Look Ma – Sunspots!

Coming over the Eastern limb.

H/T Gabe

Britain’s Climate Change Fool – Keeping The Lights On With Green Energy

Reblog didn’t acknowledge Fenbeagle for the wicked, so
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/the-cuckoo-card/

D’ya know t’other lot must hate who has best cartoonists.

[added by Tim]

Tory Aardvark

Britain’s Climate Change fool is at it again, this time Ed Davey is telling the country that wind and solar will keep the lights on when 20% of Britain’s power stations close by the end of the decade.

Writing in Liberal Democrat Voice Davey then drags out the well worn Green jobs lie, Green jobs have not happened anywhere in the world thus far, but don’t worry because Britain will buck the trend and millions of lasting Green jobs will be created because a Green ideologue says so.

Naturally consumers will be better off as well, as Davey predicts that 30% of Britain’s energy mix will be funded by taxpayers in the form of Green subsidies for wind, solar and all the other economically non viable renewable energy schemes that Big Green see as the future.

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Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors: Domestic Renewables are Uneconomic

From the Independent:

Solar panels are one of the least cost-effective ways of combating climate change and will take 100 years to pay back their installation costs, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) warned yesterday.

In a new guide on energy efficiency, Rics said that roof panels for heating water and generating power are unlikely to save enough from bills to make them financially viable in a householder’s lifetime. In the case of solar panels to heat water for baths and showers, the institution estimates the payback time from money saved from electricity and gas bills will take more than 100 years – and up to 166 years in the worst case.

Photovoltaic (PV) panels for power – and domestic, mast-mounted wind turbines – will take between 50 and 100 years to pay back.

Josh on Ross’ tax takeaway

Click for full size, link for background at bottom of article

For those who don’t yet know Ross McKitrick has a devilish suggestion putting money where mouth is into politicians. Yes let’s have a tax based on the atmospheric stratospheric hot spot above the tropics, that is after all the primary evidence of AGW according to the AGW experts.

Cartoon context “Here are my cartoon notes of a paper presented today by Prof Ross McKitrick, hosted by The GWPF in one of the committee rooms in the House of Lords, Westminster, London, UK. ”

Alan Carlin Destroys John Cook’s Credibility (If He Ever Had Any!)

Thwack! Take that John Cook.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

 

h/t Paul Matthews

 

I ran a post yesterday about how John Cook’s infamous  “97%” paper had incorrectly classified a paper by Alan Carlin as “endorsing the consensus on AGW” . But it seems I was already beaten to it by Popular Technology, who flagged this up, along with many other similar misclassifications. They also asked for comments from the scientists concerned, and Alan Carlin did not pull his punches:-

 

Dr. Carlin, your paper ‘A Multidisciplinary, Science-Based Approach to the Economics of Climate Change‘ is categorized by Cook et al. (2013) as; "Explicitly endorses AGW but does not quantify or minimize".
Is this an accurate representation of your paper?

Carlin: "No, if Cook et al’s paper classifies my paper, ‘A Multidisciplinary, Science-Based Approach to the Economics of Climate Change’ as "explicitly endorses AGW but does not quantify or minimize,"…

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Flip-Flop Fiasco – Failed Fix For Flatlined Fossil Fuel Fund Fields Fresh Fangs

From the EU Parliament

Plans to freeze the auctioning of some CO2 permits to encourage firms to invest in low-carbon innovation was backed by Parliament on Wednesday, after it narrowly rejected them in April. This time MEPs set stricter conditions for a freeze. The measure aims to restore the incentive effect of the Emissions Trading System, which is designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions and tackle climate change

The growing surplus of emission allowances – due to oversupply and the economic slowdown – has seen the carbon price fall well below levels estimated when the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) was created. At the Environment Committee’s recommendation, Parliament backed plans to allow the Commission to “backload” – or delay – the timing of a portion of credits to be auctioned.

Bad Biodiesel Beancounting Busts Biofuel Benefit Budget

From Nature:

The European Union (EU) has spent the past 10 years nurturing a €15-billion (US$20-billion) industry that makes transport fuel from food crops such as soya beans and sugar cane in the hope of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. Yet for more than half a decade, scientists have warned that many food-based fuels might actually be boosting emissions relative to fossil fuels.

The original accounting for biofuel emissions was all wrong, as Tim Searchinger, who studies environmental economics at Princeton University in New Jersey, noted in an influential 2008 article (T. Searchinger et al. Science 319, 1238–1240; 2008). He and his colleagues found that when agricultural land is used to plant biofuel crops, fresh land may be ploughed up to accommodate the existing crops that have been edged out. Ultimately, that may drive clearing of forests, peatlands and wetlands rich in sequestered carbon — causing large emissions of carbon dioxide. “It’s kind of obvious if you think about it,” says Searchinger.

SIDC Belgium show divergent model results

SIDC graphic, annotation added TNC

• SC (red dash-dotted) : classical Standard-Curves prediction method, based on a least-square interpolation of Waldmeier’s set of standard solar cycle profiles;
• CM (red dashes) : Combined Method (K.Denkmayr and P. Cugnon), based on a regression technique combining a geomagnetic precursor (aa index) with a least-square fit to the actual profiles of the past 24 solar cycles.

http://sidc.oma.be/sunspot-index-graphics/wolfjmms.php

One or other or both will be wrong.

Solar UV spectrograph satellite drop launched

Image Credit: Image: NASA TV

Winged launch rocket fires after drop from 39,000 feet by modified NASA Lockheed Tristar putting a spectrograph into sun synchronous orbit for a two year mission known as IRIS looking in detail at the solar corona UV spectra.

In my view this is important for understanding solar variability, UV is little understood and tends to fall outside of neat theory.

Desertec Divorces Dii: Development Dreams – Dead Duck

Desertec, the non-profit foundation set up to push the concept of solar power generation in deserts for DC transmission to urban centres, has pulled the plug on its involvement with Dii GMBH, the commercial company set up to realise its plans in 2009. Leo Hickman wrote a feature on DESERTEC in 2011. I wonder what this non-starter will have cost the taxpayer in the end.

From DESERTEC

Press Release
Heidelberg, 1st July 2013.

Today, the DESERTEC Foundation announced the termination of its membership with Dii GmbH. This action has been agreed upon by all members of the Supervisory Board and the Board of Directors at an extraordinary board meeting which took place on 27th June 2013.
In 2009, Dii GmbH had been founded as a cooperation between many renowned firms and DESERTEC Foundation to create appropriate conditions for the realisation of DESERTEC in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

2013 Chelyabinsk meteor largest ever detected by CTBTO infrasound sensors

2013 Russian Fireball largest ever detected by CTBTO infrasound sensors†

Alexis Le Pichon1,*, Lars Ceranna, Christoph Pilger, Pierrick Mialle, David Brown, Pascal Herry, Nicolas Brachet
DOI: 10.1002/grl.50619

Ho ho, paper title is somewhat ridiculous. Fire makes a loud noise?

Warwick Hughes blog defaced by spammer

Warwick Hughes has had his blog site defaced by a spammer, nothing to do with climate people. Added content is the red outlined text at the head of the image above.

Someone with close contact please let him know.