Science cop-out expected for COP27

Arctic ocean near Barrow, Alaska [image credit: Beth Ipsen/Associated Press]

Another climate worrier fest, another year of the non-existent Arctic summer sea ice ‘death spiral’. How long can this charade go on?
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COP27 is almost upon us, says Net Zero Watch.

That means it’s the time of year when we take stock of the changes we see taking place in the Earth’s climate, when we begin to think aboout placing the weather events of 2022 into the context of decadal trends.

This review, however, might leave some delegates heading to Egypt for the 27th UN climate summit a little confused.

New tool helps researchers investigate clouds, rain and climate change

Anvil of a thundercloud over Columbia [image credit: Eulenjäger @ Wikipedia]

Researchers hope ‘to ease comparisons between climate and weather models with observations from weather instruments’, broadly speaking. In terms of modelling this is a known area of difficulty.
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The Earth Model Column Collaboratory is an open-source research platform that pairs complex data with weather observations to create highly accurate climate models and forecast predictions.

Clouds come in all shapes and sizes, says Phys.org.

While we might imagine puppies or whales or breaking waves, climatologists look at them as massive bundles of water in various forms that contribute to the daily weather, and ultimately, climate.

The numbers, shapes and sizes of the liquid drops and ice crystals contained in a cloud, for example, will determine how it will scatter light or emit and absorb heat.

Use Covid lessons to curb climate change, Lords tell government

Government must ‘lead’ on home insulation, diet and travel reports BBC News – because…net zero. Lives must in effect be micro-managed in the supposed climate crisis.
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Information campaigns like those used in the Covid-19 pandemic would help individuals act on climate change, a House of Lords report has said.

To meet climate goals, a third of cuts to UK emissions by 2035 must come from people changing their behaviour, it says.

It calls the government’s current approach “seriously inadequate”.

In response the government said it is fully committed to its legally binding net zero climate goals.

How windfarms charge you twice for the same electricity – Net Zero Watch

Moray East windfarm [image credit: offshorewind.biz]

It turns out that ‘when a windfarm is constrained off or constrained down, it doesn’t actually have to switch off or switch down. It is free to divert power via a private wire to anyone who will pay for it.’ Someone with a big battery, for example.
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I recently noted that Moray East, a very large and very new windfarm situated off the Scottish coast, is spending a remarkable amount of time switched off – something like a quarter of the time, in fact, says Andrew Montford @ NZW.

As is widely known, windfarms can receive so-called constraint payments when the transmission grid doesn’t have the capacity to deliver power from windfarms (typically in the north, and often far offshore) to markets (in the south), so Moray East receiving such payments was not a surprise; only the scale of the payments was.

A constraint payment is worth around £60 per megawatt hour, which is around the fixed price at which Moray East contracted to sell power to the grid.

However, as noted elsewhere, Moray East has failed to take up that contract, and it is therefore able to sell its output into the open market at £200, £300 or even £400 per megawatt hour.

Liz Truss to ban solar projects on farms

Image credit: BBC

Some pushback against the excesses of climate obsession.
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Liz Truss is poised to ban solar projects from most farms in England in a move that will dismay climate change campaigners and some Tory backbenchers, says Yahoo News.

The prime minister has long been opposed to solar farms on agricultural land, condemning them as “a blight on the landscape” when she was environment secretary in 2014.

And during the Tory leadership campaign this summer, she said she wanted to see farmers producing food with crops and livestock, “not filling fields with paraphernalia like solar farms”.

Megadroughts are part of Australia’s past and may return soon, warn alarmists

A dried up Lake Hume, 2007 [image credit: suburbanbloke @ Wikipedia]

Attribution of events, known to have happened many times before, to human causes by invoking ‘the role of climate change’ in the modern era is speculation at best, as is any vague claim that humans could ‘increase the risk’ of such events. As usual, climate alarmists want people to feel guilty and nervous.
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Most Australians have known drought in their lifetimes, and have memories of cracked earth and empty streams, paddocks of dust and stories of city reservoirs with only a few weeks’ storage, says The Conversation (via Phys.org).

But our new research finds over the last 1,000 years, Australia has suffered longer, larger and more severe droughts than those recorded over the last century.

These are called “megadroughts,” and they’re likely to occur again in coming decades.

Satellite Temperature Data Show Almost All Climate Model Forecasts Over the Last 40 Years Were Wrong

Image credit: livescience.com

Maybe a climate model with no ‘ECS’ factor could do better? But anything that smacks of natural variation inevitably faces resistance from climate alarm promoters.
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A major survey into the accuracy of climate models has found that almost all the past temperature forecasts between 1980-2021 were excessive compared with accurate satellite measurements, says the Daily Sceptic.

The findings were recently published by Professor Nicola Scafetta, a physicist from the University of Naples. He attributes the inaccuracies to a limited understanding of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS), the number of degrees centigrade the Earth’s temperature will rise with a doubling of carbon dioxide.

Scientists have spent decades trying to find an accurate ECS number, to no avail.

Torches not candles: How to prepare for a blackout – Sky News

Image credit: thecount.com

The appearance in the media of articles like this is a warning sign in itself. The old days of plentiful coal stockpiles next to power stations are almost over, thanks to futile climate obsessions leading to bad energy policy.
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The National Grid’s warning that three-hour planned blackouts may have to be implemented this winter has left many feeling anxious, says Sky News.

People use more energy to keep warm in winter.

And while Britain has a considerable gas supply in the North Sea, we lack space to store it, which means we have to import around 30% from Europe during periods of increased demand.

UK starts new licensing round for oil and gas exploration ‘despite climate fears’, says ITV News

North Sea gas rig [image credit: safety4sea.com]

Climate obsessives think importing energy from anywhere and everywhere is somehow better than producing it at home. Economics and geo-politics don’t get considered. They expect to wake up one day and find fuel power is history, despite it providing about 80% of the world’s energy. Time to abandon the dismal mythology.
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The UK has started a new licencing round for oil and gas exploration despite the government’s pledge to achieving its net zero target, says ITV News.

Business and Energy Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg has insisted the move will boost both the UK’s economy and energy security.

The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) has now begun the 33rd round of offshore licences, which are being made available for sectors of the North Sea – known as blocks – with the NSTA estimating that over 100 may be granted.

Seasonal change in Antarctic ice sheet movement observed for first time – but what does it mean?

Antarctica’s George VI Ice Shelf [image credit: CIRES Colorado Univ.]

Assumptions challenged by new data. Talk of “potentially important implications for global sea-level rise estimates”.
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Some estimates of Antarctica’s total contribution to sea-level rise may be over- or underestimated, after researchers detected a previously unknown source of ice loss variability, says Phys.org.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and Austrian engineering company ENVEO, identified distinct, seasonal movements in the flow of land-based ice draining into George VI Ice Shelf—a floating platform of ice roughly the size of Wales—on the Antarctic Peninsula.

Using imagery from the Copernicus/European Space Agency Sentinel-1 satellites, the researchers found that the glaciers feeding the ice shelf speed up by approximately 15% during the Antarctic summer.

Be afraid! Professors call for more research into climate-change related threats to civilization

Credit: nationalreview.com

Scare the masses with doom-laden climate scenarios! Academia sees an opportunity.
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An opinion piece published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences urgently calls for more research into the specific pathways by which civilization could potentially collapse due to climate change, says Phys.org.

“Scientists have warned that climate change threatens the habitability of large regions of the Earth and even civilization itself, but surprisingly little research exists about how collapse could happen and what can be done to prevent it,” says Dr. Daniel Steel of the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia.

“A better understanding of the risks of collapse is essential for climate ethics and policy.”

Electric vehicles are exploding from water damage after Hurricane Ian, top Florida official warns

Typical electric car set-up

Water and electricity don’t mix too well. A headache for owners but also for insurers.
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A top Florida state official warned Thursday that firefighters have battled a number of fires caused by electric vehicle (EV) batteries waterlogged from Hurricane Ian, reports Fox News.

EV batteries that have been waterlogged in the wake of the hurricane are at risk of corrosion, which could lead to unexpected fires, according to Jimmy Patronis, the state’s top financial officer and fire marshal.

“There’s a ton of EVs disabled from Ian. As those batteries corrode, fires start,” Patronis tweeted Thursday. “That’s a new challenge that our firefighters haven’t faced before. At least on this kind of scale.”

France ski world blasts Asian Winter Games in Saudi Arabia

Snow maker [image credit: skiindustry.org]

Pompous climate obsessives on the warpath again. Have they forgotten the French also use artificial snow sometimes? So tedious.
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PARIS (AP). — The French ski federation, mayors from mountain resorts and ski instructors lashed out Thursday at the decision to award the 2029 Asian Winter Games to Saudi Arabia, saying the decision goes against “what is desirable for the planet”.

In a joint statement also signed by the union of ski area operators, they said they have been “left flabbergasted” by the plan to host the competition “in a place naturally poor in precipitation and water, where there are no ski resorts or slopes to date.”

Saudi Arabia will host the Asian Winter Games in mountains near the $500 billion futuristic city project Neom.

Shellenberger: The Media Are Deliberately Lying About Climate Change And Hurricanes

Image credit: sanibelrealestateguide.com

They obviously think they can get away with it. Who or what is pulling their strings?
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Over the last several weeks, many mainstream news media outlets have claimed that hurricanes are becoming more expensive, more frequent, and more intense because of climate change, says Michael Shellenberger (via Climate Change Dispatch).

• The Financial Times reported that “hurricane frequency is on the rise.”

• The New York Times claimed, “strong storms are becoming more common in the Atlantic Ocean.”

• The Washington Post said, “climate change is rapidly fueling super hurricanes.”

• ABC News declared, “Here’s how climate change intensifies hurricanes.”

• Both the FT and NY Times showed graphs purporting to show rising hurricane frequency using data from the U.S. government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

All those claims are false.

The increasing cost of hurricane damage can be explained entirely by more people and more property in harm’s way. Consider how much more developed Miami Beach is today compared to a century ago. Once you adjust for rising wealth, there is no trend of increasing damage.

Claims that hurricanes are becoming more frequent are similarly wrong.

“After adjusting for a likely undercount of hurricanes in the pre-satellite era,” writes NOAA, “there is essentially no long-term trend in hurricane counts. The evidence for an upward trend is even weaker if we look at U.S. landfalling hurricanes, which even show a slight negative trend beginning from 1900 or from the late 1800s.”

What’s more, NOAA expects a 25% decline in hurricane frequency in the future.

What about intensity? Same story.

Continued here.

Days get longer when the wind blows, say Met Office researchers

Credit: Wikipedia

Interesting, if the suggested predictions work. Tallbloke identified this 13 years ago.
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How long is a day on earth? The obvious answer of 24 hours is accurate enough for many applications, says the Met Office blog.

But for those interested in GPS or deep space, then understanding the fluctuations of about one millisecond in the length of a day can be fundamentally important.

A team at the Met Office, led by Professor Adam Scaife, has calculated that these length of day fluctuations are predictable out to more than one year ahead and this is all to do with predicting the strength of atmospheric winds.

Study suggests La Niña winters could keep on coming, but climate models are out of step with observations

The conclusions of a recent study are quite blunt: ‘We show that the spatial pattern of observed surface temperature changes since 1979 is highly unusual, and many aspects of it cannot be reproduced in current climate models, even when accounting for the influence of natural variability.’ Hardly inspiring, when such models are being relied upon by governments for radical so-called climate policies.
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Forecasters are predicting a “three-peat La Niña” this year, says Phys.org.

This will be the third winter in a row that the Pacific Ocean has been in a La Niña cycle, something that’s happened only twice before in records going back to 1950.

New research led by the University of Washington offers a possible explanation. The study, recently published in Geophysical Research Letters, suggests that climate change is, in the short term, favoring La Niñas.

Steve Baker says UK cannot afford net zero pledge ‘in the short run’

Having tied their own hands with the Climate Change Act, UK politicians are now locked in arguments about how best to implement unworkable energy policies. Intermittency of electricity supply is baked into the legislation.
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A Conservative minister has said “in the short run” the UK cannot afford net zero, reports Sky News.

Speaking at an event run by the Institute of Economic Affairs at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker told a packed room of party members that cutting net zero commitments this year would save households more than £1,500 amid the ongoing energy crisis.

“It’s time to have a sensible conversation about net zero,” Mr Baker urged.

He said that the government remains committed to net zero in the long term, but “the big problem that we’ve got is that renewables are intermittent”.

“The reality is that renewables are great when they are available, but they still require a lot of subsidies going in.

“So what we need is a gas to nuclear strategy. We are going to need gas as a transition fuel.”

But fellow Tory MP and panellist Bim Afolami disagreed with Mr Baker’s remarks, saying “we can afford net zero and we need to”.

He told the audience that “we need more nuclear” and “yes, we need gas as a transitional fuel as well”, adding: “But crucially, we need wind and solar.”

Mr Afolami continued: “We have some of the windiest coastlines in the world. Let’s use it. And most importantly, when there’s a war in Ukraine or anywhere else, we are not dependent on anyone else.”

Full report here.

King Charles will not attend climate summit on Truss advice

One less climate bore at COP27. Or the polite version: we shall have to try to contain our profound disappointment. Reports claiming he was ‘ordered’ not to go are strongly denied.
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The monarch and prime minister agreed the King would not go after he sought government advice, says BBC News.

Controversy over tropical ozone hole

Layers of Earth’s atmosphere

Have experts missed a huge tropical ozone hole that has existed since the 1980s? — asks Geographical. Or could it be more a question of definitions?
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In July, an extraordinary research paper, documenting a huge, previously undetected ozone hole over the tropics, prompted a flurry of news stories.

Said to be seven times the size of the well-known ozone hole over Antarctica, the discovery is cause for ‘great global concern’, according to Qing-Bin Lu, a professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada, and author of the report.

His research suggests that, unlike the Antarctic hole, which only opens in spring, the tropical hole remains open year-round, putting roughly half the world’s population at higher risk from ultraviolet radiation.

Most surprisingly of all, Lu claims that the hole has existed since the 1980s.