Temperature variation at Heathrow over the past year

This article is part of preparing the way for later revelations about instrumentation defects.

Figure 1 (upper), Figure 2 (lower) computed mean insolation for horizontal surface at this exact location and weather parameters, no cloud.

Figure 1 (upper), Experimental work[1] showing nearly daily temperature variation from expected, specifically designed to exclude diurnal but include detail variation at the fastest scale feasible. Time graticule at 10 days, data points at 12 hours. Surprisingly the July 1st hot period has vanished. Plots of other sites show a similar effect. The most frequent warm and cool periods of weather are brief and readily seen.

This computation will produce different values from the mean values computed from thermometer minimum and maximum data because data shape at other times is taken into account, min/max does not. The filter used is also windowed, leakage is negligible.

Wind-powered train travel is on Dutch rail schedule

[image credit: railway-technology.com]

The train now standing at Platform 1 is waiting for the wind to blow. Is that the future for Dutch railways? Peering through the hype, we may suspect other sources of power will have to be used if or when it’s not windy enough. TechXplore boards the green-tinged bandwagon:

Can the Dutch rail network run on wind? Julian Turner, writing in Railway-technology.com, reported that the Dutch rail network will run entirely on renewable wind energy by 2018.

UK solar power subsidies for home owners in death spiral

[image credit: newsolarpanels.co.uk]

Looks like curtains for small-scale solar in the UK if the planned new rate of 1.63 pence per kilowatt hour is approved. Financial reality is starting to catch up with ‘green dreams’ in the UK as BBC News reports.

The UK government says it plans to significantly reduce subsidies paid to small-scale green power installations. Under the proposals, the amount of money paid to home owners and businesses producing electricity from roof-top solar and small wind turbines will be limited from January 2016.
Subsidy schemes could be closed to new entrants from the start of next year.

Massive UK oil shale deposit can be extracted without ‘fracking’

UK shale oil – green for go? [image credit: glaconservatives]

The huge reserves at Horse Hill are in shale beds that are fractured naturally, as UPI.com reports.

At least 10 billion barrels of potential oil is thought to lie in the Horse Hill shale licence area in the south of the country, a British group said. U.K. Oil and Gas Ltd. said an independent assessment from oil services company Schlumberger found a mean 10.9 billion barrels of oil in place in a 55 square-mile area of the Horse Hill basin.

U.K. Oil and Gas Chairman Stephen Sanderson said the independent analysis predicts “significant” oil volumes and gives further support for development plans.

Solar magnetic resonance directly observed for the first time

A simulation of a cross-section of a thread of solar material, called a filament, hovering in the sun’s atmosphere
[image credit: NAOJ/Patrick Antolin]

Researchers find this works in ‘the same way that a perfectly-timed repeated push on a swing can make it go higher’, as Phys.org reports:

Modern telescopes and satellites have helped us measure the blazing hot temperatures of the sun from afar. Mostly the temperatures follow a clear pattern: The sun produces energy by fusing hydrogen in its core, so the layers surrounding the core generally get cooler as you move outwards—with one exception.

Two NASA missions have just made a significant step towards understanding why the corona—the outermost, wispy layer of the sun’s atmosphere —is hundreds of times hotter than the lower photosphere, which is the sun’s visible surface [aka the coronal heating problem]

India To Double Coal Production By 2020

[image credit: Pakistan Defence]

India has set a coal production target of 1.5 billion metric tons by 2020, twice its current production, reports the GWPF.

No climate paranoia here. Full steam ahead to social and economic progress, just like Europe and the USA used to do before their leaders were distracted by ‘man-made climate’ syndrome.

Coal consumption in India, particularly in the electric power sector, is outpacing India’s domestic production.

Experts Have Been Imagining Climate Change Since At Least 1871

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A trillion dollars or more of incentives really gets the imaginations of the climate crowd going.

Real Science

10 Jan 1871 – IMAGINARY CHANGES OF CLIMATE. (Pall Mall Gazette.)

View original post

Frosty forecast for BBC-MET Office relations

Met Office loses BBC weather forecasting contract.
[Josh has waved magic –Tim (replacement image Original image)]

The UK’s weather service has provided the data used for BBC forecasts since the corporation’s first radio weather bulletin on 14 November 1922.

The BBC said it was legally required to secure the best value for money for licence fee payers and would tender the contract to outside competition.

The Met Office said it was disappointed by the decision. A replacement is expected to take over next year.

Irradiance-and-surface-pressure-only match of rocky planet surface temperatures

This paper needs discussion.

The Hockey Schtick has an article up on a just published 69 page paper.

The above comparisons indicate that Eq. (10b) rather accurately reproduces the observed variation of mean surface temperatures across a wide range of planetary environments characterized in terms of solar irradiance (from 1.5 W m-2 to 2,602 W m-2), total atmospheric pressure (from near vacuum to 9,300 kPa), and greenhouse-gas concentrations (from 0.0% to over 96% per volume).

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/new-paper-confirms-gravito-thermal.html

Now rip the paper apart. What if anything about it is safe?

Guernsey weather station

Few days ago I noted new sites flash up on screen as a daily weather capture took place.

Guernsey is the second largest of the Channel Islands, a group just off the French coast beside the Cherbourg peninsular.

Met Office Datapoint have added Guernsey, Jersey is already in the data. This is surprising they are similar islands, close geographically, climatically similar.

As usual the Met Office only give crude co-ordinates and no other information. Looks like it is at the airport, as is the Jersey station. On looking I learnt there is

Guernsey Met Office
A division of the States of Guernsey Public Services Department

A further surprise is the 2014 Annual Weather Report (58 pages), a very good work, refreshing in this age of newspeak and excesses.

On UHI

The Lihou Island Automated Met Station received a major service and upgrade in the summer. The station is very important in that it measures temperatures in a completely unspoilt environment. The presence of the Met Observatory at Guernsey Airport means that the airfield provides the official temperature record for the island. Since the Met Office moved there in 1947, however, the land use of the airfield and the surrounding area has changed markedly with a notable increase in the acreage of tarmac, concrete, buildings and other man made surfaces. This land use change results in the formation of an “airport heat island” a phenomenon observed around the world where areas of concrete, roads and runways heat up on days with strong sunlight and then slowly release their heat through the night.

Although the Guernsey Airport heat island is small when averaged over the course of a year and only raises average temperatures by a fraction of a degree, it is an unwelcome variable that makes it harder to accurately detect temperature changes caused by genuine climate change. The Lihou record is therefore invaluable in that it measures temperature in an area where no significant development has been undertaken or will be allowed to take place. Over many years, it should therefore be possible to compare the Lihou temperature record with that of Guernsey Airport and gain an understanding of how land use changes on and around the airport are altering our temperature records.

Google or Bing aerial pictures show the airport is a building site (Google Earth timeline is useful for this). A probable meteorological enclosure, near the control tower, seems to have moved quite recently, to where, no idea. Possibly the Guernsey Met Office have a separate site.

Hawker Hunter crashes at south coast airshow, 7 confirmed dead, A27 blocked

Breaking news of yet another air show crash.

Recently we seem to have had a spate of minor fixed and rotary wing crashes in this country.

This will be rated very serious.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/shoreham-airshow-crash-live-updates-6299366

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34027260

[update]
I picked up on this as complementary to a very serious dispute which has been brewing for years between the blame game government services and the government air accident investigators who specifically stick to unearthing what happened. Personally I consider the latter do not go far enough, fail to also drive upwards to the regime, managerial.

“Insight – MH370 debris exposes divisions over air crash investigations”
–http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/08/21/uk-malaysia-airlines-crash-investigation-idUKKCN0QQ17L20150821

EDF Energy mothballs UK’s planned Hinkley C nuclear power site

In limbo – Hinkley C [image credit: EDF]

Something is not quite right with the UK’s nuclear power plans, as this Click Green exclusive shows. Anti-nuclear legal action by Austria and reports of serious technical issues can’t be helping the cause.

The UK’s nuclear watchdog has stopped safety inspections at the planned site of the Hinkley C nuclear power station after EDF Energy ordered a stop to all groundwork, ClickGreen can reveal.

Despite recently publishing a list of preferred suppliers for the £24 billion project, the French firm were in behind-the-scenes talks with the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), during which they informed them of their decision to mothball the site.

Paper: Spin-orbit coupling and chaotic rotation for circumbinary bodies

A paper of interest to some Talkshop readers

Spin-orbit coupling and chaotic rotation for circumbinary bodies
Application to the small satellites of the Pluto-Charon system

 

Alexandre C. M. Correia, Adrien Leleu, Nicolas Rambaux and Philippe Robutel
— http://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/abs/2015/08/aa26800-15/aa26800-15.html
Open access, published 20 August 2015

Abstract

We investigate the resonant rotation of circumbinary bodies in planar quasi-circular orbits. Denoting nb and n the orbital mean motion of the inner binary and of the circumbinary body, respectively, we show that spin-orbit resonances exist at the frequencies n ± k?/2, where ? = nb – n, and k is an integer. Moreover, when the libration at natural frequency has the same magnitude as ?, the resonances overlap and the rotation becomes chaotic. We apply these results to the small satellites in the Pluto-Charon system, and conclude that their rotations are likely chaotic. However, the rotation can also be stable and not synchronous for small axial asymmetries.

No Keystone, No Problem: The Oil Industry Is Making Other Plans

Decision time [image credit: AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez]

After all the political argy-bargy, the final decision on the controversial oil pipeline plan is due as The New Republic explains. But the oil producers are already moving their product in other ways. Whether it’s still worth it with oil down near $40 a barrel is another matter.

Environmentalists have been waiting since 2008 for President Barack Obama’s decision on whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. That decision may come any day now. But Canada’s tar sands industry hasn’t been waiting around.

E.ON begins construction of giant 5MW battery

Risky business [image credit: safetysource.co.nz]

Some might query whether 5 megawatts is ‘giant’ in terms of national electricity demand, and the usual claims that battery costs are going to drop like a stone are made, but nevertheless this attempt at an energy storage system is happening, as edie.net reports.

German energy company E.ON has started constructing the world’s first modular large-scale battery in the German town of Aachen.

The modular aspect of the design means that various battery technologies can be ‘plugged in’ to the system – a world-first for a battery of this size.

An Amber light on chicanery: avoiding EU

Centralism is also lunacy when one set of rules are applied to different, a northern Atlantic island is the same as Austria or Italy, bull. nevertheless which fools signed up to broken?

OTOH does this mean paying Germany? If not who?

Here is a report of unknown provenance given Reuters track record

UK may use EU small print to swerve impact of green cuts
LONDON | By Susanna Twidale

Britain is thinking of using an EU loophole to dodge the impact of its own subsidy cuts on renewable energy and escape fines for missing 2020 European renewable targets.

Under EU rules Britain could use the loophole, termed statistical transfer, which would see it pay other, greener, EU countries overshooting their targets, to make up the difference.

“We need to stay open to the fullest possible range of options for meeting the 2020 target, including the use of statistical transfer,” a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said.

Britain’s new Energy and Climate Change secretary Amber Rudd has announced changes to subsides for biomas [sic], solar and onshore wind projects to trim spiraling [sic] costs, which she said in June were likely to result in around 250 projects not being built.

— http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/08/20/uk-britain-renewables-target-idUKKCN0QP17T20150820

Why Phi? – a Jupiter-Uranus-Neptune model

From the top: Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter
[image credit: NASA/JPL]

Continuing our quest to understand more about planetary frequencies, we turn to links between the largest planet Jupiter and the two ‘outer’ giant planets, Uranus and Neptune.

This model is based on a match of synodic periods, which is found to be:
22 Uranus-Neptune (U-N) = 273 Jupiter-Uranus (J-U) = 295 Jupiter-Neptune (J-N)

The period is just under 3771 years (~3770.93y).
To find a link to Fibonacci numbers we can look first at Jupiter-Uranus:
273 J-U = 13 x 21 (13 and 21 are Fibonacci numbers)

More licences released for fracking in the U.K.

Todays announcement sees 2,700 sq Km, mostly covering Yorkshire and the Midlands, opened up to Fracking as the Government tries to breath new life into a stalling energy sector.

Scotland’s last coal-fired power station to close in March

Bye-bye Longannet [image credit: BBC]

It’s only a matter of time before increasing dependency on renewables proves to be a mistake. Details from the BBC: RIP Longannet power station.

Scotland’s last coal-fired power station, Longannet in Fife, is to close on 31 March next year.

Its owner, Scottish Power, said the high cost of connecting to the grid was to blame.

The company has also announced it is abandoning plans to build a new gas-fired power station at Cockenzie in East Lothian.

Longannet, which opened in 1972, is one of the biggest coal-fired power stations in Europe.

Solar activity is declining—what to expect?

A bit less of this to look forward to? [image credit: traveldailynews.com]

Some solar theories will be put to the test in the next few decades by the Sun’s ongoing behaviour patterns.

Is Earth slowly heading for a new ice age? Looking at the decreasing number of sunspots, it may seem that we are entering a nearly spotless solar cycle which could result in lower temperatures for decades. “The solar cycle is starting to decline. Now we have less active regions visible on the sun’s disk,” Yaireska M. Collado-Vega, a space weather forecaster at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, told Phys.org.

But does it really mean a colder climate for our planet in the near future? In 1645, the so-called Maunder Minimum period started, when there were almost no sunspots. It lasted for 70 years and coincided with the well-known “Little Ice Age”, when Europe and North America experienced lower-than-average temperatures. However, the theory that decreased solar activity caused the climate change is still controversial as no convincing evidence has been shown to prove this correlation.