Putin to stop gas exports to ‘unfriendly’ nations unless they pay in rubles — ITV News

Germany’s main gas supplier: Russia

Not quite what it seems, perhaps. It looks like a device to convert foreign currency into rubles to get round sanctions. But countries like Germany, which has placed heavy bets on gas by getting rid of coal and nuclear power and throwing fortunes at renewables, must be feeling the pressure and checking their gas storage levels.
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“Unfriendly countries” must start paying for Russian gas in rubles, or their supplies will be cut, Moscow has said.

The decree, published on Thursday by state media, came a day after the leaders of Italy and Germany said they received assurances from President Vladimir Putin, reports ITV News.

Mr Putin talked tougher, saying that starting from Friday, Russia will start accepting ruble payments from Western countries that imposed sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.

He said contracts will be stopped if buyers don’t sign up to the new conditions, which include opening ruble accounts in Russian banks.

European leaders had previously rejected paying for deliveries in rubles, saying it would undermine sanctions imposed because of the war in Ukraine.

Boris Johnson warned Kwarteng’s renewables drive would precipitate cost crisis and ‘ruin lives’ – Net Zero Watch

Image credit: MIT

The unhealthy obsession with weather-dependent electricity generation is to be cranked up to new levels of absurdity if the climate-obsessed minister gets his way. The Telegraph says ‘England faces being carpeted with solar panels in net zero push’. No use on short grey winter days, but maybe OK on a fine day in summer when electricity demand is low anyway.
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Press release – Net Zero Watch

While the government is struggling to agree a new energy security strategy, Kwasi Kwarteng is reported to be proposing a tenfold expansion of solar power, a fivefold increase in offshore wind, and a threefold increase in onshore wind, as well as a small increase in the nuclear fleet.

Net Zero Watch’s deputy director, Andrew Montford said:

The capital cost alone would run to £10,000 per household. This is an insane proposal at a time when households are already struggling with a doubling of the cost of their energy bills.”

And Dr John Constable, Net Zero Watch’s director of energy said:

On top of the capital cost, Mr Kwarteng’s plan would cost billions of pounds of operating costs, and billions more to keep the grid functioning. This is not the kind of proposal a serious politician would put forward”.

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See also: UK minister aims to triple solar power capacity by 2030.

Brussels takes legal action against UK over use of British parts in wind farms

Offshore wind farm [image credit: Wikipedia]

Will Brexit bitterness ever die? Renewables are now mired in international politics.
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Brussels has launched a legal challenge over the use of British parts in the UK’s offshore wind farms, reports the Telegraph.

The European Commission submitted its complaint to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the first such move it has made since Brexit.

The UK Government asks offshore wind farm developers to say how many of the parts they are using are from Britain.

Four Knights And Their Tales Of Climate Lies And Exaggeration

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Alarm-spreading climate propagandists exposed.

PA Pundits International

By Dr. John Happs ~

Wat: “You have been weighed.”
Roland: “You have been measured.”
Kate: “And you have absolutely…..”
Chaucer: “Been found wanting.”

A Knight’s Tale: Geoffrey Chaucer (1340’s – 1400)

A knighthood is a title given to a man by a British king or queen for his achievements or service to his country. Founded by King Edward the Third in 1348, the knighthood is regarded as the highest British civil and military honour obtainable and one would expect recipients to be persons of honesty and integrity.

There are at least 4 English knights who appear to have strayed from the path of honesty and integrity when it comes to relating information about climate change to politicians, the media, business and the general public.

The first Knight’s Tale is about Sir David King, former Professor of physical chemistry at Liverpool…

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Heatwave temperature threshold raised in England by Met Office — should anyone care?

Heatwave time [image credit: BBC]

An amusing non-event. Many people in England are happy to spend time in warmer climates when they get the chance, as holiday choices show. The Met Office can waffle about greenhouses as much as it likes, but natural climate variation will take its course without reference to humans.
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Forecasters have raised the temperature at which a heatwave is declared in several areas of England, reports BBC News.

The Met Office defines a heatwave as when an area experiences daily maximum temperatures meeting or exceeding a certain level for three days in a row.

Eight counties have had these limits raised by the forecaster by 1C.

A ‘heat wave’ and snowfall: Why researchers are puzzled by Antarctica’s recent weather

Antarctica

The alarmist Guardian’s ‘climate disaster’ turns out to be ‘climate mitigation’, due to the massive snowfall. A so-called heatwave where temperatures reached a chilly 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-12 Celsius), seems to have fooled a lot of people. The Guardian speculates that ‘climate breakdown could be accelerating’, but seeing what you wanted to see doesn’t always work.
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While researchers say it’s too early to know what role, if any, climate change plays here, the event has their attention because it’s so extreme, says NBC News.

It’s been a strange stretch for the icy desert at the bottom of the world.

In mid-March, temperatures in parts of East Antarctica soared 70 degrees Fahrenheit above average. It was high enough for researchers living there to brave the elements for a bare-chested group photo.

The comparatively balmy temperatures, which reached around 10 degrees Fahrenheit, arrived courtesy of a history-making atmospheric river — a plume of concentrated moisture that flows through the sky.

This one brought an incredible dump of snow in the inner reaches of the ice sheet, something quite rare for the area.

Nicola Scafetta: Advanced Testing of Low, Medium, and High ECS CMIP6 GCM Simulations Versus ERA5-T2m

In this new research paper the leading climate models turn out to be either too inaccurate (higher sensitivity) or unalarming (lower sensitivity).
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Plain Language Summary

The last-generation Coupled Model Intercomparison Projects (CMIP6) global circulation models (GCMs) are used by scientists and policymakers to interpret past and future climatic changes and to determine appropriate (adaptation or mitigation) policies to optimally address scenario-related climate-change hazards. However, these models are affected by large uncertainties. For example, their equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) varies from 1.83°C to 5.67°C, which makes their 21st-century predicted warming levels very uncertain. This issue is here addressed by testing the GCMs’ global and local performance in predicting the 1980–2021 warming rates against the ERA5-T2m records and by grouping them into three equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) classes (low-ECS, 1.80–3.00°C; medium-ECS, 3.01–4.50°C; high-ECS, 4.51–6.00°C). We found that: (a) all models with ECS > 3.0°C overestimate the observed global surface warming; (b) Student t-tests show model failure over 60% (low-ECS) to 81% (high-ECS) of the Earth’s surface. Thus, the high and medium-ECS GCMs do not appear to be consistent with the observations and should not be used for implementing policies based on their scenario forecasts. The low-ECS GCMs perform better, although not optimally; however, they are also found unalarming because for the next decades they predict moderate warming: ΔTpreindustrial→2050 ≲ 2°C.

Landmark Decision Vindicates Victims: Supreme Court Orders Total Wind Farm Shutdown

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One in the eye for wind farm racketeers.

STOP THESE THINGS

In a world-first, neighbours tormented by wind turbine noise have won a landmark victory, forcing the operator to shut down all of its turbines at night-time.

Yesterday, Justice Melinda Richards of the Victorian Supreme Court slapped an injunction on a wind farm because the noise it generates has been driving neighbours nuts for seven years, and the operator has done absolutely nothing about their suffering.

Her Honour also ordered damages, including aggravated damages for the high-handed way in which the operator has treated its victims. Since March 2015, the community surrounding the Bald Hills wind farm have been tortured by low-frequency noise and infrasound generated by 52, 2 MW Senvion MM92s.

Neighbours started complaining to the operator about noise, straightaway. But, as is their wont, the operator simply rejected the mounting complaints and carried on regardless.

Locals, however, were not perturbed. Instead, they lawyered up. Engaging the tough and tenacious

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Lithium price surge ‘jeopardizes energy transition efforts’

BMW i3 electric car plus battery pack [image credit: carmagazine.co.uk]

Unlucky. It’s not just lithium either. Nickel prices are going crazy as supply problems loom. The notion of EVs competing on price with fuel burners any time soon is receding fast, if not dead in the water.
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Soaring lithium prices are threatening energy transition efforts as EV battery makers will be forced to hike the prices for their products by as much as 25 percent, Morgan Stanley has warned.

Over the past 12 months, the bank said, as quoted by Bloomberg, the price of lithium carbonate, which is a key ingredient in electric vehicle batteries, has jumped five times.

This may force EV manufacturers to hike prices by up to 15 percent, hurting demand, reports OilPrice.com.

The news comes at a bad time for EVs. Rising retail fuel prices in some parts of the world, such as the United States, are driving higher EV demand, but carmakers are already finding it hard to satisfy it amid persistent supply chain problems and the rising prices of most raw materials.

Victorian rainfall data shows extreme UK weather events are nothing new

It’s better than we thought! Another setback for alarmists as modern UK rainfall isn’t living up to the climate hype after all. Will the ‘adjusters’ be called in?
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Newly transcribed data from the Victorian era has ‘smashed’ current rainfall records, report experts at the Met Office and the University of Reading.

Heavy rainfall may be associated with flash floods and the modern-day battle against climate change, says the Daily Mail.

But a new study led by the Met Office and the University of Reading shows it’s nothing new – in fact, newly recovered data from the Victorian era has ‘smashed’ current rainfall records.

UN Secretary General claims use of fossil fuels will lead to ‘mutually assured destruction’

Coal-hungry China [image credit: democraticunderground.com]

More doom-laden propaganda, pretending climate theories are facts and so on.
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The UN Secretary General says the rush to use fossil fuels because of the war in Ukraine is “madness” and threatens global climate targets.

The invasion of Ukraine has seen rapid rises in the prices of coal, oil and gas as countries scramble to replace Russian sources, says BBC News.

But Antonio Guterres warns that these short-term measures might “close the window” on the Paris climate goals.

Arctic winter 2022 sea ice only 10th-lowest on the 43-year satellite record

Sea ice optional [image credit: BBC]

Not an indicator of supposedly dire global warming this season then? Groans from climate obsessives perhaps. Nothingburgers all round.
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Arctic sea ice appeared to have hit its annual maximum extent on Feb. 25 after growing through the fall and winter, says NASA (via Phys.org).

This year’s wintertime extent is the 10th-lowest in the satellite record maintained by the National Snow and Ice Data Center, one of NASA’s Distributed Active Archive Centers.

The Thermosphere is Warming Up

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Solar cycle 25 is about to reach the interesting stage, when we find out what it’s really made of.

Spaceweather.com

March 23, 2022: Solar Cycle 25 is intensifying–and Earth’s upper atmosphere is responding.

“The Thermosphere Climate Index (TCI) is going up rapidly right now,” reports Linda Hunt of Science Systems and Applications, Inc. “It has nearly tripled in the past year.”

TCI is a number published daily by NASA, which tells us how hot Earth’s upper atmosphere is. The thermosphere, the very highest layer of gas, literally touches space and is a sort of “first responder” to solar activity. Hunt created this plot showing how TCI has unfolded during the last 7 solar cycles.  Solar Cycle 25 (shown in blue) is just getting started:

“So far Solar Cycle 25 is well ahead of the pace of Solar Cycle 24,” notes Hunt. If this trend continues, the thermosphere could soon hit a 20-year high in temperature.

Before we go any farther, a word of caution: This does not mean Earth is…

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Temps Cause CO2 Changes, Not the Reverse. 2022 Update

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The short answer to the climate question.

Science Matters

This post is about proving that CO2 changes in response to temperature changes, not the other way around, as is often claimed.  In order to do  that we need two datasets: one for measurements of changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations over time and one for estimates of Global Mean Temperature changes over time.

Climate science is unsettling because past data are not fixed, but change later on.  I ran into this previously and now again in 2021 and 2022 when I set out to update an analysis done in 2014 by Jeremy Shiers (discussed in a previous post reprinted at the end).  Jeremy provided a spreadsheet in his essay Murray Salby Showed CO2 Follows Temperature Now You Can Too posted in January 2014. I downloaded his spreadsheet intending to bring the analysis up to the present to see if the results hold up.  The two sources of data were:

Temperature…

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EV Race Ignores Russian, Chinese Mineral Speed Traps

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Beep beep! Trouble ahead for mineral-hungry EV producers, especially in countries that don’t want mining on their soil.

PA Pundits International

By Larry Bell ~

Billboard size speed limit signs and flashing police radar scanning dashboard warnings be damned!

U.S. and European electric vehicle (EV) companies are racing to cash in on markets driven by dependence upon government subsidies which, in turn, rely on scarce and costly materials needed for batteries controlled by foreign adversaries.

Mining required for those EV batteries will soon dominate the world production of many critical minerals, and already accounts for about 40% and 25%, respectively, of all global lithium and cobalt.

Take nickel, for example, of which Russia produces about 7% of the global supply and 20% of the world’s class 1 (98% pure quality) used both for advanced electric vehicle batteries and stainless steel production.

In March, after prices soared 66% to more than $100,000 a metric ton, the London Metal Exchange suspended nickel trading after a three-month contract price more than doubled.

Prompted…

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Nations vet 3,000-page handbook to ‘halt climate crisis’?

Photosynthesis: nature requires carbon dioxide

How delusional can these self-appointed weather managers get? Their ‘carbon pollution’ is a trace gas (a mere 0.04% of the atmosphere) essential to the natural world. But in their minds it’s a disaster waiting to happen, if not already happening, and so the endless hype and demands for ever more massive expenditure go on.
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Nearly 200 nations gather Monday to grapple with a question that will outlive Covid-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (says Phys.org): how does a world addicted to fossil fuels prevent carbon pollution from making Earth unliveable?

A partial answer is set for April 4 after closed-door, virtual negotiations approve a nearly 3,000-page report detailing options for drawing down greenhouse gases and extracting them from the air.

“The impacts are costly and mounting, but we still have some time to close the window and get ahead of the worst of them if we act now,” said Alden Meyer, a senior analyst at climate and energy think-tank E3G.

“This report will supply the answers as to what we need if we’re serious about getting there.”

Met Office study discusses invisible Gulf Stream climate signal?

The signal that wasn’t found could be ‘masked’, researchers suggest. They expected ‘ongoing climate change’ to do something, but maybe it just wasn’t there? Cue more research.
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A new Met Office-led study – reviewing evidence from previous scientific papers and climate models – reveals natural patterns of weakening and strengthening of ocean currents which influence the UK’s weather and climate.

In the North Atlantic lies one of the world’s largest climate mechanisms: a system of currents transporting relatively warm water from the tropics to the poles, with return currents at depth transporting colder, denser water further south.

The transport of heat to the North Atlantic keeps the UK’s climate warmer than other locations at our latitude, says the Met Office.

An Atmospheric River of Dust

At least a few times a year, strong and persistent winds from the south drive Saharan dust north toward Europe, as recent research explains. Two such events in 2021 ‘led to snow darkening by dust deposition over the Alps with 40% decrease in snow albedo’, among other effects. NASA says the dust plays a major role in Earth’s climate and biological systems, absorbing and reflecting solar energy and fertilizing ocean ecosystems with iron and other minerals that plants and phytoplankton need to grow. A slight positive trend in the frequency of such events since 1980 is suggested to be related to the El Niños in the period. The research paper hints at the need for climate models to take these events into account.
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On March 15, 2022, a plume of Saharan dust was blown out of North Africa and across the Mediterranean into Western Europe, says NASA’s Earth Observatory.

The dust turned skies orange, blanketed cities, impaired air quality, and stained ski slopes.

The plume was driven by an atmospheric river arising from Storm Celia, which brought strong winds, rain, and snow to the Canary Islands.

Atmospheric rivers, normally associated with extreme moisture, can also carry dust.

IEA Wants Energy Lockdowns

The war in Ukraine will morph into the war on climate change. So predictable we already predicted it. Paul Homewood provides the details of the plan.

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/03/18/iea-wants-energy-lockdowns/

Nature’s carbon cycle still in good working order, researchers find

The carbon cycle [credit: laurencenet.net]

Carbon cycle alarm has so far failed to materialise, this research finds.
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Researchers have constructed a new time series for global carbon emissions from deforestation, reports Phys.org.

The series is the missing link in terms of the improved understanding of the global carbon cycle, and it implies that the natural uptake of CO2 by the land and oceans is more efficient than previously assumed.

The study shows that carbon emissions from deforestation between the 1960s and 1980s were lower than previous studies had assumed.