Myth Of Arctic meltdown exposed again

Arctic ice [image credit: NASA]

This one runs and runs, but as it’s featured in a story in the UK national press (Daily Mail Online) quoting leading climate science figures like professor Judith Curry, we’ll give it another airing.

There does seem to be a good deal of suspect logic being thrown at the inconvenient fact that Arctic sea ice is refusing to go away as predicted by the UN IPCC and assorted like-minded pundits peddling their biases. Claims that ‘natural variability’ is just a confounding factor interfering with the supposed real story – i.e. significant man-made effects – have the appearance of wishful thinking, as no actual data is offered in support.

The die of rolling heads lands twice.

Significant news as the end of the political holiday season approaches.

• BBC Trust chair chosen replacing Patten
• EU president chosen replacing Rompuy

The news has been that all choices for the BBC chair was thwarted by Non! A poisoned chalice. Rona Fairhead, former managerial head of the Financial Times Group, involved with HSBC and various other things.

The accepter doesn’t seem notable, managerial journeyman. I assume a non-techie so this does not bode well for sorting out bias and spin.

EU presidency is a whole different matter given a number of thorny issues. Choosing a Pole is notable: Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk

This move seems to be addressing the UK threats of leaving the EU but is also from an ex-Soviet satellite. Poland have views on eg. fraking too. And a fluent German speaker.

I am sure there will be acres of opinion on the meaning of these appointment.

Feds: California Fracking is Safe

US gas drilling rig
[image credit BBC]

How much effort has to be put in by how many ‘authorities’ to determine whether hydraulic fracturing is an acceptable technique for recovering gas?

Surely the wisdom doesn’t vary that much from one region to another. While each federal state or country agonises over its decision, the industry as a whole continues to advance and make a big impact on the energy business worldwide.

Oldest UK power reactor life extension to 2015

Image David Dixon under CC licence

Wylfa nuclear power station, North Wales

UK nuclear regulator to decide on Wylfa 1 life extension next month

Solved, wandering rocks

Spooky, the moving Death Valley rocks.

Image Jon Sullivan, marked PD

Diurnal radiation, three UK sites compared

This article is cross posted from Tim’s blog as of interest to some Talkshop readers with a few extra sentences likely to raise discussion. 

August 2014 there was a meteorological gift of both exceptional conditions and good data. What can be learnt?

Three Met Office sites showed a signature of exponential cooling. This requires clear sky and a calm. Given somewhat limited parameter hourly data the following shows the commonality. The computed terminal conditions are shown later in this article.

Benson and Santon Downham data has been normalised to Katesbridge[3], which has the least noisy data or the three.

Achieving a close overlay requires taking earth rotation into account, dusk and dawn move relatively both by geographic location and the peculiar movement throughout the year as night length changes, these do not move together [1]. Fractional delay (less that the sample period) was used to equalize diurnal time. (see the two blog articles here)

Dusk appears to be the important factor, a surprising finding, I assume cooling is time from dusk, dawn terminates cooling.

General information, under essentially calm conditions wind drops for a period during the night then reappears just after dawn. (not shown here)

Temperature normalisation defined is for the cold period, not as accurate for Benson where the better site exposure (more open) led to more wind at times.

Biomass CO2 Emissions More Than Burning Coal

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Bubble bursts for Britain’s biomass burning boom

Is there any good news? Yes – biomass subsidies are due to end in 2027.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28457104

Back in May, I reported on a letter sent to Ed Davey by a group of American scientists, attacking UK subsidies for biomass plants. They pointed out that burning biomass could actually increase CO2 emissions, as well as causing other environmental problems.

DECC were so alarmed that they had to commission a report.

It seems that even the BBC, belatedly, have picked up on this problem. In July they reported:

Burning wood to fuel power stations can create as many harmful carbon emissions as burning coal, according to a government report.

UK taxpayers subsidise energy firms to burn wood to meet EU renewables targets.

But the report from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) shows sometimes much bigger carbon savings would be achieved by leaving the wood in the forests.

This suggests power firms may be winning subsidies for inadvertently making climate change even…

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Extending a new Lunar thermal model, Part II: Modelling an airless Earth

This article is part II  of “A new Lunar thermal model based on Finite Element Analysis of regolith physical properties“,  written primarily by gallopingcamel (Peter Morcombe), edited and prepared for WordPress by Tim Channon.

Figure 1 (click full size)

Modeling the Moon

A few months ago an analysis of the Moon’s equatorial temperature was posted here using two different types of engineering software. Tim Channon used SPICE circuit analysis software originally developed at Berkeley while I used Quickfield, a finite element analysis program developed by Tor Cooperative, a Russian firm, marketed outside Russia by Tera Analysis. In addition, several detailed comments were received from “br” who used LTSPICE from Linear Technology Inc.

Two very different methods. The results were identical.

Both Quickfield (in Student edition) and LTSPICE are freely available for download for those interested in replication or for further investigation.

US Major Hurricane Strikes Peaked In The 1950s – Now At An All-Time Record Low

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Looks like another example of the Al Gore effect…

Real Science

In the 1950’s the US averaged about one major hurricane strike per year. Now we average zero per year.

HURDAT Re-analysis Chronological List of All Hurricanes

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Nuclear operator loses Fukushima suicide law suit

Fukushima Unit 1
[image credit: Wikipedia]

How far does liability go for nuclear power plant operators after accidents? A Japanese court has ruled it can extend to suicide in some circumstances.

Freak Tornado hits Washington, makes ’14 a good year

August 25, 1814

The clouds began to swirl and the winds kicked up. A tornado formed in the center of the city and headed straight for the British on Capitol Hill. The twister ripped buildings from their foundations and trees up by the roots. British cannons were tossed around by the winds. Several British troops were killed by falling structures and flying debris.

 

The rain continued for two hours, dousing the flames. The British decided it was time to leave.

…

The lady answered, “No, Sir, this is a special interposition of Providence to drive our enemies from our city.”

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-tornado-that-saved-washington-33901211

Has Joe done what Uncle Sam couldn’t?

Some say money can buy brains, brains are cheap. Duffers think that, make the mistake of confusing rote with The Spark. As a wit said ‘the most intelligent person in the room is the room’… to which I add, buying others to inside still leaves the room. Self selection is recursive.

There again for here, an oscillation does not explain itself. Small step first.

Joe Bastardi is writing sense, Gosselin runs with it.

A Single Meteorologist Explains What $165 Billion In Government-Funded Climate Science Couldn’t

By P Gosselin on 24. August 2014

Large scale oceanic oscillations responsible for most of the post 1980 “warming”

By Joe Bastardi

I think global warming is a misnomer.

There is a distortion of the temperature pattern on the globe, brought about by the natural cyclical warming events of the warm PDO and warm AMO together. I spoke about this at Heartland a couple of years ago – how the sea ice increase in the south and the decrease in the north were the hidden message that here is no “warming” just a distortion.

http://notrickszone.com/2014/08/24/a-single-meteorologist-explains-what-165-billion-in-government-funded-climate-science-couldnt/

How Weird Is Our Solar System?

Exoplanet: artist’s interpretation
[credit: NASA]

Why haven’t exoplanet searches uncovered any solar systems similar to our own? Most appear to have fewer planets – although detection can be difficult – than ours, and often orbit a lot closer to their star than our planets do, plus there’s something else.

astrobites asks: ‘Earth and its Solar System compatriots all have nearly circular orbits, but many exoplanets orbit their stars on wildly eccentric paths. Is our home system strange? Or is our sense of the data skewed?’

We have an August frost, 0.0C mean at 3am BST

Quick post by Tim

Katesbridge is fascinating, edge of marsh in Northern Ireland (see surfacestations, top menu), it can be very cold. Benson, south of England is down to 4C, a cool night with I suspect a touch of ground frost widely. Hopefully not enough to damage sensitive garden plants. (I have the numeric data here)

For me this is a fascinating moment, been working on an evolution of capturing and presenting UK Met Office data. First usage was literally a few minutes ago, manually grabbed the data, get get and then typed regen, it figured out what needed doing, worked.

Does coal-to-gas power in China make sense?

Chinese smog
[image credit: BBC]

The go-ahead was given recently for 50 coal gasification plants in China. It makes economic sense to them:

‘Due to lower coal prices and higher natural gas prices, coal gas is currently enjoying relatively high profit margins. He Zuoyun, deputy general manager of Sinopec Great Wall Energy and Chemical Co. Ltd, said at a meeting in September 2013 that one-third of natural gas consumption could come from coal gas by 2020.’

Going To Pot!

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California’s going even more potty.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/8/marijuana-smokers-sue-san-diego/

Now I know the world has gone crazy!

The Washington Times reports:

Medical marijuana smokers in San Diego say the city has forced their pot shops to locate in remote areas and that means the drives to and from will increase air pollution — and ultimately, harm their lungs.

The Union of Medical Marijuana Patients has filed a lawsuit, saying the city is violating the California Environmental Quality Act, United Press International reported.

The suit names as defendants the Coastal Commission and the city of San Diego and claims the zoning laws put in place for marijuana dispensaries means patients have to actually get in their cars to drive to the remote locations — and the additional drive times will only increase the city’s air pollution levels.

On top of that, some patients, perhaps those without cars, will now have to grow their own marijuana plants…

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BBC News – Global warming slowdown ‘could last another decade’

Ocean currents
[image credit: BBC]

Bad news for fans of global warming theory dreaming of ‘strong’ El Ninos or indeed anything that might point global temperature stats in an upward direction.

Even the BBC is having to come to terms with climate reality, to some limited extent at least.

‘Why Global Warming Is Taking a Break’ – worst excuse yet?

Igloo time
[image credit: Ansgar Walk / Wikipedia]

This is worth a look just for the last paragraph, which undermines most of the rest of it. Under the optimistic sub-heading ‘Warming to recommence’ we find:

‘Despite the warming hiatus, Knutti is convinced there is no reason to doubt either the existing calculations for the climate activity of greenhouse gases or the latest climate models.’

“Short-term climate fluctuations can easily be explained. They do not alter the fact that the climate will become considerably warmer in the long term as a result of greenhouse gas emissions,” says Knutti.

‘He believes that global warming will recommence as soon as solar activity, aerosol concentrations in the atmosphere and weather phenomena such as El Niño naturally start returning to the values of previous decades.’ [bold added]

Translation: as soon as the sun, the weather and volcanoes – all natural factors – allow, the world will start warming again. Who knew?

Farsnews report: Why Global Warming Is Taking a Break

Good to hear a warmist trashing his own theory in order to explain the lack of temperature rise this century – without realising it.

The Feynman lectures on physics

Caltech and the Feynman lectures website have published the Feynman lectures on physics online.

Bardarbunga volcano alert in Iceland

A previous Icelandic volcano
[image credit: BBC]

BBC reports:

“Intense seismic activity” began at the volcano on 16 August, and there was a strong earthquake in the region early on Monday, the met office said.

“This is the strongest earthquake measured in the region since 1996.

“Presently there are no signs of eruption, but it cannot be excluded that the current activity will result in an explosive subglacial eruption, leading to an outburst flood and ash emission,” the met office said, adding that the situation was being monitored.

BBC News – Iceland raises Bardarbunga volcano alert to orange.

The risk level to the aviation industry has been raised to orange, the second-highest level, the met office said.

Update 23rd August : Volcano alert level raised to red

*** Update 24th August: Alert level reduced to orange. ***

Update 29 August** Warning A fissure eruption has started north of Dynjujökull.** (Richard Holle)

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LATEST NEWS: http://icelandreview.com/news/bardarbunga