The Mysterious Movements of GOES-13

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Conspiracy theorists will probably like this one…

Spaceweather.com

Sept. 11, 2019: Scott Tilley has an unusual hobby. He scans the skies for satellites where they shouldn’t be. Using an S-band receiver, the amateur radio operator has tracked many classified spacecraft orbiting Earth and famously found NASA’s IMAGE satellite when it woke up from the dead last year. This past weekend he bagged another one: GOES-13.

“This was quite a surprise,” says Tilley. “I thought GOES-13 was in a graveyard orbit–yet I found it quite active and wandering on Sept. 8th.”

GOES-13 is a NOAA weather satellite. It was retired in January 2018 after a storied 12-year career during which it monitored some of the most notorious weather events in recent U.S. history – including Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and the triple disaster of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria in 2018. The satellite also experienced significant space weather: In December 2006, GOES-13 observed a solar flare so intense it…

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Climate change: Electrical industry’s ‘dirty secret’ boosts warming – claims BBC

High-voltage switchgear [image credit: Dingy @ Wikipedia]

The BBC loves its so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ and is convinced they control the climate, but forgets that they mostly consist of water vapour and the alleged effects are based on failing climate models. Now it seems the dash for renewable electricity is adding even more of these supposedly fearsome molecules to the poor defenceless atmosphere. Clean, green electricity? Not quite. How will climate miserablists cope with this shocking – to them – news?

It’s the most powerful greenhouse gas you’ve never heard of, and levels in the atmosphere are soaring,wails the BBC.

Sulphur hexafluoride, or SF6, is widely used in the electrical industry to prevent short circuits and accidents.

But leaks of the little-known gas in the UK and the rest of the EU in 2017 were the equivalent of putting an extra 1.3 million cars on the road.

Levels are rising as an unintended consequence of the green energy boom.

UK stargazers to be treated to rare Harvest Moon

Image credit: farmersalmanac.com

The Harvest Moon is the Full Moon nearest to the September equinox, which occurs around September 22.

The UK is set to be treated to a rare occurrence of a Harvest Moon tonight.

The Moon will be about 14 per cent smaller in the sky than an average full moon, making it an especially rare “micromoon”, says the London Evening Standard.

Maine Farmers’ Almanac astronomer Joe Rao said the time it peaks will depend on the position of the moon.

Police to XR plotters : You’re nicked!

Police on the move

UPDATE: Police jamming drone signals at Heathrow airport

UPDATE 2: Bailed XR leader arrested again – at Heathrow

H/T The GWPF

Drama at Billy’s Cafe. “There we were, innocently having a coffee with the press, as you do. Then next thing you know – out of the blue – we’re getting cuffed and hauled off by the law”…said nobody. Seems like a fair cop.

Heathrow Pause says two of its activists have been “pre-emptively” arrested before they started flying drones as part of a climate protest, reports Sky News.

Activists have been planning to fly drones at Heathrow Airport tomorrow.

Latest eco-folly – Extreme E: climate change racing series

Electric SUV concept car [image credit: motorauthority.com]

Marketing meets climate alarmism in the guise of sport. Don’t mention the ‘carbon emissions’ of all the travel and transport between venues.

Williams development driver Jamie Chadwick is named as one of four women to drive in Extreme E, which kicks off in Greenland in 2021, reports BBC Sport.

Extreme E – Formula E’s sister series – aims to highlight climate change in five remote locations as 12 cars go head-to-head in electric SUVs.

“Racing in incredible locations, raising awareness for climate change… what’s not to love,” said Chadwick.

European Green Deal portfolio handed to EU vice president, in major elevation

Money to burn?

A major elevation of the delusion of having some control over the weather, that is. Looks like evr more vast sums of money will have to poured down the drain before anyone notices it’s not having any effect on the climate, if they ever do notice.

Dutch social democrat Frans Timmermans has been named executive vice president responsible for strategy to make the EU climate neutral by 2050, reports Climate Home News.
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Climate action is getting a promotion in the next European Commission, with the portfolio assigned to one of three executive vice presidents.

Dutch social democrat Frans Timmermans was nominated on Tuesday to develop the “European green deal” over the next five years. He is to directly manage the climate change directorate (DG Clima) and coordinate efforts across agriculture, health, transport, energy, cohesion and environment.

Announcing the line-up in a webcast press conference, commission president Ursula von der Leyen said she wanted to create a “flexible, agile” team to deliver on the bloc’s priorities.

COP26: Glasgow to host UN climate change summit in 2020

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

Another two week edition of the fantasy waffle-fest beckons, as imaginary solutions to imaginary man-made problems are chewed over by about thirty thousand climate botherers aka delegates. Most of them will arrive from all parts of the world in fuel-guzzling jets – just like they do every year, wherever the venue is. It’s the make-work scheme that never ends. Who’s paying?

A major United Nations climate change summit will take place in Glasgow, reports BBC News.

The UK has won the bid to host the 26th Conference of the Parties, known as COP26, following a partnership with Italy.

Up to 30,000 delegates are expected to attend the event at Glasgow’s Scottish Events Campus (SEC) at the end of next year.

It is designed to produce an international response to the climate emergency.

The UK will host the main COP summit while Italy will host preparatory events and a significant youth event, as part of the agreement.

UK To Impose A Competitive Carbon Tax After No-Deal Brexit

Photosynthesis: nature requires carbon dioxide

A hint of commonsense in post-Brexit climate policy, if or when we get there? So-called ‘carbon’ taxes may well be a pointless nonsense, but if one has to be endured then the lower the better.

The United Kingdom is set to impose a £16 per ton tax on carbon if it leaves the European Union without a deal on October 31, according to government plans, reports The GWPF (from Forbes).

If the UK leaves the EU without a deal, it will also leave the EU’s Emissions Trade System (ETS), the centrepiece of the bloc’s efforts to meet European countries’ emissions reduction obligations.

Lightning ‘superbolts’ form over oceans from November to February

Image credit: NASA

But why so? ‘No theories so far’ seems to be the real meaning behind the quote ‘for reasons that are not yet fully understood’. One of the few clues is that such strikes tend to be over water, and mainly in specific areas e.g. the Mediterranean.

The lightning season in the Southeastern U.S. is almost finished for this year, but the peak season for the most powerful strokes of lightning won’t begin until November, according to a newly published global survey of these rare events.

A University of Washington study maps the location and timing of “superbolts”—bolts that release electrical energy of more than 1 million Joules, or a thousand times more energy than the average lightning bolt, in the very low frequency range in which lightning is most active, reports Phys.org.

Results show that superbolts tend to hit the Earth in a fundamentally different pattern from regular lightning, for reasons that are not yet fully understood.

Green suicide: Climate hysteria is killing German car industry

VW ID. model

H/T The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)

Let’s see what slice of the German car market goes to electric cars in the next few years. If most people don’t want them due to cost, range, battery life or whatever, where would that leave the manufacturers – and the politicians, with their beloved so-called ‘climate protection’ policies and arbitrary ’emissions’ targets? In trouble, surely.

Frankfurt’s biennial International Auto Show (IAA) opens its doors to the public Thursday, but major foreign carmakers are staying away while climate demonstrators march outside — forming a microcosm of the industry’s woes, says AFP.

“There have never been so many cancellations by carmakers,” said Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer of the Centre for Automotive Research (CAR).

Lunar connection: the Saros, nodal and apsidal cycles

Image credit: naturalnavigator.com

The contention here is that in the time taken for 14 lunar nodal cycles, the difference between the number of Saros eclipse cycles and lunar apsidal cycles (i.e the number of ‘beats’ of those two periods) is exactly 15.

Since 15-14 = 1, this period of 260.585 tropical years might itself be considered a cycle. It is just over 9 Inex eclipse cycles (260.5 years) of 358 synodic months each, by definition.

Although it’s hard to find references to ~260 years as a possible climate and/or planetary period, there are a few for the half period i.e. 130 years, for example here.

E-bike grumbles echo in the Bavarian Alps

In the Bavarian Alps

Are power-assisted e-bikers on walking trails ‘cheating’ and/or a hazard to walkers? How many is too many?

Robert Werner and his wife Ursula usually make time to say a friendly hello to hikers as they ride their gently whirring e-bikes up trails in the Bavarian Alps, reports TechXplore.

But more often than not, their greetings are met with frowns.

“The first thing they look at when they see us are our bikes,” says hotelier Robert, 46, of his electric-powered bicycle.

“If we have an engine, they respect us less.”

While the Werners are convinced of the virtues of e-bikes which have pedals but also an electric motor that can assist the rider’s pedal power, others are less enthusiastic about the new revolution in cycling.

On their e-bikes, the couple powers up the 800-metre (2,600-foot) ascent to the summit of Herzogstand mountain in half an hour—without breaking a sweat.

Many purists believe exploits into nature should be powered by muesli bars, not the electricity grid, and regard the assisted cycling boom as another hi-tech intrusion into the great outdoors.

NASA quip: ‘Honey I Shrunk the Planetary System’

The Kepler-42 system as compared to the Jovian system [credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech]

The headline was NASA’s joke about both the size and the short orbit periods (all less than two days) of the three planets in the Kepler-42 system.

The discovery of this system dates back to 2012, but there don’t seem to be any numbers on resonant periods, so we’ll supply some now.

Wikipedia says:
‘Kepler-42, formerly known as KOI-961, is a red dwarf located in the constellation Cygnus and approximately 131 light years from the Sun. It has three known extrasolar planets, all of which are smaller than Earth in radius, and likely also in mass.’

‘On 10 January 2012, using the Kepler Space Telescope three transiting planets were discovered in orbit around Kepler-42. These planets’ radii range from approximately those of Mars to Venus. The Kepler-42 system is only the second known system containing planets of Earth’s radius or smaller (the first was the Kepler-20 system). These planets’ orbits are also compact, making the system (whose host star itself has a radius comparable to those of some hot Jupiters) resemble the moon systems of giant planets such as Jupiter or Saturn more than it does the Solar System.’

The three planets in order of distance from their star (nearest first) are c,b and d. They all have very short orbit periods ranging from under half a day to less than two days, and the star has only 13% of the power of our Sun.

Hurricane Dorian: Just weather, not climate change

Hurricane Dorian

As the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season arrives, weather forecaster Chris Martz tries to inject some sanity into the clamour around the latest weather event to hit the headlines. This is an extract from the full article, which as you might expect offers a more in-depth view.

We’ve made it three weeks without extreme weather and/or climate change hysteria making rounds on social media. Unfortunately, that streak has come to an end, making the lives of most weather forecasters like me a lot more difficult.

We are quickly approaching climatological peak of the Atlantic hurricane season¹ (September 10th) (Figure 1), thus it should be NO surprise to anyone that we have seen an uptick in tropical activity. However, I stand corrected － people are losing their minds about it.
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Debunking the SST myth

I want to debunk the popular myth that has been circulating around the internet. Warmer sea surface temperatures (SST) does not guarantee that hurricanes will become more frequent or more intense.

The Return of STEVE

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Introducing ‘STEVE and the green pickets’. This summer, researchers confirmed that STEVE is not an aurora, but is instead a unique phenomenon.

Spaceweather.com

Sept. 5, 2019: Sky watchers are still sorting out all the things they saw during last weekend’s Labor Day geomagnetic storm.  Upon further review, not every light in the sky was the aurora borealis. There was also STEVE:

“Look at the mauve-colored plume. That’s STEVE,” says Alan Dyer, who took the picture at the Saskatchewan Summer Star Party on Aug. 31st. “We saw STEVE two nights in a row from our area in western Canada.”

STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) looks like an aurora, but it is not. The phenomenon is caused by hot (3000°C) ribbons of gas flowing through Earth’s magnetosphere at speeds exceeding 6 km/s (13,000 mph). These ribbons appear during some geomagnetic storms, revealing themselves by their soft purple glow.

Earlier this year, researchers led by Toshi Nishimura of Boston University published an important paper about STEVE. Using data from NASA’s THEMIS spacecraft, they…

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German Wind Lobby Demands Endangered Species Protection To Be Watered Down

Feldheim village near Berlin, Germany.

H/T The GWPF

Consider the uproar that greets most kinds of environment-related proposals that even might have a negative impact on any sort of wildlife. Then wonder at what the wind industry has so far been allowed to get away with. Does the pushback stand a chance in the face of current climate change mythology?

The ban on killing endangered species is turning into an ‘absolute obstacle to planning’ new wind farms in Germany, says Die Welt.

Now, the wind lobby wants to water down conservation laws protecting endangered species. The wind power industry can hardly erect any new turbines because of a flood of complaints.
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The ban on killing endangered wildlife is turning into an ‘absolute obstacle to planning’ – extrapolated death figures show that tens of thousands of birds are affected.

When the wind power industry presented its interim results at the end of July, the shock waves went far beyond the eco-electricity scene: in the first six months of the year, only 35 new wind turbines were added in Germany.

Wild geese take climate action

Image credit: Jasper Koster / Phys.org

But is there a twist to this tale? From the research article we learn this:
‘The geese spend the winter and spring on the Solway Firth, United Kingdom. They utilize areas in Norway for spring staging, and breed on the high‐arctic archipelago of Svalbard (Figure 1; Owen & Black, 1999). Recently, a small but increasing number of barnacle geese spend the pre‐migratory period on the Solway before heading directly towards Svalbard (LG, unpublished), which was disregarded in the current study due to a lack of quantitative data.’

Why are they now – apparently at least – staying longer on the Solway (south coast of Scotland) in the spring and bypassing their ‘spring stage’ in Norway? As Dutch researchers asked two years ago: Can barnacle geese predict the climate?
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Migratory animals are actively adjusting their traditions to climate change, new research has found.

An international team of researchers from the University of St. Andrews, with Norwegian, Dutch and British colleagues, found that barnacle geese have shifted their migratory route within the last 25 years, reports Phys.org.

Dense Antarctic water returning to the Atlantic surprises experts

Antarctica

The lead oceanographer in this research says: “The deep oceans have been warming across much of the world for decades, so we were surprised to suddenly see this trend reversing and stabilizing in the Scotia Sea.”
Carbon dioxide up, warming down – surprising to some it seems.

The supply of dense Antarctic water from the bottom of the ocean to the Atlantic has declined in recent years, says Phys.org.

However, a new study explains for the first time how since 2014 this has stabilized and slightly recovered due to the variability in upstream dense waters, with implications for the global climate.

The study, led by British Antarctic Survey, is published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The lazy assertion that Hurricane Dorian is caused by climate change

Hurricane Dorian

‘Climate change’ being shorthand for ‘man-made climate change’ of course. Every year has an Atlantic hurricane season, so the simple fact of one occurring proves nothing. But climate propagandists will always cast around for any excuse, however thin, to claim that man is somehow making things worse.

Hurricane Dorian had hardly struck the shores of the Bahamas before Twitter began to fill up with comments willing it to carry on and flatten Donald Trump’s Mar a Lago estate in Florida ‘to teach the climate change denier-in-chief’ a lesson, says Ross Clark @ The Spectator.

Others eviscerated Florida senator and former governor Rick Scott for suggesting on Fox News that ‘we don’t know what the cause is’ of a run of strong hurricanes.

From Al Gore to David Attenborough, footage of hurricanes is used as a staple background for films about climate change, the inference being that the viewer is watching the effects of a dreadful, man-made disaster which would not have occurred had it not been for human-induced climate change.

Does the Nikolov and Zeller discovery violate energy conservation?

Ned and Karl often run into people on twitter who tell them that their ‘theory’ violates the 1st Law of thermodynamics. Firstly, as Ned points out, their empirical work is not a theory, but a discovery. But let’s allow Paul to develop his argument, and then we’ll pick it apart and see if it ‘holds water’.

Paul Alter@PAlterBoy1 writes: I wrote this up with the help of a physicist and a climate scientist. You have a gas in a cylinder with a piston. Kinetic energy is applied to the piston. The piston adds energy to the gas through its work: the work by a force is the force times the distance the force (work).

2/ point is moved into the direction of the force. The piston exerts a force on the gas and when it moves to compress the gas it “works” and hence adds energy. The energy that the moving piston adds to the gas is converted into heat, to the effect that total energy is conserved.