Philip Foster: Practical tips for dealing with black-outs this winter

Image coutesy of cartoonsbyjosh.com

My Thanks to Philip Foster for this timely article on making a simple and effective backup system for coping with black-outs this winter. Be prepared and don’t freeze!

With the likely prospect of power cuts lasting several hours or even days this winter due to becalmed wind turbines, there are things to watch out for and ways to be ready for them.

This article shows how to put in place a standby system in an average home at a cost of around £300.

If you are heated by gas or oil  remember a power cut prevents your boiler from working.  Gas and oil boilers need electricity to run ignition, electronics, pumps and valves. The same is true of most gas cookers. So you will need off-grid electric power.

If you are totally electric then, sadly, there are limited options. It would be sensible to have a camping gas stove (£20-£30), a bottled gas room heater (£130, eg Rhino H02233 Catalytic Heater) and plenty of LED lamps and torches with spare batteries.

Power stations or power cuts – decision time for the UK

Pembroke CCGT (gas) power station

UK energy policy has tried and failed to face both ways – i.e. pleasing the EU and serving the public – on electricity supply, as this GWPF report shows. Critics like us have been saying this for a long time but now UK leaders are trying to catch up, in words at least, having spent far too long listening exclusively to the ‘greenblob’.

Britain needs to build the equivalent of more than 25 large power stations to meet its power needs over the next two decades, Amber Rudd, the energy secretary, will warn this week. She will say that the nation’s energy security will be under threat unless it starts replacing its old nuclear and coal power stations.

New Dwarf Planet May Be The Farthest One Yet

Strange orbits of some outer solar system bodies

A newly found object may set a new record for the most distant dwarf planet in the solar system. The object, called V774104, lies about nine and a half billion miles from the sun, or two to three times farther away than Pluto.

V774104 is a little less than half Pluto’s size, and like Pluto it may move closer toward or farther away from the sun during its orbit, but those details of its motion cannot yet be determined.

“That’s pretty much all we know about it. We don’t know its orbit yet because we only just discovered it about two weeks ago,” astronomer Scott Sheppard, of the Carnegie Institution for Science and one of the co-discoverers of the new object, said in an interview with Space.com .

Taylor Dome CO2 used by IPCC, corrected timeline

During June 2014 oldbrew published “Explaining(?) abrupt climate change” based on an article published by Judith Curry. The author noticed Antarctica Taylor Dome is mentioned, an interest of the author because of long known highly suspect features of the data for this core and realised the implications of cross checking Antarctica ice cores to a common major event history, in this case with a profound change in timescale. Assuming the high resolution ion data and the low resolution gas data share time, reworking ion data also reworks gas data. The effect of doing this moves CO2 more recent and produces a good CO2 modulation match for the Medeaval Warm Period and Little Ice Age . The IPCC use Taylor Dome as part of the CO2 story. A lot of information has been omitted from the below such as the history over Taylor Dome dating conflicts. The original draft was written a year ago, now been shortened.

The paper behind the above is published Nature Climate Change, “Insights from Antarctica on volcanic forcing during the Common Era” doi:10.1038/nclimate2293. A supplementary file is available containing sufficient information for a reproduction of the critical part.

Figure T1, final result, reproduced with comment later.
Whether this is valid is a matter for discussion.

 

Figure T2, Reworked data showing the old and new timescales.

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Unreliables subsidy to hit £11 Billion by 2020

H/T to @MhehedZherting

Shoreline on northern Alboran sea

This article is of general interest without declaring any particular position. I hope it is interesting.

A few days ago Roger reblogged an article from MalagaBay about the sea level stand near Almayate, a small southern Spanish town 150km east of Gibraltar, 15km east of Malaga port, close to Velez-Malaga, a near coastal town on the Velez river. The most western Medeterrainin is called the Alboran Sea.

The Med is landlocked, has a very small tidal range but in consequence is prone to air pressure and wind modulation of stand, as well as fresh water incursion from rainfall. Moreover there much volcanic activity with severe crustal movement, sea bed change. In a way related the region is seismic with major tectonic faults also able to alter crustal stand.

There are in effect two Malaga’s

Figure 1, Malaga port tide gauge, this is the place commonly known as Malaga.

PMSL carry no other useful tide gauge data in the region, all other records are very brief, although eg. Gibraltar must have a very long naval record but at the entrance to a large sea from an ocean the data would be strange.

This record is suspicious as though something has changed ~1990. In my experience this sort of station change is likely to be ground subsidence. A good case was found for Perth, Australia where deep aquifer pumping led to false claim of rapid sea level rise. (unpublished work by the author)

How’s Call me Dave’s EU Renegotiation Going?

Tony Thomas: Who’s Killing Our Climate Scientists?

Why is the Australian Academy of Science going off the deep end claiming “reprehensible vilification” of warmist scientists? It’s now saying they’re being so threatened and harassed that their ability to do science is in jeopardy. Academy President Andrew Holmes, addressing a greenhouse conference in Hobart on October 27, claimed

“The costs to individuals can be high. It is therefore critical that as scientists and experts we stand together. The ability of scientists to conduct their work, free of fear or hindrance, is vital to the future wellbeing of our community, and the Academy will continue to advocate for academic freedom…  

“As the International Council for Science proclaims, the free and responsible practice of science is fundamental to scientific advancement and human and environmental well-being.“

I thought at first he was chastising the academics at University of Western Australia over their successful witchhunt against non-sceptic Bjorn Lomborg, or that he was chastising academics at University of Melbourne for wanting punitive fines to drive sceptics out of the media. Or maybe rebuking US academic peers who wanted sceptic corporations to be prosecuted under the Racketeering and Corrupting Influences Act (that exercise backfired spectacularly). But I erred, Holmes’ victimology includes only orthodox climate scientists as its purported casualties.

Tom Wysmuller: No Link Between CO2 & Sea Level! NONE!!!

My thanks to Tom Wysmuller for sending me this pithy one pager that he’s asked to have handed out as a flyer in Paris.

No Link Between CO2 & Sea Level! NONE!!!
Tom Wysmuller© 5 Nov 2015 http://www.colderside.com

For the past 2,000 years, Sea Level rise was unchangingly linear, increasing between 1 & 1.5 mm/yr., and CO2 was stable and flat at 280 parts per million (ppm) for the same period. The great Ice Sheets from the last Ice Age had already melted.

Additional Sea Level change was slow, mostly due to thermal expansion of oceans and edge ice melt from Greenland and Antarctica. As Earth periodically warmed and cooled, remaining mountain glaciers either grew or added some melt water to the oceans.

In 1880, CO2 finally surges up, achieving a huge 38% increase during the past 135 years, likely due to industrial and agricultural development.

Most seacoasts either rise or fall, due to geological activity. Some do neither, and are “tectonically inert.” Actual Sea Levels, and any changes, are measured from them, such as Portland, Maine, USA, and Wismar, Germany, where Sea Level continues its methodical, steady, minimal, and linear rise. In the timeframe that CO2 massively increases, there is no sign whatsoever that Sea Level reacts likewise.

Harald Yndestad: The Lunar nodal cycle influence on the Barents Sea

I’m presenting the Doctoral thesis written by Harald Yndestad for his degree as Doctor of Philosophy at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. This work is highly relevant to our investigation of the effect of Lunar cycles on climatic variation.

The Lunar nodal cycle influence on the Barents Sea
Harald Yndestad
Submitted to Norwegian University of Science and Technology for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Industrial Ecology and Technology Management
Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Preface

The research for this thesis began in 1996. The purpose was to confirm or reject the hypothesis that the life history of Northeast Arctic cod can be explained as a stationary cycle in a time series. I was rector at Aalesund University College from 1997 to 2000 and my research had to wait. In 2000 and 2001 I developed dynamic models for the most important species in the Barents Sea. The results supported the analysis from my first investigations. The next step was to look for the missing link between the 18.6-year lunar nodal cycle and the identified cycles in the Barents Sea. In 2001 I started to develop new methods to analyze climate indicators. The result was the Arctic Oscillation system theory. Wavelet analysis showed promising results and I started to analyze the biomass time series using the same analysis methods. This opened the possibility of a unified theory to explain the results from all time series.

Z-Axis theory gets a boost from a study of gyroscopic precessional motion.

Hat tip to Talkshop contributor ‘OldmanK’ for alerting us to an interesting website written by physicist Carl Johnson some years ago. Among the many interesting articles, there are a few on gyroscopes and the angular momentum of precession which directly relate to our study of solar system organisation, and which provide clues as to how the energy transfer which organises the stability of the orbits occurs. I have a hunch that this can potentially lead to several advances for us, in understanding the relations not only of orbital periods and their effects on neighbouring orbits, but also of orbit to spin-rate energy transfers. This will help unlock the mysterious numerical ‘coincidences’ Stuart and I have discovered between planetary rotation rates and their neighbours orbital rates. It may also further our understanding of correlations I discovered between Z-axis motion of the Sun relative to the centre of mass of the solar system and sunspot production, and changes in Earth’s length of day.

It will also help us understand why the important Z-axis discovery recently made by Paul Vaughan is Geo-effective, as evidenced by the appearance of the relevant periods in paleo-proxy records. As Paul points out, the implication is that two key cyclic periods, the Gleissberg and De Vries cycles, may be more to do with Earth’s orientation variations caused by Gas giant motion than solar activity variation, though it’s possible both are involved in the climate changes indicated by the proxies. This would be because the gas giant planets affect the Sun as well as the Earth directly.

Why Phi? – some Moon-Earth interactions

Tallbloke writes: Stuart ‘Oldbrew’ has been getting his calculator warm to discover the congruences in various aspects of the Lunar orbit around Earth, and its relationship to Earth-Moon orbit around the Sun. Emerging from this study are some useful insights into longer periods, such as the ‘precession of the equinoxes‘.

Some matching periods of lunar numbers:
86105 tropical months (TM) @ 27.321582 days = 2352524.8 days
85377 anomalistic months (AM) @ 27.55455 days = 2352524.8 days
79664 synodic months (SM) @ 29.530589 days = 2352524.8 days

These identical values are used in the chart on the right (top row). The second row numbers are the difference between the numbers in the first row (TM – AM and AM – SM).
The derivation of the third row number (6441) is shown on the chart itself [click on the chart to enlarge it].

The period of 6441 tropical years (6440.75 sidereal years) is one quarter of the Earth’s ‘precession of the equinox’.
Multiplying by 4: 25764 tropical years = 25763 sidereal years.
The difference of 1 is due to precession.

Michael Portillo gets it: Discovers that Antarctic ice mass has been increasing for decades

Politician turned pundit Michael Portillo made this comment on BBC’s ‘This Week’ programme, hosted by the more than slightly sceptical (on the qt) Andrew ‘brillo’ Neil.

Michael's moment of the week took place 10,000 miles from Westminster #bbctw https://t.co/qm1EKp9H6k

— BBC This Week (@bbcthisweek) November 5, 2015

A Mediterranean Mystery [with a Saros solution]

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Interesting empirical evidence from the sunny Mediterranean points to geo-effective lunar cycles altering tidal ranges.

MalagaBay

The waters of the Mediterranean are relatively calm and on a still day the sea at my favourite beach [Almayate – which is close to Malaga, Spain] can be as calm a millpond.

The tidal range at Almayate is [as Wikipedia states] very limited.

Being nearly landlocked affects conditions in the Mediterranean Sea: for instance, tides are very limited as a result of the narrow connection with the Atlantic Ocean.

The Mediterranean is characterised and immediately recognised by its deep blue colour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean#Oceanography

The sea currents at Almayate are also fairly benign.

Evaporation greatly exceeds precipitation and river runoff in the Mediterranean, a fact that is central to the water circulation within the basin.

Evaporation is especially high in its eastern half, causing the water level to decrease and salinity to increase eastward.

The salinity at 5 m depth is 3.8%.

The pressure gradient pushes relatively cool, low-salinity water from…

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Ian Wilson: Two new connections between the Planetary and Lunar Cycles

This article is a repost with permission of “Two new connections between the Planetary and Lunar Cycles” on Ian’s blog.

Two new connections between the Planetary and Lunar Cycles
1. The Connection Between the Lunar Tidal Cycles and the Synodic Period of Venus and the Earth.
The first direct connection between the planetary orbital periods and the lunar tidal cycles can be found in a previous blog post that is located at:
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2015/09/the-rate-of-change-in-tidal-stresses.html
In this post it was found that:
If you take the minimum period between the times of maximum change in the tidal stresses acting upon the Earth that are caused by changes in the direction of the lunar tides (i.e. 1.89803 tropical years), and amplitude modulate this period by the minimum period between the times of maximum change in tidal stresses acting upon the Earth that are caused by changes in the strength of the lunar tides (i.e. 10.14686 tropical years), you find that the 1.89803 year tidal forcing term is split into a positive and a negative side-lobe, such that:
Positive side-lobe
[10.14686 x 1.89803] / [10.14686 – 1.89803] = 2.3348 tropical yrs = 28.02 months

Negative side-lobe
[10.14686 x 1.89803] / [10.14686 + 1.89803] = 1.5989 tropical yrs

US rejects Keystone XL pipeline from Canada

Pipeline cancelled [image credit: americaherald.com]

The political ducking and weaving is over. After years of indecision, there will be no new oil pipeline from Canada to the US, as BBC News reports.

US President Barack Obama has announced he is rejecting an application to build the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. Speaking from the White House, he said it would not have served the “national interests” of the US.

Its construction has been hotly disputed for seven years, with environmentalists saying it would do irreparable damage. But the president said the pipeline had taken on an “overinflated role” in the climate change debate.

The proposed pipeline would have run 1,179-miles (1,897km) taking 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta, Canada, to Steele City, Nebraska. But Mr Obama said it would not have: lowered petrol prices, created long-term jobs, or affected energy dependence. “The pipeline would not make a meaningful long-term contribution to our economy,” he said.

Republican presidential candidates condemned the news, with Jeb Bush calling it an attack on the US economy.

Full report: US rejects Keystone XL pipeline from Canada – BBC News

They will just have to keep sending the oil by rail.

Is the government tinkering with global warming data? – Judith Curry

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Judy Curry has concerns about political agendas interfering with scientific objectivity.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/11/05/is-government-tinkering-with-global-warming-data.html

Judith Curry has this guest post on Fox News:

The hottest topic in climate research is the observation that global average surface temperature, as well as satellite observations of temperatures in the atmosphere, has shown little or no warming during the 21st century.

Now the political climate is heating up over the same issue. Heated words began circulating last summer, when a team of government scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), led by Thomas Karl, published a paper in Science titled “Possible Artifacts Of Data Biases In The Recent Global Surface Warming Hiatus.”

The press release from NOAA included this statement from Karl, who is head of the National Centers for Environmental Information: “Adding in the last two years of global surface temperature data and other improvements in the quality of the observed record provide evidence that contradict the notion of a hiatus…

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Forget Mars, anomaly, NASA.

The media interpretation will be all over the media today

As I think most Talkshop readers suspected Mars has no atmosphere as a consequence of the planet’s lack of a magnetic field, solar wind etc. strips the gas. NASA have stated they have found gas stripping.

The following is riddled with assumptions. As if there is more than dreaming of little green men.

NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission has identified the process that appears to have played a key role in the transition of the Martian climate from an early, warm and wet environment that might have supported surface life to the cold, arid planet Mars is today.

MAVEN data have enabled researchers to determine the rate at which the Martian atmosphere currently is losing gas to space via stripping by the solar wind. The findings reveal that the erosion of Mars’ atmosphere increases significantly during solar storms. The scientific results from the mission appear in the Nov. 5 issues of the journals Science and Geophysical Research Letters.

“Mars appears to have had a thick atmosphere warm enough to support liquid water which is a key ingredient and medium for life as we currently know it,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for the NASA Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “Understanding what happened to the Mars atmosphere will inform our knowledge of the dynamics and evolution of any planetary atmosphere. Learning what can cause changes to a planet’s environment from one that could host microbes at the surface to one that doesn’t is important to know, and is a key question that is being addressed in NASA’s journey to Mars.”

MAVEN measurements indicate that the solar wind strips away gas at a rate of about 100 grams (equivalent to roughly 1/4 pound) every second. “Like the theft of a few coins from a cash register every day, the loss becomes significant over time,” said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “We’ve seen that the atmospheric erosion increases significantly during solar storms, so we think the loss rate was much higher billions of years ago when the sun was young and more active.”

In addition, a series of dramatic solar storms hit Mars’ atmosphere in March 2015, and MAVEN found that the loss was accelerated. The combination of greater loss rates and increased solar storms in the past suggests that loss of atmosphere to space was likely a major process in changing the Martian climate.
— http://mars.nasa.gov/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1869

Good luck with the junk NASA web site, very little information. GRL is as bad, in your face.

Matt Ridley: The Climate Wars And The Damage To Science

Matt Ridley: The Climate Wars And The Damage To Science
Global Warming Policy Foundation, 5 November 2015

At the heart of the debate about climate change is a simple scientific question: can a doubling of the concentration of a normally harmless, indeed moderately beneficial, gas, from 0.03% of the atmosphere to 0.06% of the atmosphere over the course of a century change the global climate sufficiently to require drastic and painful political action today? In the end, that’s what this is all about. Most scientists close enough to the topic say: possibly. Some say: definitely. Some say: highly unlikely. The ‘consensus’ answer is that the warming could be anything from mildly beneficial to dangerously harmful: that’s what the IPCC means when it quotes a range of plausible outcomes from 1.5 to 4 degrees of warming.

On the basis of this unsettled scientific question, politicians and most of the pressure groups that surround them are furiously insistent that any answer to the question other than ‘definitely’ is vile heresy motivated by self-interest, and is so disgraceful as to require stamping out, prosecution as a crime against humanity, investigation under laws designed to catch racketeering by organized crime syndicates, or possibly the suspension of democracy. For yes, that is what has been repeatedly proposed by respected and senior figures in the climate debate.

National Grid needs emergency measure to keep UK lights on

“Last resort” measure known as NISM issued as margins are squeezed due to power station faults and lack of wind