Solve a science problem: win £10 million

MIT Daedalus [credit: Wikipedia]

EXPLORE THE SIX CHALLENGES

The idea of the prize stems from the competition once organised to find a reliable method of sea navigation. After a long struggle with the scientific authorities (sounds familiar?) the prize went to John Harrison’s chronometer.

The winning category will be selected by public vote this week, then the competition can start.

Here’s the real reason the Tories are allowing the destruction of robin eggs and nests

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Words fail me. Clearly we need to redevelop brownfield sites, but wait until the young have flown for pity’s sake.

Pride's Purge

(not satire – it’s the Tories!)

I must admit to having been more than a little puzzled at first as to why Natural England are proposing that nests and eggs of bird species such as robins and starlings will be allowed to be destroyed without the granting of special licences.

This would mean members of the public would be allowed to destroy any nests or eggs they came across – more or less at will.

Natural England’s consultation paper on the subject doesn’t shed much light on the reasons for these quite shocking proposals either – other than stating that these birds can present a “public health and safety” hazard.

There is no explanation of what exactly the public health and safety hazards of robins’ and starlings’ eggs are.

However, after a little investigation into the murky waters of party donations all has now become clear.

Last year government ministers chose Andrew Sells…

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Hexagon found on Neptune?

Neptune – Earth comparison [credit: Wikipedia]

Last year we had an interesting discussion here at the Talkshop on the topic of Saturn’s ‘polar hexagon’ which has been the subject of many photos and videos by the Cassini orbiter.

During the discussion Dr Carolyn Porco, a NASA scientist, dropped by to explain a few points about the properties of that phenomenon – images and comments here:

Stunning new image of Saturn’s polar hexagonal jet stream

Tropical storms head polewards

Tropical Storm Beryl 2012
[image credit: US Govt.]

The BBC reports – laced with the inevitable ‘warmist catchphrases’ – a trend in weather phenomena described in a recent research paper.

No surprise to find this:
‘The researchers believe humans are influencing the changes’
(but they haven’t found the mechanism)

or this:
‘There is compelling evidence that the expansion of the tropics is attributable to a combination of human activities, but we don’t know which is the primary factor.’

How compelling is that? It’s hard to keep a straight face.

Soon et. al. paper: A review of Holocene solar-linked climatic variation on centennial to millennial timescales

Figure 1

“A review of Holocene solar-linked climatic variation on centennial to millennial timescales: Physical processes, interpretative frameworks and  a new multiple cross-wavelet transform algorithm”
Willie Soon, Victor M. Velasco Herrera, Kandasamy Selvaraj, Rita Traversi, Ilya Usoskin, Chen-Tung Arthur Chen, Jiann-Yuh Lou, Shuh-Ji Kao, Robert M. Carter, Valery Pipin, Mirko Severi, Silvia Becagli”

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2014.03.003

 

This is a review work introducing a new proxy, nitrate, and fancy wavelet methods. It discusses the 1400 .. 1800 year “cycle” but sits on the wall on whether these are one and the same.

Just in — Fletch outed as anonymous reviewer in Environmental Research Letters

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Heh, the cognitive dissonance is worsening.

the Air Vent

Steve McIntyre highlighted a response from the Institute of Physics (Publsihers of Environmental Research Letters) to a UK Times article reporting the suppression of a global warming paper submitted by Dr. Bengtsson.  A paper which again attempted to document the less than supportive evidence observed temperatures provide for climate models.  The paper was written by a well known climate scientist who chose the unfortunate path of publishing TRUTH rather than Real Climate dogma necessary for success in today’s Climate Science™ field.

The article caught my attention because the reasons given for rejection are wholly unscientific and truly indefensible yet they are expressed as boldly as can be.   No really!  The author of the reply, Dr. Nicola Gulley, literally used the actual bold himself:

Summarising, the simplistic comparison of ranges from AR4, AR5, and Otto et al, combined with the statement they are inconsistent is less then helpful, actually it…

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Somehow, I’m sure somebody will figure out a way to blame ‘climate change’ for this

Watts Up With That?

From the European Space Agency:

Jupiter’s trademark Great Red Spot — a swirling storm feature larger than Earth — is shrinking. This downsizing, which is changing the shape of the spot from an oval into a circle, has been known about since the 1930s, but now these striking new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope images capture the spot at a smaller size than ever before.

See photo:

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High precision model of precession and nutation of the asteroids: Ceres, Vesta etc.

High precision model of precession and nutation of the asteroids Ceres, Vesta, Eros, Steins, and Itokawa

A. Petit, J. Souchay and C. Lhotka

Observatoire de Paris and University of Rome

http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201322905 (open access with registration)

“Abstract

Context. Several asteroids have recently been visited by spacecrafts that give us precious information and new constraints on their physical and rotational properties. In parallel, there are already several well-established theories to model the rotational motion of a rigid body, but accurate models of the rotational motion of asteroids have been poorly investigated so far. … ”

As Emissions Fall, Greens Increasingly Embrace Shale Gas in USA

by Steve Everley 
steve@energyindepth.org , Washington, D.C.

For many years, environmental activists have pushed for bans, moratoria, or other restrictions on hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), alleging the process is a threat to public health and the environment. But in recent months, increasing numbers of environmentalists have distanced themselves from the “ban fracking” agenda. Many have even embraced shale gas on environmental grounds, revealing how extreme and marginalized the campaign to restrict hydraulic fracturing has become.

Link found between solar winds and lightning

Solar rotation [image credit: NASA]

Evidence of a direct relationship between the Sun and the weather – apart from the obvious – has been found by a research group.

Quote: ‘scientists found that when the speed and intensity of the solar winds increased, so too did the rate of lightning strikes.’

That raises the issue of cyclical weather events driven by the Sun.

Big Bang ‘gravitational waves’ claims under attack

Big Bang
[credit: Wikipedia]

An orchestrated media blitz to push claims that ‘spectacular’ evidence of cosmic inflation had been detected by researchers could be turning sour only a few weeks later.

The story broke in a blaze of publicity – but before peer review:
‘First direct evidence for cosmic inflation announced’

Now it seems the BICEP2 results are looking a bit flabby according to one commentator close to the action.

The Cleansing of Lennart Bengtsson

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Steve McKintyre on the fatwa imposed on Lennart Bengtsson by the climate ‘community’.

Climate Audit

Recently, Lennart Bengtsson undertook a positive dialogue with climate skeptics by joining the advisory board of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, an organization that attempts to represent rational skepticism.

Instead of welcoming this initiative, the climate “community” has now cleansed Lennart Bengtsson by pressuring him to resign from the GWPF advisory board. Bengtsson’s discouraging resignation is at Klimaz Weibel here (h/t Bishop Hill).

I have been put under such an enormous group pressure in recent days from all over the world that has become virtually unbearable to me. If this is going to continue I will be unable to conduct my normal work and will even start to worry about my health and safety. I see therefore no other way out therefore than resigning from GWPF. I had not expecting such an enormous world-wide pressure put at me from a community that I have been close to all my active…

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Bengtsson. resigns GWPF after “Enormous group pressure .. worry about my health and safety”

Lennart Bengtsson leaves advisory board of GWPF
by Hans von Storch

In an e-mail to GWPF, Lennart Bengtsson gas declared his resignation of the advisory hoard of GWPF. His letter reads :

“I have been put under such an enormous group pressure in recent days from all over the world that has become virtually unbearable to me. If this is going to continue I will be unable to conduct my normal work and will even start to worry about my health and safety. I see therefore no other way out therefore than resigning from GWPF. I had not expecting such an enormous world-wide pressure put at me from a community that I have been close to all my active life. …

Read the whole thing at Die Klimazweibel

This stinks but what really is going on?

Heartless Aussies forcing penguins in Antarctica to walk further?

Adélie penguin in Antarctica [Wikipedia]

If we believe that we’ll believe anything. Jo Nova satirises doom-mongers who try to claim the apparently inexorable seasonal advances in Antarctic sea ice extent must be somebody’s fault and, well, Australians are the nearest so QED – it’s them.

Is there a contest to find the most absurd explanations of climate phenomena? Somebody must think so if this is anything to go by.

Discover the astounding truth – or not – here:
Antarctica stealing Australian rain

Questor share tip: Avoid Drax as future falls victim to change in policy

From the Telegraph:

Taxing issue for king coal
Drax has fallen victim to the Government’s efforts to clean up the way we generate energy in this country. The majority of electricity in the UK still comes from our fleet of coal-fired power stations, of which Drax is one of the biggest in Europe. However, that is all set to change as the Government steadily increases the amount of tax it charges from this year on power generated by burning coal. The Government is trying to shift to cleaner and more modern gas-fired power stations. In order to survive, Drax has drawn up plans to convert its coal-fired generators to run on vast amounts of wood chip, or biomass.

Vivian Krause: Green charities rewrite grant descriptions in wake of budget

LSE climate alarmist Bob Ward may yet come to regret kicking up a fuss about GWPF’s charitable status. This from Canada by The Financial Post:

One of the big American charitable funders of environmental campaigns in Canada and the U.S., the Oak Foundation, has rewritten the publicly stated purpose of several grants to Canadian environmental groups. Three days after Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s March 29 budget announced a review of political activity by charities in Canada, Oak said in a website posting that it had “modified and added additional content to some grants to reflect progress, lessons learned and achievements.” But the changes mostly remove aspects of grant descriptions that might draw criticism and regulatory attention.

Cloud feedback controversy rumbles on

Clouds [image credit: Wikipedia / Reprise records]

In the late Sixties Joni Mitchell wrote the Grammy Award winning song ‘Both Sides Now’ that included the line:
‘I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now’.

[ Lyrics and link to the Judy Collins version that won the Grammy here ]

Nowadays the climate controversy is closely linked to the question of cloud feedbacks: are they net positive or net negative, i.e. does the reflection of incoming sunlight play a bigger part than the alleged ‘heat-trapping’ effect of water vapour – or vice versa?

The Hockeyshtick reports the latest findings here

Part 1, Central England Temperature timeseries and Manley papers

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Repost from Tim Channon’s blog.

Deadal Earth

This large article was composed some time ago, last edit Oct 2013 it seems but left unpublished, one of dozens.

There is a disturbing story behind the current CET dataset as will be revealed in Part 2. The above plot sets the scene, a straight illustration of the whole dataset with timeline.

This blog article is intended as a backgrounder covering a variety of information including links to official copies of the two historic Manley papers which are the basis of the CET dataset. In my opinion CET is misrepresented as more instrument based than it is in reality. More reasonably it is an expert opinion on weather.

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The Met Office CET web page[1] mentions the whole data then plays pea and thimble silently showing a plot of the later subset. Reason to be revealed in part 2.

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IPCC Summary for Policymakers is Re-written by… Policymakers

From the Economist

Inside the sausage factory

“THE less people know about how laws and sausages are made, the better they sleep at night.” That comment, attributed to Bismarck, could equally apply to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC’s reports, published every six or seven years, are immense undertakings. Each depends on the unpaid work of hundreds of scientists and runs to thousands of pages. But most of the controversy is generated at the last minute, when the authors (scientists and academics) meet government officials to produce a summary of 30 or so pages. Consider the recent report, published in Berlin on April 13th, on efforts to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions.

The process was described by one participant as “exceptionally frustrating” and by another “one of the most extraordinary experiences of my academic life”. It works as follows. The authors write a draft summary. Each sentence of the draft is projected onto a big screen in a giant hall. Officials then propose changes to the text; authors decide whether the changes are justified according to the full thousand-page report. Eventually a consensus is supposed to be reached, the sentence is approved or rejected, the chairman bangs a gavel and moves on to the next sentence.

President Obama Predicts 10 Degrees Warming By 2100

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Multilolz. Obama sticks his head in the oven. What a loon.

Real Climate Science

If we take no additional action, U.S. temperatures will rise 5 to 10 degrees by the end of the century.

US temperatures have been declining for 90+ years, and the US is having the coldest start to the year on record. Obama’s forecast defies all logic and veracity.

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