre-Classic Maya world, Santorini, which probably destroyed Knossos, and Krakatoa, taken together, don’t match Tambora, but the San Salvador eruption alone ended life, human and animal, as far away as Kaminaljuyu, the Maya site which is now underneath Guatemala City, about ninety miles away. Toba, of course, was something else, altogether, way beyond even Tambora, but I am a bit sceptical that these scientists can really be so so confident about the effects of devastating volcanic eruptions.
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ENSO is (and always has been) a fantasy, ever since it was released from the University of East Anglia in the early 1970s.
Alex S. Gaddes (Tomorrow’s Weather, 1990.) identified and provided an exact predictive method for varying time length Solar induced ‘Dry’Cycles that orbit the planet East to West with the Solar Orbit of Earth’s Magnetic Field,(thirty degrees longitude/Solar Month.) These cycles are also longitudinal in their scope,(affecting the Arctic and Antarctic simultaneously.)the predictive equation for these cycles is open ended – they have been in effect (presumably) since the planet was born. (Some last thousands of years.)
The only factor that may ameliorate these ‘Dry’ Cycles is explosive vocanic eruption, (in Australia’s case,mainly Indonesian in origin.)
It is noted that prevailing weather moves West to East,(axial spin,)’Dry’ Cycles move East to West,(Solar Orbit.)
Alex S. Gaddes found the Solar Influence for these cycles seemed to originate in the 27 day rotation rate latitude of the Sun, (the ‘Sunspot’ latitude.) He speculated neutrinos may be the particles involved.
An updated version of ‘Tomorrow’s Weather’,(including ‘Dry’Cycle forecasts to 2055,)is available as a free pdf from dongaddes93@gmail.com
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OT. . .
Fox News declares Climate Change as superstition.
Watch the video at the link below.
Sorry, Im linking it from a pro climate change site. If you want some further amusement read the comments from readers below it.
http://io9.com/fox-news-now-classifies-climate-change-as-superstition-1573092924/all
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watched multiple youtubes on deindustrialised cities in the US last nite. atlanta, baltimore, detroit & flint (michigan), paterson (NJ) – stripped-down, burned-out factories & homes, pot-holed streets, etc. a NJ mayor begging China & South Korea, even Peru, to come to their rescue. shocking stuff.
today, the first 18 pages of 20-per-page google results has this story by Guardian’s non-CAGW reporter, Rory Carroll, who has churned out approximately one CAGW story a week for Reuters over the past 3 years. (search his name on Guardian & Reuters if u want confirmation):
7 May: Reuters: Rory Carroll: Stanford University ending investments in coal companies
Stanford University said on Tuesday it will no longer use any of its $18.7 billion endowment to invest in coal mining companies, a move aimed at combating climate change that could influence college administrations elsewhere…
The university’s board of trustees agreed with recommendations from a panel of students, faculty, staff and alumni that found investments in alternatives to coal would be less harmful to the environment…
It was announced on the same day the White House released a report warning that climate change was already affecting the United States in the form of more severe droughts in some areas and more intense storms in others.
He added that Stanford, which is located on the edge of Silicon Valley, is working to develop sustainable energy sources…
***Billionaire hedge fund investor-turned-environmental activist Tom Steyer, who has supported a number of colleges in their campaign to purge coal investments, is an alumnus of Palo Alto-based Stanford, a member of its board of trustees and founder of two clean energy research institutes on campus…
Jay Carmona, divestment campaign manager for 350.org, said he hopes Stanford’s decision will influence other universities.
“Now that one of the biggest endowments on earth has acknowledged that it can’t keep investing in climate change, others can follow,” he said…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/07/us-carbonstanford-divestment-idUSBREA460L620140507
more to come.
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5 May: SMH: Peter Hannam: Wind energy surges to record share as coal ebbs
Wind energy’s share of Australia’s main electricity market jumped to a record last month, helping to curb emissions from the power sector even as hydro output shrank, according to energy consultancy Pitt & Sherry.
Wind farms, derided last week by Treasurer Joe Hockey as “utterly offensive” blights on the landscape, increased their share of the market to a record 4.6 per cent, up one percentage point from a year earlier, the company said in its monthly CEDEX report…
Coal’s share of the market remained near its record low of 73.8 per cent.
However, the shift away from coal may soon be reversed as politics and markets combine to alter the economics of energy…
While falling energy demand has contributed to falling emissions, “the big driver” for the industry has been the rise of renewables, he said.
Two-thirds of the emissions drop has been “because renewable energy increased its market share by 25 per cent in the first 12 months” of the carbon tax’s start, he (Mark Butler, the opposition’s climate change spokesman) said.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/wind-energy-surges-to-record-share-as-coal-ebbs-20140505-zr4rg.html
apart from Butler, the only other person allowed to comment in the above is a spokesman for Pitt & Sherry:
Pitt & Sherry: CEDEX
Based on electricity, petroleum and natural gas energy data, the pitt&sherry Carbon Emissions Index CEDEX is the benchmark indicator for Australia’s carbon emissions from the energy sectors…
Trends in energy emissions are a reliable indicator of Australia’s ability to achieve emissions mitigation and are key to reducing emissions as a whole. CEDEX has been providing a comprehensive and early indication of key GHG and energy trends in Australia since 2009 and is considered to be the most comprehensive report of its kind in the market today…
http://www.pittsh.com.au/latest-news/cedex/
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8 May: UK Independent: For sale: Norway’s pristine Arctic wilderness – the coal-rich Svalbard Islands
But while about 65 per cent of the archipelago is protected, mining has been part of the landscape on the Svalbard Islands since its settlement in the early 20th century, and the 217 square kilometres of land put up for sale recently is believed to hold about 25 million tons of coal…
The Austre Adventfjord property – roughly two-and-a-half times the size of Manhattan – is currently owned by the Horn family of industrialists, the Norwegian VG newspaper reported. A spat between the family and the Norwegian company with rights to the coal mine is believed to have spurred the sale, although only scant details were released to Norway’s press…
“China is in constant search of coal and other natural resources,” Mr Ostreng said. “By purchasing this property they can use Svalbard as a platform for a long-term plan in the Arctic Ocean Basin.”…
Searching for the natural resources to fuel its economic growth, China is already one of the biggest mining investors in Greenland, and last year was granted observer status on The Arctic Council, a body coordinating policy in the region…
Norway’s Green Party is fighting to preserve the wilderness of Svalbard, and at a party congress this week proposed closing down all the coal mines on the archipelago.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/for-sale-norways-pristine-arctic-wilderness–the-coalrich-svalbard-islands-9307546.html
6 May: Newcastle Herald: King Coal: Foreign ownership of coal companies rising
By IAN KIRKWOOD and MATTHEW KELLY
LINK: King Coal: Hunter’s 1.5billion tonnes would go three times to moon
MOST of the coal companies exporting through the Port of Newcastle are at least partly foreign-owned, with China the biggest new player in recent years.
The latest state government Coal Industry Profile lists a plethora of mine-owning companies owned or controlled from overseas, continuing a long-standing trend.
Estimates vary but by most accounts more than 80per cent of the Hunter and Gunnedah Basin coal industry is foreign-owned…
Although a desire to maximise local control was part of the Whitlam-era agenda, the mainstream political agenda embraces foreign investment in the mining industry…
‘‘Foreign investment is one reason why Hunter mining jobs have almost doubled over the last decade, from around 7000 in 2004 to more than 12,000 in 2014,’’ Mr Galilee said.
‘‘Hunter mining operations now spend around $6.3billion a year in the Hunter, contributing to around 60,000 Hunter jobs…
Although the Chinese are the high-profile newcomers to the Hunter industry, far more Japanese companies have a stake in the region, with many electricity generators and steel makers holding strategic minority stakes in a number of mines.
Mr Randall said the closure of the Japanese nuclear industry in the wake of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami meant that country would probably want more thermal coal, which could drive further investment in Queensland’s Galilee Basin, as well as in NSW.
The ‘‘big three’’ resource companies, Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Glencore Xstrata, all have substantial interests in the Hunter Valley.
While Australian superannuation funds and other investors are likely to hold shares in these stockmarket-listed companies, Glencore is controlled from Switzerland and listed in London, while BHP and Rio are listed on the London and Australian stock exchanges, and have substantial foreign ownership.
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/2263310/king-coal-foreign-ownership-of-coal-companies-rising/?cs=12
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The issue of mining leases owned by “foreigners” (shudder) is a very old perennial
The basic reason is that the Aus sharemarket of itself is too thin to capitalise large mining operations. Even consortiums of our “four pillar” banks mostly need to include capital sourced off-shore
The basic reason that the Aus sharemarket is so thin is that most of the investing population prefers real estate … safe as houses, mate
Various State Govts (as the Constitutional owners of the minerals) have from time to time tried to insist on 51% Aus ownership but have always found the economics too frigid for major developments
Of course, we could always build more cars no-one will buy – except that all the now-failed car manufacturers were also “foreigners”. Diabolical, isn’t it ?
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1 May: Canberra Times: Vic Svec: Carbon tax must go: solution to energy poverty lies with coal
(Vic Svec is senior vice president, global investor and corporate relations, Peabody Energy)
Across India, South Asia and elsewhere in the developing world, about 3 billion people depend on biomass, burning at the astounding rate of two tonnes a family per year.
At the same time, each hour of exposure to indoor fires has the same health effect of exposure to 400 cigarettes. Debilitating illness results, and lives are cut short. Household air pollution from indoor fires is the fourth leading cause of death globally.
It’s time we right our priorities. Energy poverty is the largest human and environmental crisis facing the world today. Solving this problem must be job No.1.
All fuels are needed to combat this crisis, and that includes more wind, more solar, more coal, more gas, and more coal. Coal is the only fuel with the scale to eliminate the devastating human and environmental effects of energy poverty…
Global growth in coal use will continue over the long haul. Coal is the world’s fastest-growing major fuel, set to surpass oil as the world’s largest energy source in coming years…
Coal is Australia’s second largest export, important for jobs and essential to the nation’s economic strength, contributing nearly $43 billion each year to the economy…
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/carbon-tax-must-go-solution-to-energy-poverty-lies-with-coal-20140505-zr2lh.html
7 May: Platts: Poland to resuscitate coal for energy security on Ukraine crisis – PM
The Polish government plans to resuscitate the coal industry as the backbone of the country’s energy security, with the aid of state support, following events in Ukraine, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Wednesday…
Poland has Europe’s largest hard coal reserves and the fuel, together with lignite, produces about 90% of the country’s electricity…
http://www.platts.com/latest-news/coal/warsaw/poland-to-resuscitate-coal-for-energy-security-26783300
6 May: StarAfrica: Large coal reserves discovered around Botswana
Botswana has estimated coal reserves of more than 212 billion tonnes in what analysts have been referring to as the country’s “new diamonds”, state-owned Daily News reported on Tuesday…
“Already, a number of companies are exploring the coal reserves on the eastern side of the country, with two companies, Kalahari and Tlou Energy, looking into extracting coal bed methane (CBM) for possible power generation,” Ntsimanyane told the paper…
Given the abundant coal reserves in Botswana, CBM is expected to become the country’s next foreign currency earner after diamonds.
http://en.starafrica.com/news/large-coal-reserves-discovered-around-botswana.html
00
pat mentions this here:
Botswana has a population of 2 Million people. The total power generation in Botswana is 350GWH, which is the same electrical power consumed in Tweed Heads, which has a population of 18,000 People (0.9% of the population of Botswana, less than 1%)
For Botswana to reach the same power consumption that here in Australia we take for granted, they would need just ONE large scale coal fired power plant the same size as Bayswater, just ONE of them, added to their existing supply. Over the 50 year life span of that plant, it would consume 325 Million tons of coal, which is 0.15% of their estimated deposits.
Can you see now what the Chinese are moving into Africa to construct their new USC coal fired power plants.
Tony.
80
“Chinese are moving into Africa”
Indeed. After Maurice Strong started the AGW BS way back, setting up UN groups and steering western countries toward ‘green’ oblivion he went across to China where he now resides helping the Chinese take advantage of all that we are giving up. Our politicians follow the AGW faith blindly unaware of what is really going on.
40
gbees:
there was the little matter of a missing million or so.
“Evidence procured by federal investigators and the U.N.-authorized inquiry of Paul Volcker showed that in 1997, while working for Annan, Strong had endorsed a check for $988,885, made out to “Mr. M. Strong,” issued by a Jordanian bank. It was reported that the check was hand-delivered to Mr. Strong by a South Korean businessman, Tongsun Park, who in 2006 was convicted in New York federal court of conspiring to bribe U.N. officials to rig Oil-for-Food .
Mr. Strong was never accused of any wrongdoing..Shortly after this, Strong moved to an apartment he owned in Beijing”. And that is the best that (heavily edited) Wikipedia can do.
00
TedM @ # 5 has already used a part of Jo’s quote but it won’t hurt to repeat it.
In contrast to this study which has historical proxy data to draw from and still admits that it doesn’t really understand just what is affecting and driving what in past climates despite supposedly having hard physical evidence to study in detail, are the Climate Models that without ANY evidence at all are claimed to be supposedly able to accurately predict the future global climate some decades ahead.
The climate models are used to support the climate modellers claims but the structure and coding of their models comes under some very harsh, in fact devastating analysis and critiscm that destroys any sense of believability in the current IPCC climate models and modellers from some very highly credentialled code savvy experts in a current WUWT post.
The Global Climate Model clique feedback loop
As for the massive government imposed, tax payer funding of climate models, climate modellers and their climate predictions on which the prognostications of the IPCC and numerous shaman like foretellers of climate catastrophes to come solely rest and on which all the devastating economic and societal impacts that have arisen from those climate models based predictions also rest;
30
Some would argue that WW I was not a previous example as it was merely a hold over from the 19th century shifting alliance wars of attrition.
00
8 May: Economic Times India: Finance Ministry seeks details on coal availability for power sector
By Dheeraj Tiwari & Sarita C Singh
NEW DELHI: The finance ministry has sought information from power and coal ministries on fuel availability for existing and future power plants, a move
aimed at facilitating banks in lending to the stressed sectors…
In a letter to power and coal ministries, the department of financial services has sought information on the coal supply position to all the operating and
upcoming power plants…
The power ministry envisages capacity addition of 66,014 Mw of coal-based generation during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17), of which fuel supply
agreements for about 21,300 Mw plants are yet to be signed, while 27,760 Mw is proposed to be met through captive coal blocks.
Fresh coal supply agreements are required for another 12,400-Mw power plants…
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/power/finance-ministry-seeks-details-on-coal-availability-for-power-sector/articleshow/34802016.cms
7 May: Internat’l Business Times: Sophie Song: China’s Energy Conquest Continues With Potential Coal Project In Turkey
The potential $10 to $12 billion deal involves the Afsin-Elbistan region, which holds up to 45 percent of Turkey’s so-called brown coal reserves, also known as lignite, in southern Turkey, the South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday…
The project also includes the construction of an 8,000-megawatt coal-fired power plant…
Turkey is interested in exploiting its coal resources to cut natural gas imports, especially as demand grows for more power with the country’s expanding economy…
http://www.ibtimes.com/chinas-energy-conquest-continues-potential-coal-project-turkey-1581274
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6 May: Canberra Times: Bob Burton: Big Coal flexes $100 million PR muscle on soft sell
(Bob Burton is an author and Contributing Editor of CoalSwarm. In 2013, with Guy Pearse and David McKnight, he co-authored Big Coal: Australia’s Dirtiest Habit.)
The muscle of the coal industry’s lobbying machine was flexed last month with the launch of the latest industry-co-ordinated PR campaign ”Australians for Coal”, pleading the case for ongoing support of the industry in the face of a market slump and increasing community opposition…
A best-guess estimate is that in the last two years Australia’s coal industry has spent the best part of $100 million attempting to defend its increasingly tattered social licence.
Renewable power and energy efficiency are eroding profitability in the domestic coal power sector and undermining demand in key markets such as China, but Australia’s coal lobby shows no sign of acknowledging that times have changed…
Despite their massive investments in PR the coal lobby must be increasingly aware of the fragility of their social licence. This was made starkly clear when the Australians for Coal campaign not only failed to enthuse supporters to take to social media but saw regular twitter users overrun the industry’s #australiansforcoal hashtag with examples of the industry’s poor track record of environmental and social harm. Just as the asbestos and ***tobacco industries once enjoyed widespread public support, the coal industry would do well to remember that when the negative impacts of an industry outweigh the benefits, money alone can’t buy community support forever.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/big-coal-flexes-100-million-pr-muscle-on-soft-sell-20140507-zr5kq.html
***reminder from Wikipedia: Cigarettes are smoked by over 1.1 billion people. While smoking rates have leveled off or declined in developed nations, in developing nations tobacco consumption continues to rise at a rate of around 3.4% per annum.
6 May: Mining Australia: Vicky Validakis: ‘Environmental choir’ blocks Whitehaven Coal trucks
Haulage at Whitehaven Coal’s Tarrawonga mine was temporarily halted this morning after members of the Ecopella choir locked themselves to the operation’s front gates.
The protestors have since been removed by police and arrested…
Director of Ecopella, Miguel Heatwole, said the group had a long history of environmental activism…
http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/news/environmental-choir-blocks-whitehaven-coal-trucks
what a joke.
10
Surree, so when the Carmichael coal mine approved yesterday becomes the largest coal mine in Australia, is that a sign of a major loss of “support of the industry” or is it a sign of a slump in prices making coal investment unprofitable?
Coal companies crying poor, you’ve gotta be kidding me.
And this anti-progress “social license” crap really grinds my gears. It’s yet another case of the anti-progress crowd skipping the reality and making any issue into a purely moral one, where of course they are the ones on the high horse.
As distinct from a legal license, a social license is the exceptional permission to do something which would normally be condemned. My neighbour would need a social license to burn huge amounts of leaf litter in their back yard because that would stink out all the houses and the drying clothes in their neighbours’ places. No social license is needed for modern coal plants to cleanly burn coal in a handful of places and provide us all with electricity. There is no social license that could be withdrawn because it’s all good.
There is apparently no need for the self righteous planet defenders to provide evidence of harm from coal as they sit atop their moral high horse, being judge, jury, and occasionally executioner, tweeting their misinformation “awareness” campaigns on their coal-powered iHaves while telling the developing world they must become iHaveNots.
31
The climbing down from their high horse, driving home, doing some grocery shopping along the way, and going to a home with access to 24 hour 7 day a week 365 days a year electricity, probably with a family they would not dare deny electricity to because of their belief.
Tony.
11
Just of topic but I heard today that we have seen the earliest start to cold weather conditions in south east Australia in 70+ years. Also heard that the dawn service on ANZAC day in Victoria was the coldest for around 80 years.
Given that the climate commission is interested in climate change as opposed to global warming, can we now expect Prof. Tim and Co. to give a widely publicised report on how human emissions of CO2 are creating cold weather in one part of Australia? You know, the way they do after we have a few unusually hot days in one part of the country. This is surly a chance for them to show us that they are not just global warming zealots but are truly interested in climate change?
30
“Climate Change” driven by human fossil fuel emissions can, according to “the settled science” only be of the global warming variety.
That real weather variability is all over the shop doesn’t prevent the lying warmists, from the “scientists” down to the generally ignorant lay believers, preaching their naive message that humans are to blame for every weather twist and turn that natural climate variability is so richly serving us. And of course served we humans in the past.
This supposed link between solar activity and monsoons is just more evidence of how little we humans yet know about the how and why of the present Earth climate system. And yet the lying believers think intelligent observers can’t see through their abysmal ignorance of how the system they claim to understand operates.
Settled science? Pigs arse.
30
Let me get this straight.
In the past, sometimes it rained a lot, and sometimes it didn’t.
And the sun might have had something to do with that.
Is that it?
50
Yep, that ole Sol has a lot to answer for. Wet, dry, hot, cold, seems to get away from all the blame.
10
Agree, it follows a reasonable hypothesis testing procedure. But I question the basic premise that bulk samples offshore from an island can be used to estimate fluvial transport of sediment, both amount, redistribution in the depths sampled, and from that then infer river runoff, and from that precipitation amounts.
Annual rainfall may have a coefficient of variation (CV) of 20-40 %. The resulting runoff from plot studies (not complex river systems) typically have CVs of about 100%. Associated sediment yield from the plot studies typically has much higher CVs than the runoff. Now consider sediment transport under idealized conditions. Discrepancy ratios are the ratios between measured sediment transport rates and calibrated sediment transport models. A discrepancy ratio of 2 is often used to determine when the model is calibrated. And these results are under steady, uniform flow in a laboratory flume.
Now try to estimate the sediment yield, deposited in an ocean of unknown depth and under unknown sea current flow magnitudes and directions and its chemical composition as sampled at a single modern time and then reverse the chain of processes back thousands of years.
Under these conditions the uncertainty is huge and, in my opinion, unknowable within a few orders of magnitude.
That they found a correlation between mineral components of seabed sediment cores and anything is not too surprising, but that the correlation means anything is, in my opinion, vanishingly small.
00
Two quotes from above comments caught my eye :-
1“This means that as Asia cleans up its air, Australia is likely to lose its northern rainfall.”
2 “The only factor that may ameliorate these ‘Dry’ Cycles is explosive vocanic eruption, (in Australia’s case,mainly Indonesian in origin.)”
I am probably making entirely the wrong inference from this ,but do these comments mean that an absence of air pollution are causing drought?
Pollute in the name of Jesus , save the planet ?
Well the dry bits at any rate.
00
thankfully, my vote was informal.
8 May: Guardian: Fuel excise rise would be ‘forcefully’ fought by motoring groups
Lenore Taylor and Daniel Hurst
It is understood the government is likely to reintroduce indexation rather than legislate an immediate price rise, but with fuel prices above $1.60 a litre in parts of the country, indexation – annual price rises in line with inflation – would also be politically dangerous…
“Motorists already pay around $15bn a year through fuel excise and only $4bn of that is spent on roads, so motorists are already contributing heavily to general revenue,” NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury told Guardian Australia. “If the government wants to spend more money on roads, they should spend some of what they are already raising in excise.”…
The Greens deputy leader, Adam Bandt, said Tony Abbott should end fuel subsidies for wealthy miners before targeting motorists with higher fuel excise.
“Taxpayers shouldn’t fork out billions each year just so the likes of Gina Rinehart can buy cheap diesel,” Bandt said.
The Labor frontbencher Bernie Ripoll made a similar point while appearing on Sky News, asking why the government would protect the diesel fuel rebate to miners while slugging ordinary motorists…
***But it is likely to change a $150m-a-year subsidy for ethanol producers, which rebated them the full amount of excise paid on ethanol as a transport fuel…
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/08/fuel-excise-rise-would-be-forcefully-fought-by-motoring-groups
00
being picked up by the MSM:
7 May: New Scientist: Michael Slezak: Rapid Arctic melting is only partly our fault
The rapid warming and melting of the Arctic is only half our fault. While our greenhouse gas emissions are clearly a factor, the record melts of the past few decades are partly the result of huge waves of warm air emanating from the Pacific Ocean.
The same region of the Pacific seems to be behind both the Arctic warming and the global warming “hiatus” of the last decade. That means we could be in for something unexpected: when global warming speeds up again, the melting of the Arctic might slow down, because both are partly controlled by the Pacific. If there is still some summer ice left when that happens, the Arctic could go another decade without a complete melt.
Qinghua Ding of the University of Washington in Seattle and his colleagues reanalysed temperature data from 1979 to 2012…
His team used climate models to simulate these changes, and found that they drove waves of high-altitude warm air into the Arctic. In effect, the cool surface waters in the Pacific have been warming Greenland, especially since the late 1990s…
Despite ever-growing greenhouse gas emissions, global warming has slowed down over the last decade, probably as a result of the climate’s natural variability. Yet the Arctic sea ice hit record lows in 2007 and 2012. “It was a paradox,” says Wenju Cai of the CSIRO, Australia’s national research agency, in Melbourne. “If you see global warming slowing down, then why does the Arctic ice keep decreasing?”
Cai recently found evidence that the hiatus was largely caused by temperature changes in the Pacific. Warm water has sunk, leaving cool water on the surface. Now it seems these same changes are also warming the Arctic. “The seeming paradox is explained by the same thing,” Cai says.
Assuming Ding is right, the Arctic could soon get a reprieve…
Journal reference: Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature13260.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25531-rapid-arctic-melting-is-only-partly-our-fault.html
00
Rapid warming and melting of the Arctic has happened EVERY YEAR, since the beginning of Earth time.
Its called
SUMMER !!!
11
“In the spirit of the Perfect ClimateTM that existed prior to Henry Ford..”
I’ve never heard that phrase before, it sums up climate alarmism perfectly.
20
Maybe ,maybe not -http://cliffmass.blogspot.ca/2014/04/is-asian-pollution-intensifying-pacific.html
00
TonyfromOz –
yes, how easily Botswana could be developing!
this one is small, yet worth noting:
6 May: Reuters: Sonali Paul: Ex-Gloucester CEO lines up $200m to buy
Asia-Pacific coal assets
The former boss of Australia’s Gloucester Coal has lined up $200 million
from a private equity firm to buy metallurgical coal projects in Australia,
New Zealand and Indonesia, taking advantage of weak valuations in the
sector…
“It’s my perfect scenario: where equity markets are in the doldrums and it’s
all over as far as they’re concerned, whereas in reality for metallurgical
coal, I think the outlook is quite strong,” Pembroke Chief Executive Barry
Tudor told Reuters.
Tudor and other former executives of Gloucester Coal, which was taken over
two years ago by China’s Yanzhou Coal , set up Pembroke with backing from
Denham Capital, which is making its first Australia mining investment.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/07/asiapac-coal-pembroke-idUSL3N0NS54R20140507
00
“Imagine in the year 5050, trying to match up 1994 rainfall to solar activity in 2014?”
Jo, you’re forgetting we are now in the age of digitally recorded history. In 5050, the BOM archives of today will most likely still be there. But, imagine the BOM adjustments added during that period to create their ongoing AGW drying trend. Trying to match that BOM data in 5050 with other proxies would pose a far greater challenge 🙂
00
8 May: UK Daily Mail: Staff Reporter: Fracking delays a risk to 250,000 jobs, peers warn: Committee says major industries will quit Britain if drilling is not made a priority
Major industries will quit Britain if fracking is not made an urgent priority, peers claim.
Shale gas drilling has been held up by complex rules and exaggerated environmental fears, a report by the Lords Economic Affairs Committee says.
***Its chairman Lord MacGregor said: ‘Potentially it’s a remarkable opportunity for this country. We believe the Government needs to get its act together.’…
Peers also backed moves by the Government to change trespass laws so that shale companies could drill under people’s property without their permission…
They also backed moves by the Government to change trespass laws so that shale companies could drill under people’s property without their permission to ensure development could go ahead ‘without undue delay or cost’…
And they said the successful development of shale gas and oil in the UK could reduce the country’s reliance on energy imports from places such as Russia and improve energy security…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2622927/Fracking-delays-risk-250-000-jobs-peers-warn-Committee-says-major-industries-quit-Britain-drilling-not-priority.html
***UK Parliament: The Rt Hon. the Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market OBE
Register of Interests
2: Remunerated employment, office, profession etc
Chairman, British Energy Pension Fund Trustees
Chairman, Eggborough Power Ltd Pension Fund Trustees
http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/lord-macgregor-of-pulham-market/131
00
all sane people would oppose this:
6 May: Guardian: Press Association: Fracking trespass law changes opposed by 74% of British public, poll finds
Move to allow shale gas companies to drill under homes without owner’s permission is widely-opposed, YouGov survey says
More than 45,000 people around the country have joined legal moves to block energy companies from fracking under their properties, but a change to the trespass laws could allow companies to explore for shale gas without needing their permission.
The survey found that 73% of Conservative voters and 70% of Liberal Democrat supporters did not agree with changing the law to make it easier to drill under people’s homes.
The poll carried out for Greenpeace also revealed 80% of Labour voters and 77% of those planning to vote Ukip opposed the move.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/06/fracking-trespass-law-changes-opposed-by-74-of-britons
00
I look forward to a study of the whole paper.
From the comments above, yes, iron is there as a confirmaion of titanium as the two would act similarly. The calcium is somewhat superfluous because it shows little character other than a steady trend, that operates to make the log ratio look more like the solar curve to which it is being matched.
I’m not so happy with the thinking aloud about events like El Nino. The paper should be able to stand on the geochemistry.
Correlation coefficients above say 0.5 are not common in earth science geochem, to make a generalisation that can be argued. In cases like this, yes, they can be badly affected by going out of correspondence as by an error in dating.
More positively, matters like autocorrelation are considered, adding some confidence of an honest and frank attempt.
10
Hi everyone I just read something over on the “Science Daily” site that I thought Jo should have a look at and maybe you as well.
1/Greenland melting due equally to global warming, natural variations
2/Arctic study sheds light on tree-ring divergence problem: Changes in light intensity may impact density of tree rings.
I hope that some of you find them interesting.
00
Whadaya know!? I wonder who’s been saying that very thing for years now.
00
The sun can’t drive anything in climate. The IPCC tells us so.
It’s CO2 all the way down.
00