Miles Mathis: On Transparency

Excerpt from Miles Mathis’ long paper on the precession of the perihelion of Mercury (short version here). I’m posting this for it’s general applicability, without getting into a Hu Flung Dung about relativity (Which Mathis isn’t challenging anyway – just the errors in its calculation).

I have heard some complain, regarding my papers, that I talk too much. Physicists and mathematicians are used to being fed just the equations, with very little or no explanation of what the equations are representing. But although I understand the complaint, I refuse to recognize it as valid. In my opinion, the slowness of progress in physics has been caused by this refusal of mathematicians and scientists to tell us what is going on. How else could Einstein’s major mistake in this problem have stood for so long? It is because he gave us no explanations with his equations. He skipped all or most of the procedural steps, and just supplied the bald derivation of the number. Yes, the use of the tensor calculus made the math quite lengthy, but the procedure was still but a skeleton. Einstein refused to lead us through his maze, so that we could see what was happening all along.

NASA: Asteroid 2013 TV135 Put on Torino Scale 1 Alert for Possible Earth Impact in 2032

A Ukrainian observatory has picked up a big asteroid which has a ~1 in 63000 chance of whacking the Earth in 2032, according to this story from the Independent:

Ukrainian astronomers have discovered a large asteroid heading for Earth which could strike our planet on 26 August 2032, impacting with a force 50 times greater than the biggest ever nuclear bomb.

Its existence has been verified by teams around the world, in at least 27 distinct observations over the course of the past week, and Nasa has been forced to issue an earth impact risk summary as part of its Near Earth Object Program.

OHC, Cloud, and the infamous 2003 Data Splice between XBT and ARGO

Collected from Judy Curry’s site, some well informed analysis on Ocean Heat Content (OHC) and cloud cover variation by ‘Chief Hydrologist’ which should put us in mind of Peter Berenyi’s excellent analysis published here a couple of years ago:

 

Chief Hydrologist | August 28, 2013 at 8:57 pm |

In ARGO from 2005 to 2010 – the increase is about 0.3E+22 J/yr. This is pretty much consistent with CERES and SORCE over the period – with the changes all in shortwave. I would suggest that earlier ocean temp data – especially to 2000m – might be a little lacking and that the splice between the old and new data looks horrendously unlikely. I suggest that the planet is again cooling with more recent increases in cloud shown in the Palle and Laken paper.

Oceans gained energy to 1998 – pretty much in line with changes in ERBS net radiant flux. Which again was all in shortwave as a result of cloud radiative forcing.

http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Wong2006figure7.gif.html?sort=3&o=129

The interesting bit however is the increase in cloud in the 1998/2001. Here it is in ISCCP-FD.

http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/SWupnotes_zps3f1ab841.jpg.html?sort=3&o=34

But it shows in Project Earthshine and ERBS as well. The 1976/77 shift shows in COADS – which again is consistent with ISCCP-FD

German power play – silly EU CO2 rules for cars delayed at least till 2024

The k2p blog

It’s the right decision of course. The proposal was for yet another one of the many EU rules where the benefits are doubtful and the implementation would have had no measurable effects on the desired outcome.

But entirely due to German protectionism for its performance car industry – and much to the disappointment of Ford– the limit of 95g of CO2 per km for any vehicle’s emissions has now been delayed at least till 2024!  Well Done Germany!

“The emissions limits are part of the EU’s drive to switch Europe to a low-carbon economy and slow the impact of climate change.”

The EU’s CO2 restrictions proposals for power plants and for aircraft and this one for cars are part of of a long line of  “feel-good” proposals which the Greens are so fond of — full of sound and idiocy, accomplishing nothing. So far the EU has not proposed…

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The lunar nodal cycle and its effects on climate

The k2p blog

A paper has just been published in the International Journal of Climatology showing that the lunar nodal cycle influences “the low-frequency summer rainfall variability over the plains to the east of subtropical Andes, in South America, through long-term sea surface temperature (SST) variations induced by the nodal amplitude of diurnal tides over southwestern South Atlantic (SWSA).”

Eduardo Andres Agosta, The 18.6-year nodal tidal cycle and the bi-decadal precipitation oscillation over the plains to the east of subtropical Andes, South America, International J of Climatology, DOI: 10.1002/joc.3787

Abstract: This work shows statistical evidence for lunar nodal cycle influence on the low-frequency summer rainfall variability over the plains to the east of subtropical Andes, in South America, through long-term sea surface temperature (SST) variations induced by the nodal amplitude of diurnal tides over southwestern South Atlantic (SWSA). In years of strong (weak) diurnal tides, tide-induced diapycnal mixing makes SST cooler (warmer) together with…

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500+ kg fragment of Chelyabinsk meteorite recovered from lake

MP4 video on site

Huge half-ton chunk of Russian meteorite lifted from lakebed

The meteorite if that is what it is, has broken into fragments.

Various news outlets have the story and pictures.

1947 Shock News : International Agency Needed To Stop Polar Meltdown

Steven Goddard finds another gem about the Arctic’s *not* unprecedented melting in the newspaper archive.

Real Climate Science

31 May 1947 – ARCTIC PHENOMENON Warming Of Climate Causes Concern

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Hoisted by his own Petard: Chevron Stand up to allegedly Lying Lawyer

You know those brainless crims who get prosecuted after police confiscate their mobile phones and find video footage of their malfeasance on them? Wouldn’t happen to a smart green lawyer with a strong set of NGO’s behind him though, right? Wrong:

From the New York Post:

Chevron is suing lawyer Steven Donziger and a number of activist environmental groups in a civil-racketeering suit, claiming that his landmark $19 billion award against the oil company in an Ecuadorean court was the product of a criminal conspiracy.

Ironically, much of the company’s evidence comes from footage shot for “Crude,” an award-winning pro-Donziger documentary that premiered with much publicity at the Sundance Film Festival.

An Ecuadorean court found Chevron responsible for massive pollution and awarded the rainforest communities (and lawyers) $19 billion. It was hailed as one of the most significant environmental victories in decades.

Guilty or not, corporations often pay such settlements so they can move on with business. But Chevron decided to fight back — and it seems to have uncovered a massive green extortion plot.

Chevron got a court order for more than 500 hours of footage from “Crude” that never made it into the documentary.

Ian Wilson: Connecting the Planetary Periodicities to Changes in the Earth’s Length of Day

This guest post by Ian Wilson is very timely in the wake f the Wyatt-Curry paper currently under discussion here at the talkshop. Thanks Ian for the recognition of our independent work, although you are one of the ‘collaborators’ yourself! (that sounds very ‘conspiratorial’ 🙂 ).

Connecting the Planetary Periodicities to Changes in the Earth’s Length of Day
Ian Wilson – 15th Oct 2013

[(*) Some of the findings in this blog post concerning the connection between the Earth’s rotation rate and the planetary configurations have also been independently discovered by Rog “Tallbloke” Tattersall and his collaborators]

A. The Connection Between Extreme Pergiean Spring Tides and Long-term Changes in the Earth’s Rotation Rate as Measured by the Rate-of-Change of its Length-of-Day (LOD). (*)

If you plot the rate of change of the Earth’s Length of Day (LOD) [with the short-term atmospheric component removed] against time [starting in 1962] you find that there is a ~ 6 year periodicity that is phase-locked with the 6 year period that it takes the lunar line-of-nodes  to re-align with the lunar line-of-apse [see the first note directly below].

NB: The pro-grade precession of the lunar line-of-apse once around the Earth with respect to the stars takes 8.8504 Julian years (J2000) while the retrograde precession of the lunar line-of-apse once around the Earth with respect to the stars takes 18.6000 Julian years (J2000). Hence, the lunar line-of-apse and the ascending node of the lunar line-of-nodes will realign once every:
(18.6000 x 8.8504) / (18.6000 + 8.8504)  = 5.9969 Julian years

Figure 1

[NB: that in the case of figure 1 the line-of-nodes and line-of-apse are just re-aligning with each other. They do not necessarily realign with the Sun – see figure 2].

Another UK Energy Policy Crisis Roundup

As Ed Davey and the Libdems dig their heels in over green taxes, the public becomes angrier and more open eyed to the utter failure of all the main parties to competently run a sound energy policy under the yoke of E.U. laws they have bound us all to. This from CCNet:

CCNet 14/10/13

Britain’s Energy Chaos: Investors Abandon Sinking Ship

Red Cross To Distribute Winter Food For First Times Since Second World War

The City has now finally digested Ed Miliband’s energy policy, which could cost the supply companies at least £4.5bn over 2015-17. It is clear that the threat of a price freeze will chill investment in new generating capacity, regardless of what some in Westminster may hope. Equity investors have reacted as they ought to have on day one: they have been selling out of the entire UK gas and electricity sector (and not just supply companies) and switching their money into utilities based in safer countries, –Allister Heath, City A.M., 14 October 2013

Families struggling to cope with rising energy bills face more misery after one of the UK’s leading utilities warned that environmental taxes would trigger even higher prices. The scale of the problem was underlined when the Red Cross announced that it will collect and distribute food aid in Britain this winter for the first time since the second world war. –Guy Chazan, Financial Times, 14 October 2013

SORCE TSI spacecraft in dire trouble, launch window set for jury rigged stopgap

As anticipated the SORCE TSI experiment is on it’s last legs as yet another battery cell went bad.

With the loss of another battery cell, SORCE is now operating in a new configuration. While we are working ultimately towards recovering back to normal operations with daily solar irradiance measurements, our current focus is preparing the spacecraft to support a campaign mode to assure overlapping measurements between SORCE and TCTE in December 2013. There will be a data gap for SORCE for several weeks, but we plan to continue the SORCE solar irradiance measurements as soon as it is feasible.
The following lists more details about SORCE status and plans for future operations.

SORCE spacecraft is currently operating in an ‘emergency’ mode.
— http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/sorce/2013/08/19/sorce-spacecraft-status/

Note: there is a coda on a related subject at the end of this report.

Dear Sir: Badly Sited Wind Turbines Don’t Make Sense For Fuel Bill Payers

From the Melton Times letters page:

Wind Turbines: Expensive energy

There has been a lot of debate on wind turbines recently due to the rise in planning applications within and around the Vale of Belvoir.

I spent my working life as a power electronics/electrical power engineer, latterly as a consultant for Siemens on offshore wind farms at Thanet and Gwynt y Mor.

The Government is currently reviewing the wind power subsidies which are paid for by taxpayers so the renewable power companies are rushing to install turbines that will be locked into the present high feed in tariff (FIT index linked) subsidy for the next 20 years.

To understand why wind turbines are so attractive to these entrepreneurs you have to ‘follow the money’.

Benny Peiser: Looming Energy Crisis and Spiralling Fuel Bills Spark Infighting

A round up of the top Energy stories from Benny Peiser over at the GWPF. Click here for the full report and links to original articles.

Britain is negotiating a secret deal to help to shield Germany’s luxury car industry from new European climate rules in return for support for UK bankers. Downing Street officials and their counterparts in Berlin held discussions after Germany sought help to delay the introduction of caps on carbon dioxide emissions that could harm BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi. –Ben Webster and Sam Coates, The Times, 12 October 2013

Ministers are urged to initiate an immediate review of Britain’s entire green energy strategy or risk forcing household gas and electricity bills up every year for the rest of the decade. The chief executive of the energy giant added that SSE would be stopping all investment in offshore wind and new power plants until the 2015 election because of the acute political uncertainty around energy since Ed Miliband promised a price freeze if Labour wins power. –Steve Hawkes, The Daily Telegraph, 10 October 2013

Variation in slingshot effect on space-probes: Astronomers ‘Stumped’

Trebuchet war engines utilise a similar principle to the slingshot effect

H/T to Ian WIlson for this article which reveals a decades old mysterious anomaly with the slingshot effect: The technique used to accelerate deep space probes towards their destination using Earth’s gravity. Unexplained variations have puzzled the experts. This from Science daily:

Oct. 9, 2013 — A mystery that has stumped scientists for decades might be one step closer to solution after ESA tracking stations carefully record signals from NASA’s Juno spacecraft as it swings by Earth today.

NASA’s deep-space probe will zip past to within 561 km at 19:21 GMT as it picks up a gravitational speed boost to help it reach Jupiter in 2016.

Engineers hope that the new measurements will unravel the decades-old ‘flyby anomaly’ — an unexplained variation in spacecraft speeds detected during some swingbys.

Judy Curry and Marcia Wyatt: The stadium wave

Judy Curry and Marcia Wyatt’s paper meshes with Talkshop research on quasi cyclic solar system dynamics.

Climate Etc.

by Judith Curry

This paper will change the way you think about natural internal variability.

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Andrew Orlowski: Boffins find MEXICAN WAVE pattern in random climate wobbles

Just published at popular UK based tech-news site the Register: an article by Andrew Orlowski which looks behind the curtain following the new paper by Curry & Wyatt which raises the probability that natural cyclic variability underlies most of the ‘global warming’ seen in the late C20th, and the ‘plateau’  (TM Nature.com) seen since the turn of the C21st. In the second half of the article, Andrew looks at the possible causes, and provides several links to the talkshop, in addition to mentioning Abreu et al and Nicola Scafetta’s work.

A new paper has found hitherto undiscovered rhythms in the climate. What is today regarded as random natural variability actually conforms to a “standing wave” (aka, Mexican Wave) pattern, boffins have found, meaning the climate is much more predictable than previously thought.

Bob Fernley-Jones: Why does Arctic sea ice loss start in March at 30 below?

Here’s another guest post to get the thought processes working at the weekend. This question, posed by Bob FJ is a good one. The IPCC and the cryosphere experts seem to be telling us that ‘global warming’ is responsible for the downtrend in Arctic sea ice over the last few decades, during the warm phase of the ocean oscillations since we’ve had satellite measurements of total ice area. 

Why does Arctic sea ice loss start in March at ~30⁰C below freezing?

Guest post by Bob Fernley-Jones

Not only is it sub-freezing for several months, (see fig 2) but fig 1 shows the sun very low in the sky:

Figure 1 and the data are derived from this calculation tool.

Ed Hoskins: The Influence of Carbon Dioxide on Temperature

My thanks to Ed Hoskins, who would like a talkshop discussion concerning his analysis of the diminishing effect of increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. His article tries to show that even if CO2 has the warming power the IPCC attributes to it, most of it’s ability to cause warming is already in lay, and that adding more will have little effect. Although this study doesn’t take any account of warming allegedly ‘in the pipeline’, recent assessments by Tim Channon and Roger Andrews indicate the e-folding time of CO2 is considerably less than IPCC estimates.

The influence of Carbon Dioxide CO2 on temperature
Ed Hoskins – Oct 10 2013

The temperature increasing capacity of atmospheric CO2 is known to diminish as concentrations increase.  This diminution effect is probably the reason why there was no runaway greenhouse warming caused by CO2 in earlier eons when CO2 levels were known to be at levels of several thousands ppm^v.

Both sceptics and Global Warming advocates agree on this.  IPCC Published reports, (TAR3), acknowledge that the effective temperature increase caused by growing concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere radically diminishes with increasing concentrations.  This information has been in the IPCC reports.  It is well disguised for any lay reader, (Chapter 6. Radiative Forcing of Climate Change: section 6.3.4 Total Well-Mixed Greenhouse Gas Forcing Estimate)[i].

Up to 200 ppm^v, the equivalent to about 82% of the temperature increasing effectiveness of CO2, is essential to maintain plant life and thus life on earth.  The current level of ~400 ppm^v is already committed and immutable.  At that level it amounts to 93% of the warming effect of CO2 in the atmosphere .

Thus only about 7% of the effectiveness of CO2 as a warming greenhouse gas now remains.

 

Thousands of Cattle Dead in South Dakota Blizzard

H/T to Gray Steven’s for this inconvenient story which doesn’t fit the news-topical warming narrative.

Why isn’t this on the news?
The worst blizzard in recorded history of South Dakota just swept
through the state. Tens of thousands of cattle are predicted dead and
the much of the state is still without power.

A young steer struggles in deep snow in Dakota.

The Rapid City Journal reports,

”Tens of thousands of cattle lie dead across South Dakota onMonday following a blizzard that could become one of the most costlyin the history of the state’s agriculture industry.”

Nicola Scafetta: Discussion on climate oscillations: CMIP5 general circulation models versus a semi-empirical harmonic model based on astronomical cycles

Congratulations to Dr Nicola Scafetta, who has just had another major paper published in the high-impact journal Earth-Science Reviews. In email, Nicola tells me:

This paper contains a detailed analysis of all CMIP5 models used by the IPCC, and demonstrates that they do not well reproduce the decadal and multidecadal patterns since 1850 (not just the temperature standstill since 2000, the failure is nearly total). The paper extensively discusses my astronomical based model since the Medieval Warm Period and demonstrates its far better performance than the CMIP5 models.

Fig. 1. [A] Power spectra of the HadCRUT4 GST (1850–2012) (black) and of the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere GSTs using the Maximum entropy Method (MEM); red boxes represents major astronomical oscillations associated to a decadal soli–lunar tidal cycle (about 9.1 years), and to the major heliospheric harmonics associated to Jupiter and Saturn gravitational and electromagnetic effects and to solar cycles (about 10–12, 15, 19–22, 59–63 years)

Fig. 25 (click for larger)	Fig. 27 (click for larger)

Earth-Science Reviews
Volume 126, November 2013, Pages 321–357
Abstract:
Power spectra of global surface temperature (GST) records (available since 1850) reveal major periodicities at about 9.1, 10–11, 19–22 and 59–62 years. Equivalent oscillations are found in numerous multisecular paleoclimatic records. The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5) general circulation models (GCMs), to be used in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5, 2013), are analyzed and found not able to reconstruct this variability. In particular, from 2000 to 2013.5 a GST plateau is observed while the GCMs predicted a warming rate of about 2 °C/century. In contrast, the hypothesis that the climate is regulated by specific natural oscillations more accurately fits the GST records at multiple time scales.