John Izzard: A retrospective on the life and work of John L Daly

It’s 10 years since the death of John Daly, but we forgot to mark this decadal anniversary back at the end of January. Here is the article by John Izzard originally published at Quadrant.org.au in 2009, which looks back at his life and work. If anyone has a copy of his book “The Greenhouse Trap” please let me know. Google and Amazon aren’t interested (and probably think n0-one else should be either).

John L. Daly (31 March 1943 – 29 January 2004)
by JOHN IZZARD

Yesterday I visited John L. Daly’s tiny office where he lived on the outskirts of Launceston. It is about the size of two telephone boxes. His wife, Amy, has kept is just as it was when John died in 2004. His computer, his files, the maps on the wall — his notes, letters, photographs and dairies. She has also kept alive his web-site which he was still updating at the time of his death.

Looking at his scientific work today gives an insight into why the people at the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit were so annoyed with Daly’s work and why he was such a thorn in the side of their climate theories and research.

Matt Ridley: Whatever happened to global warming?

Via GWPF:

Matt Ridley: Whatever Happened To Global Warming?
Date: 05/09/14 Matt Ridley, The Wall Street Journal

On Sept. 23 the United Nations will host a party for world leaders in New York to pledge urgent action against climate change. Yet leaders from China, India and Germany have already announced that they won’t attend the summit and others are likely to follow, leaving President Obama looking a bit lonely. Could it be that they no longer regard it as an urgent threat that some time later in this century the air may get a bit warmer?

In effect, this is all that’s left of the global-warming emergency the U.N. declared in its first report on the subject in 1990. The U.N. no longer claims that there will be dangerous or rapid climate change in the next two decades. Last September, between the second and final draft of its fifth assessment report, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change quietly downgraded the warming it expected in the 30 years following 1995, to about 0.5 degrees Celsius from 0.7 (or, in Fahrenheit, to about 0.9 degrees, from 1.3).

Even that is likely to be too high. The climate-research establishment has finally admitted openly what skeptic scientists have been saying for nearly a decade: Global warming has stopped since shortly before this century began.

Sir Paul Nurse: Climate Sceptic “serial offenders should be crushed and buried”

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From the grauniad:
Speaking ahead of an inaugural speech he will give next week as the incoming president of the British Science Association (BSA), Nurse said it was not enough for scientists to sit on the sidelines and sneer when public figures expounded unscientific nonsense.

He urged researchers to forge relationships with politicians, lobbyists, religious figures and leaders of organisations in the hope that they might feel ashamed to misuse scientific evidence.

But if that approach failed, Nurse urged researchers to call offenders out in the media and challenge them in the strongest way possible. “When they are serial offenders they should be crushed and buried,” Nurse said.

The Nobel prize winner will use his presidential address to argue that science has been the most revolutionary act in human history. He will trace the origins of scientific thinking from ancient times through the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions to modern times and warn that threats to science have always existed.

Oh the irony. Copernicus was afraid to publish precisely because he knew that some Nobel Nurse establishment type bigwig would be down on him like a ton of bricks for propounding theory contrary to that the establishment consensus held as immutable.

Paul Nurse is a serial offender himself, and Josh nicely sends him up in this cartoon.

Tallbloke: A personal message of thanks to my co-bloggers

I’ve been out of the loop for a while, initially due to being away on holiday, then by a round of job interviews I had to prepare for (no success there), and finally by the hospitalisation of my dear old dad (he’s improving now). I’m immensely grateful to my co-bloggers Tim, Stuart (Oldbrew) and Andrew, who have been minding the shop and putting up lots of interesting articles during my absence – thanks guys.

This period has shown more than ever that the talkshop isn’t a one man band, but a vibrant community of bloggers, contributors, commenters and readers. The theory we are working on is moving along in the background as well as on the blog, along with a couple of other related developments I’ll be able to disclose in due course.

Evening sunlight at Vannes harbour – South Brittany

‘Brightpoints’: New clues to determining the solar cycle

Active solar regions
[image credit: NASA/Goddard]

New research claims to offer ‘a new set of observations to explore the drivers of solar activity beyond only sunspots.’

The researchers say they have found ‘a new marker to track the course of the solar cycle — brightpoints, little bright spots in the solar atmosphere that allow us to observe the constant roiling of material inside the sun.’

“Thus, the 11-year solar cycle can be viewed as the overlap between two much longer cycles,” said Robert Leamon, co-author on the paper at Montana State University in Bozeman and NASA Headquarters in Washington.

More here: 'Brightpoints': New clues to determining the solar cycle — ScienceDaily.

The heliospheric magnetic flux, solar wind proton flux, and cosmic ray intensity during the coming solar minimum

An important new(ish) paper from a team including Ken McCracken looks at the likely continuing slowdown in solar activity:

CharlesW. Smith1,2, K. G. McCracken3, Nathan A. Schwadron1,2, and Molly L. Goelzer2,4
1Physics Department, Space Science Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, USA, 2Institute for
the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, USA, 3Institute of Physical
Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA, 4Department of Chemical Engineering,
University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, USA

Abstract
Recent papers have linked the heliospheric magnetic flux to the sunspot cycle with good
correlation observed between prediction and observation. Other papers have shown a strong correlation
between magnetic flux and solar wind proton flux from coronal holes. We combine these efforts with
an expectation that the sunspot activity of the approaching solar minimum will resemble the Dalton or
Gleissberg Minimum and predict that the magnetic flux and solar wind proton flux over the coming decade
will be lower than at any time during the space age. Using these predictions and established theory, we
also predict record high galactic cosmic ray intensities over the same years. The analysis shown here is a
prediction of global space climate change within which space weather operates. It predicts a new parameter
regime for the transient space weather behavior that can be expected during the coming decade.

Study linking polar vortex chills to melting sea ice rejected by leading IPCC author

Spot the polar vortex
[image credit: BBC]

Before the usual media suspects get too worked up at yet another ‘study’ proclaiming something or other about humans and climate effects, let’s note what this well-known IPCC author thinks of it:

‘Kevin Trenberth, climate analysis chief at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, … said he doesn’t agree with Yoon’s study.’

National Grid Seeks Extra Winter Electricity

Ferrybridge Power Station fire [image credit: Sky News]

It’s no secret that UK electricity supplies are likely to be stretched at peak times in the coming winter, and probably a few more winters after that, as some coal generation is phased out to meet EU rules, and most of the existing nuclear reactors become obsolete.

The pressure to ensure adequate service is increasing and in response new schemes are in the pipeline. The great unknown of course is: will it be enough?