Orbital resonance and the celestial origins of Earth’s climatic changes – Why Phi?

A year after I wrote the original ‘Why Phi’ post explaining my discovery of the Fibonacci sequence links between solar system orbits and planetary synodic periods here at the Talkshop in 2013, my time and effort got diverted into politics. The majority of ongoing research into this important topic has been furthered by my co-blogger Stuart ‘Oldbrew’ Graham. Over the last eight years he has published many articles here using the ‘Why Phi’ tag looking at various subsystems of planetary and solar interaction periodicities, resonances, and their relationships with well known climatic periodicities such as the De Vries, Hallstatt, Hale and Jose cycles, as well as exoplanetary systems exhibiting the same Fibonacci-resonant arrangements.

Recently, Stuart contacted me with news of a major breakthrough in his investigations. In the space of a few hours spent making his calculator hot, major pieces of the giant jigsaw had all come together and brought ‘the big picture’ into focus. In fact, so much progress has been made that we’re not going to try to put it all into a single post. Instead, we’ll provide an overview here, and follow it up with further articles getting into greater detail.

Zero Global Warming This Century

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The next few years with expected lower than ‘normal’ solar cycle activity should be illuminating, one way or another.

Science Matters

The post below updates the UAH record of air temperatures over land and ocean.  But as an overview consider how recent rapid cooling has now completely overcome the warming from the last 3 El Ninos (1998, 2010 and 2016).  The UAH record shows that the effects of the last one were gone as of April and now again in November, 2021 (UAH baseline is now 1991-2020).

For reference I added an overlay of CO2 annual concentrations as measured at Moana Loa.  While temperatures fluctuated up and down ending flat, CO2 went up steadily by ~55 ppm, a 15% increase.

Furthermore, going back to previous warmings prior to the satellite record shows that the entire rise of 0.8C since 1947 is due to oceanic, not human activity.

The animation is an update of a previous analysis from Dr. Murry Salby.  These graphs use Hadcrut4 and include the 2016 El Nino warming…

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A rush to mine the deep ocean has environmentalists worried

Seabed mining

Trying to replace high-energy coal, gas, and oil with lower energy alternatives to pacify climate obsessives has various drawbacks. One of these is an endless need for huge amounts of minerals, metals etc. that have to be mined from somewhere, which can of course be messy to say the least.
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In a large building overlooking the sea in Kingston, Jamaica, national members of a little known international organisation are meeting for contentious talks that could open up the planet’s deep seabed to mining as soon as July 2023, says Climate Home News.

The ocean floor is rich in mineral deposits, which could provide raw materials to manufacture batteries for electric cars, solar panels and wind turbines.

Prospective mining companies see a lucrative opportunity to turbocharge the energy transition.

UK Should Prepare For More Extreme Weather, Government Warns After Storm Arwen

Image credit: Electricity North West

Bad weather? Blame the ‘climate crisis’ – it’s government policy to do so! Climate fixing is a slow process…roll on 2050, or later…who are they kidding, apart from themselves?
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Britain can expect greater disruption from storms in the future and should prepare for more extreme weather following the chaos wrought by Storm Arwen which brought snow and high winds to much of the country earlier this week, ministers have warned.

Thousands of homes remain without electricity after winds that hit speeds of almost 100mph ripped across parts of northern England and Scotland, tearing down power lines, uprooting trees and causing snow drifts and debris blockages on roads, says The Independent (via QNewsCrunch).

Research aircraft reveal a surprisingly strong Southern Ocean carbon sink

The ocean carbon cycle [credit: IAEA]

Having much better information about how nature’s carbon cycle is working, before attempting to apply random expensive schemes of uncertain impact to try and alter it, would surely be a sound approach, as the researchers suggest. Surprises might not be welcome ones.
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The Southern Ocean is a significant carbon sink says Phys.org, absorbing a large amount of the excess carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere by human activities, according to a new study led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

The findings provide clarity about the role the icy waters surrounding Antarctica play in buffering the impact of increasing greenhouse gas emissions, after research published in recent years suggested the Southern Ocean might be less of a sink than previously thought.

Recent European droughts are not unprecedented, new study finds – Net Zero Watch

Drought in Europe

Climate attribution i.e. supposed detection of human-caused factors, is in the eye of the beholder. This article concludes: ‘At the recent GWPF annual lecture Professor Steven Koonin of New York University said climate attribution studies were the scientific equivalent of being told you had won the lottery, after you had won the lottery.’
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A new study concludes that when placed into a long-term context recent drought events in Europe are within the range of natural variability and are not unprecedented over the last millennium, says Net Zero Watch.

The 2003 European heatwave and drought has a special place in the history of the study of our changing climate.

It was the first event that scientists attributed to human-induced climate change.

A paper by Stott et al published in Nature concluded, “Human influence has at least doubled the risk of a regional heatwave like the European Summer of 2003.”

This was later strengthened and the event was said to be directly caused by humans.

Arctic rainfall predicted to increase faster than expected, say modellers

Arctic sea ice [image credit: cbc.ca]

More than a whiff of climate alarmism here. Modelling of the future is billed as research, and so-called climate policies are advocated.
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The amount of rainfall in the Arctic may increase at a faster rate than previously thought, according to a modelling study published in Nature Communications.

The research suggests that total rainfall will supersede snowfall in the Arctic decades earlier than previously thought, and could have various climatic, ecosystem and socio-economic impacts, says Nature Asia.

The Arctic is known to be warming faster than most other parts of the world, leading to substantial environmental changes in this region.

Above-average temperatures despite La Niña, predicts UN

The prediction can be reviewed in about mid-2022. The UN of course invariably expects more warming, which it likes to attribute to human activities and then demand ‘action’.
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Temperatures in many parts of the world are expected to be above average in coming months despite the cooling effect of a La Niña weather phenomenon, the United Nations said Tuesday.

The UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said La Niña, which last held the globe in its clutches between August 2020 and May this year, had reappeared and is expected to last into early 2022, reports Phys.org.

This, it said, would influence temperatures and precipitation, but despite the phenomenon’s usual cooling effect, temperatures were likely to remain above average in many places.

Strong winds power electric fields in the upper atmosphere, NASA’s ICON finds

Caption: This data visualization shows the ICON spacecraft in orbit around Earth. The green arrows show the strong, high-altitude winds—known as atmospheric tides—detected by ICON’s MIGHTI wind imager. These winds are not uniform and can be altered by changes in the lower-altitude atmosphere. This, in turn, changes the particle motion high in the ionosphere. Changes in plasma at 370 miles above Earth’s surface was also detected by ICON as shown in red. Magnetic field lines are shown in magenta and turn yellow as measurements of winds detected by MIGHTI (green arrows) influence the direction of plasma (red arrows). Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio/William T. Bridgman
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One researcher said: “We found half of what causes the ionosphere to behave as it does right there in the data”. The hunt is on for the other half. Link includes animations.
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What happens on Earth doesn’t stay on Earth, says Phys.org.

Using observations from NASA’s ICON mission, scientists presented the first direct measurements of Earth’s long-theorized dynamo on the edge of space: a wind-driven electrical generator that spans the globe 60-plus miles above our heads.

The dynamo churns in the ionosphere, the electrically charged boundary between Earth and space.

It’s powered by tidal winds in the upper atmosphere that are faster than most hurricanes and rise from the lower atmosphere, creating an electrical environment that can affect satellites and technology on Earth.

Energy Islands: Orkney’s radical marine power experiment

Mocean Energy’s Blue X wave energy converter at Forth Ports’ Rosyth Docks [image credit: Mocean Energy]

The article title says the experiment ‘is a blueprint for the future’, but tidal power devices have a long record of not exactly becoming a roaring success. When might this future arrive? Talk of being a ‘global leader’ sounds upbeat and optimistic, press-release style, but will there be enough – or any – followers? After the intro, we come to the prototype wave converter.
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We’re standing, it seems, on the deck of a stocky, barge-like boat with yellow trim, going full steam, says the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Water whips past, flicking up foam. But the ‘boat’ is stationary – tethered to the sea floor, it is in fact a 1.5MW tidal energy generator.

Developed by Spanish firm Magallanes Renovables, the ATIR platform has two turbines submerged in the fast-flowing waters of the Fall of Warness, south of the island of Eday in the Orkneys.

A Seasonal Emerald in the Sahel

Credit: geopoliticalfutures.com

A striking example of seasonal climate variation, with detailed images.
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The Inland Delta of the Niger River is one of the world’s most productive wetlands says NASA, even though it is mostly dry for nearly half of each year.

Depending on the abundance and timing of rainfall upstream, the inland delta of the Niger River in Mali typically floods with water from roughly August to December.

The result is a seasonal burst of green vegetation at the intersection of the Sahara Desert and the Sahel.

Revellers snowed in at Britain’s highest pub – BBC News

Tan Hill Inn [image credit: North Yorkshire Weather]

The BBC says ‘Customers and an Oasis cover band are trapped at the Tan Hill Inn, near Keld, after heavy snowfall.’ It’s still only November, and the Met Office has forecast a mild winter. In fact parts of Scotland and the English North East also had wintry conditions with all kinds of damage going on.
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A number of people had to sleep on the floor of Britain’s highest pub after Storm Arwen battered Yorkshire.

Twenty people, including an Oasis tribute band, were unable to leave the Tan Hill Inn in the Yorkshire Dales after being snowed in on Friday.

Elsewhere in the region, strong winds and snow have caused power cuts, fallen tress and travel disruption.

Britons face record bill as wind farms perform poorly again – Net Zero Watch

The higher the dependence on renewables, the worse problems such as ‘the vagaries of wind speed’ become.
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London, 25 November – The daily cost of balancing the electricity grid rocketed to £63 million yesterday, smashing the old record of £45 million, set just three weeks ago, reports Net Zero Watch.

Wind farms were performing poorly yet again, delivering only 20% of their theoretical capacity.

The Balancing Mechanism, which ensures that supply and demand are in balance hour by hour, was forced to pay up to £4000/MWh to get the coal-fired Drax 5 unit to switch on, at the same time as paying wind farms to switch off.

Flawed Climate Models? Arctic Ocean Started Getting Warmer Decades Earlier Than Thought

Fram Strait is the only deep passage between the Arctic and World Oceans [credit: Bdushaw @ Wikipedia]

Twenty six ‘COP’s and much of the world still claims to believe in, and frames its energy and various other policies according to, flawed climate models? If ‘rapid’ Arctic warming was already happening 120 years ago at an early stage of industrialisation what was, or were, the cause(s)?
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The Arctic Ocean has been getting warmer since the beginning of the 20th century – decades earlier than records suggest – due to warmer water flowing into the delicate polar ecosystem from the Atlantic Ocean.

An international group of researchers reconstructed the recent history of ocean warming at the gateway to the Arctic Ocean in a region called the Fram Strait, between Greenland and Svalbard, says SciTech Daily.

Using the chemical signatures found in marine microorganisms, the researchers found that the Arctic Ocean began warming rapidly at the beginning of the last century as warmer and saltier waters flowed in from the Atlantic – a phenomenon called Atlantification – and that this change likely preceded the warming documented by modern instrumental measurements.

Met Office promotes its climate projections for heat in UK cities

Warm day in London

Much talk of ‘extreme’ temperatures in UK cities in this Met Office blog post, although there aren’t any examples. There was a significant heatwave in 1976 and a few warmer than usual spells in the early 2000s, but talk of ‘frequency’ of such events seems premature to say the least. But the Met Office feels sure its computer modelling will prove to be accurate, and that weather trends are now largely determined by human activities.
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With the recent COP26 focussing heavily on the chances of keeping global temperature rise below 1.5°C, it might be easy to forget that we are still committed to further climate change and a resulting increase in the frequency and intensity of heatwaves.

The impact of this will be felt increasingly in cities, where the majority of the world’s population now live, where much of our businesses, industry and infrastructure are concentrated, and where extreme temperatures are exacerbated by the urban heat island effect.

With many cities across the UK declaring climate emergencies, city councils and other decision-makers are asking how they can use increasingly refined and detailed climate projections to better understand the impact of extreme heat on urban communities.

Surprise: Some Red Auroras are *not* Auroras

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Observing a recurring feature of the Earth’s ring current system.

Spaceweather.com

Nov. 22, 2021: The biggest geomagnetic storm in years erupted this month when a Cannibal CME slammed into Earth’s magnetic field. Auroras spread as far south as California and New Mexico. Upon closer inspection, however, not all of those lights were auroras. Some were “SARs.”

SARs are pure red arcs of light that ripple across the sky during strong geomagnetic storms. Here’s an example from Finland in 2018:

“The SAR was visible to the naked eye for nearly 30 minutes and, after fading a bit, remained visible to my camera for another hour and a half,” recalls photographer Matti Helin.

On Nov 4, 2021, Earth experienced a veritable SAR storm. “We photographed SARs as far south as the McDonald Observatory in Texas,” reports Jeff Baumgardner of Boston University’s Center for Space Physics. “The bands of light swept over our cameras near Boston, then headed south. We knew something special was…

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Dozens of ships stuck in Arctic as ice freezes early in reverse of recent warming winters

Arctic sea ice [image credit: cbc.ca]

Where are the ‘rapidly warming winters’ this time round? It seems global warming is behaving badly, in parts of the Arctic at least.
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Shipping firms blame the Russian Met office for a forecast that failed to predict the early ice, says the Telegraph.

More than two dozen cargo vessels are stuck in Russia’s Arctic ice, waiting for ice-breakers to come to their rescue, after an inaccurate forecast from the country’s Met Office.

Maritime traffic in the Northern Sea Route has been on the rise in recent years as rapidly warming winters reduce ice cover, and Russia invests in its Arctic ports in preparation for a further boom.

But this year several segments of the Northern Sea Route froze up about a fortnight earlier than usual, catching many ships unawares.

Alexei Likhachyov – director general of Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom, which manages the country’s nuclear-power fleet of ice-breakers – said on Monday that the ships included vessels sailing under the flags of Hong Kong and Marshall Islands.

He blamed the Russian Met office for a forecast that failed to predict the early ice, in comments to local media.

Continued here.

UK’s largest electrolyser to supply hydrogen storage facility at Scottish windfarm

Whitelee wind farm, Scotland [image credit: Bjmullan / Wikipedia]

Here’s the UK government’s latest shot at ‘net zero’ climate virtue signalling. Subsidised wind farms will help produce subsidised hydrogen to fuel subsidised hydrogen vehicles such as buses and bin lorries. This is obviously even more costly than just using the wind-sourced electricity itself to run vehicles, but gets round the battery weight problem for larger vehicles like buses and goods vehicles. But to scale up, the number of wind turbines needed is going to have to be far higher than now, to provide fuel as well as nationwide electricity. Is that even feasible, let alone affordable?
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A hydrogen storage plant will be built at the UK’s largest onshore windfarm near Glasgow, after the UK government approved a £9.4m grant, reports E&T News.

The Whitelee green hydrogen project will become the UK’s largest electrolyser, a system which converts water into hydrogen gas as a way to store energy.

Hydrogen is seen as a key replacement for fossil fuels in certain applications as the world moves towards decarbonisation.

It produces just heat and water as by-products when burned or used in fuel cells, making it a highly attractive alternative to fossil fuels in industry, power, shipping and transport.

It’s weather wars as the Met Office forecasts mild winter while the BBC predicts a big freeze

Place bets now! Of course there could well be bits of both. The Met Office says its offering is ‘consistent with a warming climate’, but there was a very cold winter spell only 11 years ago, around the time of the last solar minimum.
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Most know from bitter experience that meteorology is far from an exact science, but Britain’s two leading weather forecasting services have given completely contradictory predictions on what we can expect this winter, reports the Daily Mail.

The Government-run Met Office has forecast a mild winter, but the BBC’s service predicts it is likely to be cold and harsh.

Experts last night described the opposing long-range forecasts as unparalleled and they risk causing havoc for businesses such as energy suppliers, transport firms, supermarkets and airlines which rely on forecasts to plan ahead.

Climate-friendly farming: Greenland’s melting glaciers offer an answer

Greenland drink break [image credit: leisurelylifestyle.com]

As a bonus in today’s climate obsessed times, carbon credits could come into play for farmers to sell with this discovery. Even Danish brewers can benefit. Why fear glacier melt if it makes life better?
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On a shore near Greenland’s capital Nuuk, a local scientist points to a paradox emerging as the island’s glaciers retreat: one of the most alarming consequences of global warming could deliver a way to limit its effects, says Reuters (via Yahoo News).

“It’s a kind of wonder material,” says Minik Rosing, a native Greenlander, referring to the ultra-fine silt deposited as the glaciers melt.

Known as glacial rock flour, the silt is crushed to nano-particles by the weight of the retreating ice sheet, which deposits roughly one billion tonnes of it on the world’s largest island per year.

Professor Minik Rosing and his team at the University of Copenhagen have established the nutrient-rich mud boosts agricultural output when applied to farmland and absorbs carbon dioxide from the air in the process.

IPCC Climate Models Keep Failing Because They Don’t Respect Physics – The Daily Sceptic

Credit: NASA

H/T Tallbloke
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By Dr. Rudolph Kalveks — As the media, politicians and climate activists continue to circulate hysterical hot air from the Cop26 conference, the topic of climate change or anthropogenic global warming (AGW) has become an emotional one, increasingly detached from the thoughtful and meticulous process of theory development, calculation and observation that is supposed to characterise scientific endeavour.

It may come as a surprise to some that “The Science”, as expounded in the IPCC Summaries for Policymakers that inform conference participants, is not uncritically accepted by all scientists in the field, and that widely different views are held by a substantial cadre of experienced and eminent researchers.

Moreover, a multitude of peer-reviewed papers contradict many aspects of the IPCC’s alarmist narrative.

Furthermore, a coherent theory about the impact of changes in greenhouse gases (GHGs) is starting to emerge, one that is built up from the underlying physics, rather than extracted from fanciful computer simulations.

My aim here is to highlight some of the relevant papers and to inform any motivated layman who wishes to explore outside the dogmatic strictures of the mainstream narrative.

Let us start with an irrefutable example of the inability of climate models (general circulation models, GCMs) to provide meaningful projections.

Continued here.