Ned Nikolov: Climate explainer interview video now online

Ned Nikolov writes: Our climate-science Interview is now available on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/821124143 You will learn in 17 minutes, why CO2 is not a driver of Earth’s climate, and what’s physically wrong with the “greenhouse” theory at the root of the AGW claim and all crazy Net-Zero energy policies.

Interview of Ned Nikolov by Alex Newman video

Net zero Britain will be unable to keep the lights on, MPs warn

MPs voted almost unanimously for the current energy/climate policies, but now they don’t like the look of the results. Going down the same futile route faster, in pursuit of ‘decarbonization’ targets, is their proposed solution.
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Britain will struggle to keep the lights on using only net zero electricity as the roll-out of green energy lags far behind target, MPs have warned.

Falling investor confidence and bureaucratic delays mean Britain’s efforts to produce entirely clean electricity are at risk of stalling, MPs on the cross-party Business Select Committee said.

They are calling on the government to come up with a “coherent, overarching plan” to boost green supplies — or risk missing climate targets, says The Telegraph.

Demand for electricity is expected to soar as households buy electric cars and heat pumps.

In Brief: A Texas-Sized Energy Fiasco

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Is it really the Inflation Acceleration Act? Subsidies to offset other subsidies don’t save anyone money. Climate groupthink strikes again.

PA Pundits International

Austin passes subsidies for gas power to counter wind-power subsidies that have destabilized the state electric grid.

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We all remember the great Texas power outages a couple of years back, and Texans more than most. That doesn’t mean their elected representatives are learning the right lessons, as the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal notes.

What a mess. Renewable subsidies have distorted and destabilized the Texas electric grid, which resulted in a week-long power outage during the February 2021 freeze. To prevent more blackouts, Republicans in the Lone Star State now plan to subsidize gas power plants.

The Texas Senate last week passed putative energy reforms to “level the playing field,” as Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick put it. Texans will now spend tens of billions of dollars to bolster natural-gas plants that provide reliable power but can’t make money because of competition from…

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Net zero or busted: Shapps could face potential imprisonment for not having proper plan

Well-known London prison

Cue intensified attempts to reach so-called climate targets at inevitably vast public expense. An exercise in futility.
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Grant Shapps, the Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary has revealed during a meeting of the Environment and Climate Change Committee that he faces the risk of being sent to prison for contempt of court if he fails to deliver on the government’s net zero targets, says Energy Live News.

Shapps, who was asked about the current arrangements that support his role in achieving these targets, stated that he has the greatest incentive among his government colleagues and anyone globally to reach these exacting goals.

U.S. Net Debt To Exceed 110% By 2028 As Decarbonization Costs Mount

This is where choosing carbon dioxide obsession over proper understanding of Earth’s complex and dynamic climate could be leading the unwary.
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While the latest IMF forecasts were mostly lost in the din surrounding the start of earnings season, besides the now standard cuts to global growth forecasts, there was one standout item, says Zero Hedge (via Oilprice.com).

As National Bank of Canada points out, the IMF’s projections forecast U.S. net debt to rise from 95% of GDP in 2023 to 110% by 2028, which actually is a conservative estimate when comparing a similar, if even more concerning longer-term forecast from the Congressional Budget Office, which effectively projects hyperinflation.

But while the fate of US debt/GDP in 2050 may feel like someone else’s problem to most Americans, NBC warns that a far more pressing issue may emerge as soon as a decade from today.

That’s because unless Washington raises taxes more or slashes benefits (an unlikely outcome), the Social Security fund will hit net zero – i.e., will be exhausted – in just 10 years.

Read more here.

National Grid quits North Sea carbon capture project to focus on its ‘hard-pressed’ energy networks

Image credit: steelguru.com

No prizes for guessing why those networks are hard-pressed: step forward ‘net zero’ climate obsession. Lack of reliable electricity supply didn’t happen overnight.
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National Grid is quitting its foray into developing carbon capture and storage in the UK, in a blow to the Government’s net zero ambitions, says the Daily Telegraph.

The FTSE 100 company is abandoning its plans to develop new pipelines in the Humber region to take carbon dioxide emissions out to the North Sea.

Its National Grid Ventures arm is in talks to sell the onshore pipeline project to partners, and has already quit another phase of the project.

Carbon capture and storage is considered key to the Government’s plans to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but is not yet up and running at scale in the UK.

Power plants in the Humber region hoping to start capturing their emissions missed out on a fresh round of government support announced at the end of last month.

National Grid said it wants to focus instead on its electricity networks, which are in major need of upgrades to help cope with the rise in wind farms, electric cars and heat pumps.

A spokesman said it was “committed to managing a smooth transition” as it moved to transfer its carbon capture interests to partners.
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BP is now expected to become the system operator from end to end.

Full article here.

Jupiter, Earth and Venus’ tropical alignments point to the mean solar cycle length

Precession of Earth’s axis [image credit: NASA, Mysid @ Wikipedia]

Introduction:
A number of researchers have hypothesised that the relative motions of Jupiter, Earth and Venus are connected to the length of solar cycles. In this post we will show that cyclic periods of 83 years (Gleissberg), 166 years (Landscheidt, Wilson), and 996 years (Eddy, Stefani et al) are found not just in the syzygies and synodic periods between these planets, but also in their heliocentric orientations with respect to a frame of reference rotating at the rate of Earth’s axial precession. This discovery has implications for our understanding of the forces driving that axial precession, and opens some new avenues for hypothesising about the links between planetary motion and solar activity variations.

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We propose that not only amplitude, but the mean period of the solar cycle itself derives from planetary influence in a specific manner.

South Western Railway disruption after biofuel clogs engines

For how much longer?
[image credit: thecostaricanews.com]

Derailed by climate obsession? According to The Telegraph the problem is that ‘algae produced by green fuels blocks engines’, if they’re left unused for a certain period of time. Potential implications for other motorised transport here.
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A train operator has reduced services after diesel engines were clogged with biofuel, reports BBC News.

South Western Railway (SWR) said a fault was discovered on Wednesday in much of its diesel fleet at depots in Exeter and Salisbury.

It said the issue would disrupt services in the Romsey area and west of Salisbury until further notice.

BBC South transport correspondent Paul Clifton said SWR would run a fraction of normal services on the routes.

He said the issue would affect the West of England line for the next week.

Full report here.

Russian ‘spy ships’ linked to North Sea wind farms sabotage plan

Hornsea Offshore Wind Project, Yorkshire, England
[image credit: nsenergybusiness.com]

This puts a whole new slant on claims of wind power boosting energy security.
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Russia has a programme to sabotage wind farms and communication cables in the North Sea, according to new allegations, says BBC News.

The details come from a joint investigation by public broadcasters in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.

It says Russia has a fleet of vessels disguised as fishing trawlers and research vessels in the North Sea.

They carry underwater surveillance equipment and are mapping key sites for possible sabotage.

Tree planting fiasco: half a million have died next to one 21-mile stretch of road

A14 road

Competence got left behind in the rush to look climate friendly by absorbing a token amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
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The government agency responsible for our main roads, National Highways, has admitted that over half a million trees have died beside a single 21-mile stretch of new carriageway, reports Sky News.

They estimate the cost of replanting at £2.9m.

Many tree experts say this is symptomatic of a focus on tree planting over tree care. Only growing trees capture carbon or improve habitat.

The upgrade of the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon, cost £1.5bn and was opened in 2020.

Biden’s green spending blitz could plunge world into ‘dark ages’, warns Hunt

Subsidising net zero type so-called climate policies in the US is not only enormously expensive but globally disruptive as well, it seems. Climate protection becoming climate protectionism?
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Joe Biden’s flagship green energy policy risks plunging the world into the economic “dark ages”, Jeremy Hunt has warned.

The Chancellor urged world leaders not to put up trade barriers after the US President passed a $369bn package of subsidies to support climate and energy businesses, reports The Daily Telegraph.

Mr Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act has drawn an estimated $200bn in investment since it was passed last year, according to estimates from the Financial Times, and both the EU and Britain have been forced to draw up responses of their own.

It has sparked fears of a new era of protectionism, where economies are closely managed through tariffs and subsidies.

Germany shuts all of its nuclear plants – and is warned it will regret it

Isar nuclear power site, Bavaria

Arm-waving propaganda about tiny amounts of ‘carbon’, i.e. vital carbon dioxide gas, in the atmosphere has led to this decision. One obvious problem being that wind and solar energy can’t be stockpiled, or accessed on demand, hence Germany’s newly increased dependence on coal power for its electricity.
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Germany became only the third European country to shut off its nuclear power supply on Saturday when its final three reactors were severed from the grid for good, says The Daily Telegraph.

The end of German nuclear energy, a process begun by former chancellor Angela Merkel after the Fukushima disaster in 2011, came at the same time as the country seeks to wean itself off fossil fuels and manage an energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.

A small crowd of pro-nuclear demonstrators turned out in front of the Brandenburg Gate on Saturday to protest the end of Germany’s nuclear era.

On the rain-drenched Pariser Platz, they watched a pantomime in which the sun and wind struggled to defeat men dressed as coal and gas until nuclear power came to the rescue.

2022 Tongan volcanic eruption was largest natural explosion in more than a century, new study finds

Awesome may be an overused word, but justified here.
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The 2022 eruption of a submarine volcano in Tonga was more powerful than the largest U.S. nuclear explosion, according to a new study led by scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science and the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation.

The 15-megaton volcanic explosion from Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, one of the largest natural explosions in more than a century, generated a mega-tsunami with waves up to 45 meters high (148 feet) along the coast of Tonga’s Tofua Island and waves up to 17 meters (56 feet) on Tongatapu, the country’s most populated island, says Phys.org.

In a new analysis in Science Advances, Rosenstiel School researchers used a combination of before-and-after satellite imagery, drone mapping, and field observations collected by scientists at the University of Auckland, and data from the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation Global Reef Expedition, to produce a tsunami simulation of the Tongan Archipelago.

Rollout of £150m heat pump scheme branded ’embarrassing’ after installation target missed

Domestic Air Source Heat Pump [image credit: UK Alternative Energy]

A climate-obsessed government wasting money on a ‘wretched’ subsidised scheme while chasing self-imposed targets – heard it before?
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The government offered vouchers to help people pay to replace boilers with heat pumps but critics say most people can’t afford them “subsidised or not”, reports Sky News.

“It does not help people keep bills low. It takes from the poor to give to the wealthy and it is an embarrassment of a policy.”

The figures have cast doubt on the government’s target of 600,000 installations of heat pumps per year by 2028.

Climate models have a volcano problem

Volcanic eruption

At least they now know about it. In tests, ‘inclusion of the eruptions degraded the model’s predictive capabilities’.
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Simulated volcanic eruptions may be blowing up our ability to predict near-term climate, according to a new study published in Science Advances.

The research, led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), finds that the way volcanic eruptions are represented in climate models may be masking the models’ ability to accurately predict variations in sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific that unfold over multiple years to a decade, says Phys.org.

These decadal variations in sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific are linked to climate impacts across the globe, including variations in precipitation and severe weather.

Accurate predictions, therefore, could provide community leaders, farmers, water managers, and others with critical climate information that allows them to plan years in advance.

“Near-term climate prediction on annual to decadal timescales is a rapidly growing and important field in the climate community because it bridges the gap between existing seasonal forecasts and centennial climate projections,” said Xian Wu, who led the study as a postdoctoral researcher at NCAR.

“When we rely on models to make these predictions, it’s important to carefully consider the model’s fidelity. In this case, we found that model errors in simulating the response to volcanic eruptions degraded our prediction skill.”

For the study, Wu and her colleagues relied on two parallel collections of climate simulations from the Decadal Prediction Large Ensemble, a dataset produced using the NCAR-based Community Earth System Model.

These simulations were run as hindcasts and cover the years from 1954–2015, allowing scientists to compare the simulations with what really occurred and evaluate their skill at predicting the future.

One collection of simulations included the three major volcanic eruptions that occurred during the study period: Agung (1963), El Chichón (1982), and Pinatubo (1991). The other collection did not.

Because it is well established that large volcanic eruptions can have significant, long-term cooling effects on the climate, Wu and her colleagues expected that the collection of simulations that included the volcanic eruptions would produce more accurate multiyear and decadal climate predictions.

Instead, they found that the inclusion of the eruptions degraded the model’s predictive capabilities, at least in the tropical Pacific, an area that is especially important because of the connections between sea surface temperatures and near-term climate events.

For example, the simulations that included the volcanoes predicted a subsequent cooling of the sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific after the eruptions. In reality, that region of the ocean warmed, a change that was well predicted by the simulations that did not include the volcanic eruptions.

These findings highlight the difficulty of accurately representing the complex climate impacts that follow a volcanic eruption in a model, a task made more challenging because researchers only have a few real-life examples in the observational record.

Scientists know that volcanoes can loft sulfur gases high into the stratosphere where they can transform into sunlight-reflecting aerosols. But how the resulting cooling ultimately affects the entire Earth system, including sea surface temperatures, is not well understood.

“We just don’t have enough observations,” Wu said. “And our methods to observe what is happening in the stratosphere have only been available since the satellite era, which means we only have Chichón and Pinatubo.”

Full article here.

US ski season extended as record snowpack dents Western drought

Image credit: activenorcal.com]

‘Record snowpack’, ‘staggering snowfall’ – dismal climate doomsters take note.
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Record snowfall across much of the western United States has not only helped to alleviate drought—it has also brought a massive boon for the region’s ski resorts, with many hoping to keep their lifts running deep into summer, says Phys.org.

Sitting more than 10,500 feet (3,200 meters) above sea level, Colorado’s Arapahoe Basin has long been famous for its long seasons. The resort’s frozen pistes were the state’s first to open last fall, and typically don’t close until June.

“I bet you, here, we might make it into July. I hope so,” said local ski enthusiast Ian Burkle, 52.

Solar maximum may arrive later this year, say researchers

Sunspots [image credit: NASA]

Nothing better than actual observations to make a forecast change. The sun may have put one over the pundits again.
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Solar Maximum is coming–maybe this year, says Spaceweather.com.

New research by a leading group of solar physicists predicts maximum sunspot activity in late 2023 or early 2024, a full year earlier than other forecasts.

“This is based on our work with the Termination Event,” explains Scott McIntosh, lead author of a paper describing the prediction, published in the January 2023 edition of Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences.

Medieval writings on lunar eclipses may help date volcanic eruptions

During a total solar eclipse, the Sun’s corona and prominences are visible to the naked eye [image credit: Luc Viatour / https://Lucnix.be ]

A climate detective story.

H/T Paul Vaughan
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When medieval monks were looking up at the night sky, writing down their observations of celestial objects, they had no idea that their words would be invaluable centuries later to a group of scientists in a completely different field: volcanology.

A new study published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature explains how descriptions of lunar eclipses by monks and scribes were key in studying some of the largest volcanic eruptions on Earth, says CTV News.

Using a combination of these medieval writings and climate data stretching back centuries, researchers were able to clarify the date of around 10 volcanic eruptions that took place between the year 1100 and 1300.

The Less It Warms, the Louder Is Zero Carbon Push

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The last two solar cycle minima were the lowest for a century or so. Some climatic effect would not be surprising.

Science Matters

The post below updates the UAH record of air temperatures over land and ocean. Each month and year exposes again the growing disconnect between the real world and the Zero Carbon zealots.  It is as though the anti-hydrocarbon band wagon hopes to drown out the data contradicting their justification for the Great Energy Transition.  

As an overview consider how recent rapid cooling  completely overcame the warming from the last 3 El Ninos (1998, 2010 and 2016).  The UAH record shows that the effects of the last one were gone as of April 2021, again in November 2021, and in February and June 2022  Now at year end 2022 and continuing into 2023 global temp anomaly is matching or lower than average since 1995. (UAH baseline is now 1991-2020).

For reference I added an overlay of CO2 annual concentrations as measured at Mauna Loa.  While temperatures fluctuated up and down ending…

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‘Damning’ report calls for major National Grid changes to prevent UK missing key wind power targets

More target mania. The way things are going, or not going, the climate-obsessed UK government won’t be able to hurt the national economy with expensive and unreliable electricity as fast as planned.
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With some offshore wind projects waiting years in the pipeline, a report commissioned by the government has called for an urgent upgrade to the UK’s National Grid in order to reach the 2030 target of installing 50GW of wind power, says Sky News.

The UK will miss a key target to install 50 gigawatts (GW) of wind power by the end of the decade unless major changes are made to the grid, according to a government-commissioned report.

The 50GW target is at the heart of the government’s plans to phase out more polluting types of electricity generation by 2035, while also boosting energy security.

Tim Pick, who was appointed last year as an “offshore wind champion” to independently advise government and industry on the development of the UK’s offshore wind sector, said installing 40GW of wind power by 2030 “may be achievable” – but this falls short of the target.

Sky News has previously reported that wind generators already make more electricity than the grid can handle because of a lack of cables to transmit electricity from the north to the south of the UK.

This has resulted in British consumers paying hundreds of millions of pounds to turn wind power off, and gas generators on, closer to the source of demand.

The independent report warns this is one of the major limiting factors to industry progress.

Full article here.