Statistical politics: Prof. Mike Hulme on ‘politically charged’ climate baseline changes from 1961-1990 to 1991-2020: ‘In an instant; today, the world’s climate has ‘suddenly’ become nearly 0.5°C warmer’

Image credit: livescience.com

H/T Climate Depot

Nothing must stand in the way of the public being bombarded with supposed climate alarms, and told it’s their fault. Data jiggery-pokery serves a useful purpose in that aim – in this case, a kind of ‘climate reset’.
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Climates Multiple: Three Baselines, Two Tolerances, One Normal — Mike Hulme

Excerpt: “Friday 1 January 2021, a new World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) climatological standard normal came into effect. The ‘present-day’ climate will now formally be represented by the meteorological statistics of the period 1991-2020, replacing those from 1961-1990. National Meteorological Agencies in member states are instructed to issue new standard normals for observing stations and for associated climatological products. Climate will ‘change’, one might say, in an instant; today, the world’s climate has ‘suddenly’ become nearly 0.5°C warmer. It is somewhat equivalent to re-setting Universal Time or adjusting the exact definition of a metre.” …

Solar Cycle 25 update: Sun takes a post-minimum nap.

Data courtesy of Solen.info

Back in November it looked like solar cycle 25 was finally getting underway, with daily sunspot numbers peaking up to 80, and the 30 day Wolf number climbing over 30 in early December. Since then though, the Sun has relapsed into a low activity state.

This won’t come as any surprise to Talkshop followers, we’ve been saying that cycle 25 would be very low for most of the last decade. Our group research culminated in late 2013 with publication of Rick Salvador’s orbital resonance model in the journal ‘Pattern Recognition in Physics’. We provided an update on the validation of the model a while back, showing it has remained on track since publication.

Multiple resonances of exoplanets in the TOI-178 system

Credit: NASA

This six-planet system has orbit periods from 1.9~ to 20.7~ days, all much closer to their star than Mercury is to the Sun.

It was recently ‘upgraded’ from the three planets discovered in 2018 and 2019.

As usual, the key to understanding the timings of the orbits is to look at the conjunction periods of the neighbour pairs.

Wind Power Generation Intermittency – It’s Worse Than You Think It Is – Introduction

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‘this is data covering just 800 days, and here we have 265 occasions where the power loss exceeds 500MW.’ = almost one day in every three, on average. [Links to parts 2 and 3 at the end of the post].

PA Pundits - International

By Anton Lang ~

Introduction

We have all heard that wind power generation is intermittent, that it goes up and down on a daily basis. However, is that really all that much of a problem, and if so, how big a problem is it? We have also heard that constructing more wind plants will go towards alleviating this problem. Is that correct? Or will that only make the problem worse?

Well, it is in fact quite a large problem, and constructing more of those wind plants is making the problem worse.

Macarthur Wind Plant In Victoria Australia

For many years now, I have been looking at wind power generation here in Australia, and in fact recording and keeping wind generation data on a daily basis now for more than four years. After looking at this data on a daily basis for so long, I could see that it went up…

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A guessing game for climate data experienced sceptics.

I’m not writing anything in this post which will get it automatically flagged up to our blog hosts or anyone else. Look at the images and see what you think.

Figure 1. Incomplete teaser from the ONS, and my inductive reasoning.

A quasi-periodic ~2400-year climate cycle – or not?

We’ll look here at examples of where a 2400 year period has been identified by researchers in radiocarbon data.
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Part of the abstract below is highlighted for analysis. The original Talkshop post on the paper in question:
S. S. Vasiliev and V. A. Dergachev: 2400-year cycle in atmospheric radiocarbon concentration

Abstract. We have carried out power spectrum, time-spectrum and bispectrum analyses of the long-term series of the radiocarbon concentrations deduced from measurements of the radiocarbon content in tree rings for the last 8000 years. Classical harmonic analysis of this time series shows a number of periods: 2400, 940, 710, 570, 500, 420, 360, 230, 210 and 190 years. A principle feature of the time series is the long period of ~ 2400 years, which is well known. The lines with periods of 710, 420 and 210 years are found to be the primary secular components of power spectrum. The complicated structure of the observed power spectrum is the result of ~ 2400-year modulation of primary secular components. The modulation induces the appearance of two side lines for every primary one, namely lines with periods of 940 and 570 years, of 500 and 360 years, and 230 and 190 years. The bi-spectral analysis shows that the parameters of carbon exchange system varied with the ~ 2400-year period during the last 8000 years. Variations of these parameters appear to be a climate effect on the rate of transfer of 14C between the atmosphere and the the ocean.

The great green reset is at odds with economic and energy reality.

From Forbes, by Tilak Doshi H/T to Andrew Gibson

As the world emerges from Covid-19 lockdown we are now being told that the economic recovery from the pandemic-panic needs to be “green.” Political leaders and mass media editors cite the well-known slogan “never let a crisis go to waste,” and claim that massive sums need to be spent on economic recovery plans, and that the spending has to be “sustainable.”

Prince Charles – a prognosticator of apocalyptic climate change – said at the opening of a virtual World Economic Forum event that the global pandemic presented an opportunity to “reset the global economy and prioritize sustainable development.” Using similar language, the founder and chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab calls for a “Great Reset” of capitalism. Seeing a silver lining in the pandemic, he advocates “radical changes” to “create a new economic system” including sustainably green urban infrastructure.

Alarmist Queen Hayhoe Takedown By Friends Of Science

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Another climate alarm promoter gets scrutinised by more sober-minded analysts, and doesn’t come out of it well.

PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~

If Greta Thunberg is an alarmist princess then Katherine Hayhoe is the queen of climate alarmism, at least in the U.S. and Canada. She was the de facto spokesperson for the atrocious third National Climate Assessment. After that she started doing bogus “Here’s what is going to happen to you” climate studies for various states and cities. Making big bucks scaring people.

Last year Hayhoe delivered a doomsday forecast to the Province of Alberta, Canada, and here our story begins. Alberta is home to the Friends of Science Society (FOSS), one of Canada’s top skeptical organizations. FOSS has now produced a 77 page takedown report, shredding Hayhoe’s so-called study in detail. It is an elegant critical work, with implications far beyond Canada.

The topic is technical but it is written for policy makers. The plain English table of contents gives the flavor and shows the…

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COVID-19 puts brakes on driverless cars

Is ride-sharing going out of favour before its time due to social distancing ideas? But any form of public transport also has its challenges in that regard.

In recent years, the automotive industry has been addressing the megatrends set to transform long-term urban mobility and the industry, reports Green Car Congress, but the current crisis is now re-setting priorities, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

Connected, autonomous, shared and electric (CASE) strategies were seen by car companies as elevating them to another plane in terms of being able to make money and bring their market capital up to the levels enjoyed by Silicon Valley tech companies.

—Calum MacRae, Automotive Analyst at GlobalData

The Saros cycle by numbers

The basis for discussion is the abstract of the paper below. Instead of their ‘high-integer near commensurabilities among lunar months’ we’ll just say ‘numbers’ and try to make everything as straightforward as possible. This will expand on a previous Talkshop post on much the same topic.

Hunting for Periodic Orbits Close to that of the Moon in the Restricted Circular Three-Body Problem (1995)
Authors: G. B. Valsecchi, E. PerozziA, E. Roy, A. Steves

Abstract
The role of high-integer near commensurabilities among lunar months — like the long known Saros cycle — in the dynamics of the Moon has been examined in previous papers (Perozzi et al., 1991; Roy et al., 1991; Steves et al., 1993). A by-product of this study has been the discovery that the lunar orbit is very close to a set of 8 long-period periodic orbits of the restricted circular 3-dimensional Sun-Earth-Moon problem in which also the secular motion of the argument of perigee ω is involved (Valsecchi et al., 1993a). In each of these periodic orbits 223 synodic months are equal to 239 anomalistic and 242 nodical ones, a relationship that approximately holds in the case of the observed Saros cycle, and the various orbits differ from each other for the initial phases. Note that these integer ratios imply that, in one cycle of the periodic orbit, the argument of perigee ω makes exactly 3 revolutions, i.e. the difference between the 242 nodical and the 239 anomalistic months (these two months differ from each other just for the prograde rotation of ω).
[bold added]

To start with we can create a model that pretends the ‘high-integer near commensurabilities’ really are whole numbers, then break down the logic of the result to see what’s going in with the Moon at the period of one Saros cycle.

Corey S. Powell: The next 10 years will be a remarkable era of space exploration

In 2025, the Japanese-European BepiColombo probe will carry out the most detailed exploration of Mercury. (Here you see it examining its own antenna, preparing for the mission ahead.) https://t.co/4pomSLfyok pic.twitter.com/Z3wf6iwg9b

— Corey S. Powell (@coreyspowell) March 17, 2020

Climatologist’s Cloud Confusion Continues: Catastrophists Claims Completely Confounded.

For decades we’ve been told that net cloud radiative forcing is positive. This means that the the amount by which clouds cool the surface, by reflecting solar radiation back to space, is outweighed by the amount that clouds warm the surface, by re-radiating surface emitted IR back towards the ground. So cloud increase equals warmer surface See e.g IPCC AR5 on the subject:

‘Melting Greenland’ likely to add up to half an inch to global sea levels by 2098

image credit https://visitgreenland.com/

Mike Waite left the following comment over at Paul Homewood’s excellent not a lot of people know that blog yesterday:

There is an interesting paper by MacGuth et al (2013) which supports you :

From their summary:

-“We calculate the future sea-level rise contribution from the surface mass balance of all of

Greenland’s glaciers and ice caps (GICs, ca. 90 000 km2) using a simplified energy balance

model which is driven by three future climate scenarios from the regional climate models

HIRHAM5, RACMO2 and MAR. Glacier extent and surface elevation are modified during the

mass balance model runs according to a glacier retreat parameterization. Mass balance and glacier surface change are both calculated on a 250 m resolution digital elevation model yielding a high level of detail and ensuring that important feedback mechanisms are

considered. The mass loss of all GICs by 2098 is calculated to be

2016 +/- 129 Gt (HIRHAM5 forcing),

2584 +/-109 Gt (RACMO2)

and 3907+/- 108 Gt (MAR). This corresponds to a total contribution to sea-level rise of

5:8 +/- 0:4,

7:4 +/- 0:3

and 11:2 +/- 0:3 mm, respectively. “-

The future sea-level rise contribution of Greenland’s glaciers and ice caps

H Machguth1,2, P Rastner1, T Bolch1,3, N M¨olg1, L Sandberg Sørensen4,

G Aðalgeirsdottir5, J H van Angelen6, M R van den Broeke6 and

X Fettweis7

Online at stacks.iop.org/ERL/8/025005

Even if subsequent calculations modified these figures they are unlikely to be an order of magnitude higher and the sea level rise to 2098 calculated here is at most 11mm (not cm or feet or metres).

Can’t someone take these activists, sit them in a quet room and just read the literature to them since they seem incapable of such study themselves.

MET-Office wants your money for a new supercomputer, but has given up decadal forecasting

Well this is a disappointment.

After the fiasco in 2018 when I revealed the data-shifting technique the MET-Office were using to never be wrong about their ‘decadal’ forecast, and the late update in 2019 , the MET-O have now disappeared the ‘decadal’ forecast altogether. This after they promised to update it in January 2020.

EDIT: The forecast has been found! See comments below.

Arctic sea ice much more resilient than thought

Still waiting

More so than the climate alarm movement thought, anyway. Hence all the failed predictions of disappearing summer sea ice in the Arctic, and erroneous claims of ‘rapid melting’ that no longer hold water 😎
Observations show a ‘sideways trend’ in Arctic sea ice volume since around 2010, which perhaps not by chance follows a significant downturn in solar cycle intensity.
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In recent years the Arctic sea ice has shown great resiliency and is currently at higher levels for this time of year when compared to all but two years going back to 2005, says meteorologist Paul Dorian of Perspecta Inc. (via The GWPF).

Overview

Sea ice covers about 7% of the Earth’s surface and about 12% of the world’s oceans and forms mainly in the Earth’s polar regions.

Multiple resonances of the eight planet system of Kepler-90, part 2

Kepler-90 Planets Orbit Close to Their Star [credit: NASA/AMES]

In part 1 we looked at the inner four planets: b,c,i and d. Here in part 2 we’ll look at the outer four: e,f,g and h – with a dash of d included.

The largest planet in the system is h, the outermost of the eight so far found, and it’s about the same size as Jupiter. It’s ‘an exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of the early G-type main sequence star Kepler-90’, says Wikipedia. However, ‘it is a gas giant with no solid surface’, so probably no aliens lurking there.

It wasn’t that easy to find synodic patterns of interest, but here we have two examples, both involving planet h.

Australian Bushfires Much Worse In 1974/5

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Note to climate doomers: weather can, and does, vary without assistance from humans.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

An important and, as usual, forensic contribution from Roy Spencer:

Summary Points

1) Global wildfire activity has decreased in recent decades, making any localized increase (or decrease) in wildfire activity difficult to attribute to ‘global climate change’.

2) Like California, Australia is prone to bushfires every year during the dry season. Ample fuel and dry weather exists for devastating fires each year, even without excessive heat or drought, as illustrated by the record number of hectares burned (over 100 million) during 1974-75 when above-average precipitation and below-average temperatures existed.

3) Australian average temperatures in 2019 were well above what global warming theory can explain, illustrating the importance of natural year-to-year variability in weather patterns (e.g. drought and excessively high temperatures).

4) Australia precipitation was at a record low in 2019, but climate models predict no long-term trend in Australia precipitation, while the observed trend has been upward…

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Multiple resonances of the eight planet system of Kepler-90, part 1

Golden rectangle: Fibonacci spiral

Unusually, the eight planets in the Kepler-90 system were found using machine learning. “It’s very possible that Kepler-90 has even more planets that we don’t know about yet,” NASA astronomer Andrew Vanderburg said.
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From Wikipedia’s Near resonances section on exoplanet Kepler-90:

“Kepler-90’s eight known planets all have periods that are close to being in integer ratio relationships with other planets’ periods; that is, they are close to being in orbital resonance.

The period ratios b:c, c:i and i:d are close to 4:5, 3:5 and 1:4, respectively (4: 4.977, 3: 4.97 and 1: 4.13) and d, e, f, g and h are close to a 2:3:4:7:11 period ratio (2: 3.078: 4.182: 7.051: 11.102; also 7: 11.021).

f, g and h are also close to a 3:5:8 period ratio (3: 5.058: 7.964). Relevant to systems like this and that of Kepler-36, calculations suggest that the presence of an outer gas giant planet facilitates the formation of closely packed resonances among inner super-Earths.”
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Let’s look at it another way i.e. at the synodic periods rather than the orbit ratios, as these tend to deliver more clear-cut results, starting with a model for the first four planets: b,c,i and d, which we’ll call the inner planets. Their orbits of the star are in a range of 7-60 days.

The UK blackout of 9 August 2019 is unlikely to be the last one

This GWPF report paints an uncomfortable picture of increasing instability in the UK electricity supply system, as ever more renewables are injected into it while older but more predictable thermal power plants are retired. The author says bluntly that until recently customers ‘could rely on the system. That is not the case today.’ Come the power cut, you’re on your own.

It has been widely claimed that Distributed (or embedded) Generation, such as solar and wind connected to the low voltage distribution network, reinforces electricity system stability.

The final reports into the widespread blackout of the 9th of August last year by the UK electricity regulator, Ofgem, and the British government’s Energy Emergency Executive Committee, E3C show that this is not the case.

Distributed Generation is now under the spotlight as a leading cause of the severity of the 9 August blackout, and as a hazard increasing future risks to security of supply.

Quantization of Planetary Systems and its Dependency on Stellar Rotation

Solar system planets [image credit: BBC]

Well this looks interesting. Jean paul Zoghbi has discovered half integer relationships between star rotation rates and their planetary system’s angular momenta. The paper is here

Abstract With the discovery of now more than 500 exoplanets, we present a statistical analysis of the planetary orbital periods and their relationship to the rotation periods of their parent stars. We test whether the structural variables of planetary orbits, i.e. planetary angular momentum and orbital period, are `quantized’ in integer or half-integer multiples of the parent star’s rotation period. The Solar System is first shown to exhibit quantized planetary orbits that correlate with the Sun’s rotation period.