There are two faces of the Earth: study

Pacific ‘ring of fire’

Recent research has also found why changes to Earth’s magnetic field are weaker over the Pacific.
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Earth’s mantle is currently classified into two main domains, African and Pacific.

However, little is known about their formation and history, and they are commonly assumed to be chemically the same, says Tech Explorist.

In a new study by Curtin University, scientists studied chemical and isotopic “make-up” of rocks sourced from thousands of kilometers below the surface.

Is the hydrogen tech ‘revolution’ hope or hype?

Hydrogen-powered London bus

More hopeless than hope. But for those who want to put a lot of time, effort and money into looking for ‘solutions’ to the non-problem of supposedly human-caused climate change, it’s a topic for discussion. It may have some specific uses, but cost and practicality seem to be strongly against it as a general replacement for traditional fuels.
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Can hydrogen – a relatively clean source of fuel – help power the economy of the future? – asks the BBC.

In his speech on the planned economic recovery, the prime minister said hydrogen technology is an area where the UK leads the world. He hopes it’ll create clean jobs in the future.

But is the hydrogen revolution hope or hype?

Book Review: “Apocalypse Never” By Michael Shellenberger

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The removal of his Forbes article yesterday is no doubt a foretaste of the alarmist reaction to his book.

PA Pundits - International

By Peter Murphy~

The way to a cleaner, sustainable planet is not to eliminate fossil fuels and nuclear power, but rather to expand their use, especially in developing countries to bring economic growth and prosperity, the way such sources did for the developed world.

This is one of the primary themes in the new book, Apocalypse Never, written not by a “climate denier” or “corporate shill.” Instead, author Michael Shellenberger is a 30-year environmental activist with street cred in various causes including saving California’s redwood forests and co-founding a “progressive Democratic, labor-environment push” in 2002 for the New Apollo Project, a renewable energy initiative that long predated the Green New Deal. He also is a Time magazine “Hero of the Environment.”

Shellenberger’s background is a key reason Apocalypse Never is so devastating to extremist environmentalism that has taken hold in politics, the media, K-12 education and popular culture…

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Shellenberger: On behalf of environmentalists, I apologize for the climate scare

Earth and climate – an ongoing controversy

An IPCC reviewer says the public have been misled. Whether self-styled environmentalists go along with this is debatable of course. Cynics may say the writer has a book to sell, but an opinion piece in Forbes carries some weight. The definition of climate change is left open to interpretation.
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On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years, says Michael Shellenberger @ Forbes [pdf link].

Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world.

It’s not even our most serious environmental problem.

Mysterious lights seen: Geomagnetic Link to earthquakes?

This twitter video caught my eye last night, it was taken near Miami a few nights ago. It shows mysterious lights, confirmed from many sources and featured on national US TV channels where it’s reported answers are being demanded from the Pentagon.

UFO sighting in Miami last night‼️ 👽 pic.twitter.com/db9ONEY0Bm

— Miami WTF⚠️ (@miami_wtf) June 24, 2020

Then today my physicist friend Mike McCulloch posted a tweet about some similar phenomena which have been observed for many years in Norway.

The Dollar signs behind the origin of the term “Fossil fuels”

H/T to John

Are “fossil fuels” really made from biological life? Coal, certainly. But oil? Maybe some of it. But oil drilled from 30,000 feet underground??

Motions in the sun reveal inner workings of sunspot cycle

Ionized gas inside the Sun moves toward the poles near the surface and toward the equator at the base of the convection zone (at a depth of 200,000 km/125,000 miles).
Credit: MPS (Z.-C. Liang)

The title of the study cited in this report gives us the clue: ‘Meridional flow in the Sun’s convection zone is a single cell in each hemisphere’. The full cycle takes about 22 years on average, with a magnetic reversal halfway through.
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The sun’s magnetic activity follows an 11-year cycle. Over the course of a solar cycle, the sun’s magnetic activity comes and goes, says Phys.org.

During solar maximum, large sunspots and active regions appear on the sun’s surface. Spectacular loops of hot plasma stretch throughout the sun’s atmosphere and eruptions of particles and radiation shoot into interplanetary space.

During solar minimum, the sun calms down considerably. A striking regularity appears in the so-called butterfly diagram, which describes the position of sunspots in a time-latitude plot.

Davos: the birthplace of a New World Government? But who are the parents?

Charlie Chaplin: The Great Dictator

June 25, 2020

By Robin Horsley

DAVOS, is the small town, nestled high in the Swiss Alps, widely known for hosting the annual conference of global business-people, world leaders, activists, and journalists that takes place every January. The organisation that arranges the event, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and its enigmatic founder Klaus Schwab, are less well-known.

The WEF’s exclusive shindig used to be thought of simply as a grandiose talking-shop. The ultimate annual ‘networking’ event where the wealthy and powerful could grand-stand in front of the world’s media. But in recent years, as the ambitions and agenda of the WEF have become clearer, many people have gradually realised there is far more to Davos and the World Economic Forum than they previously thought. 

Energy minister declares UK fracking dead.

Utterly misguided and spineless UK Govt. decision.

Norway’s carbon capture plans could end up in financial ruin, report says

More bad news for tunnel vision carbophobes. Carbon dioxide emissions don’t cost anywhere near enough, apparently.
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Norway’s plan for a full-scale carbon capture and storage project could end up a financial disaster, according to a new report that includes an increased cost estimate for the venture, says Energy Voice.

The likely cost of building and operating the project over 10 years — most of which would be funded by the government — could be as much as 25 billion kroner ($2.6 billion), according to an independent report published by the government on Thursday.

Increased warming in latest generation of climate models likely caused by clouds

Are climate models getting any better, or even getting worse? Their ‘projections’ almost invariably expect more warming than is observed, often a lot more. Now the uncertainty is increasing.
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As scientists work to determine why some of the latest climate models suggest the future could be warmer than previously thought, a new study indicates the reason is likely related to challenges simulating the formation and evolution of clouds, says ScienceDaily.

The new research, published in Science Advances, gives an overview of 39 updated models that are part of a major international climate endeavor, the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). The models will also be analyzed for the upcoming sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Compared with older models, a subset of these updated models has shown a higher sensitivity to carbon dioxide — that is, more warming for a given concentration of the greenhouse gas — though a few showed lower sensitivity as well.

The end result is a greater range of model responses than any preceding generation of models, dating back to the early 1990s.

Bring UK petrol and diesel car ban forward to 2032, say Government advisers

Raising taxes on something you’re trying to get rid of doesn’t look like a great way to raise lots of money. But it should make a big dent in the culprits’ political popularity, especially with car and motorbike dealers. Another product of climate fantasies.
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The ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars should be brought forward from 2035 to 2032 “at the latest”, a group of politicians and scientists that advise the Government has said.

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) – an independent body that advises ministers on decarbonisation – is asking the Government to provide “detailed policy arrangements” to enable the 2032 ban, reports Auto Express.

The CCC also advises that sales of new motorcycles with an internal combustion engine should be outlawed.

Basic Physics of the climate: A short debate with Roger Pielke Sr.

It’s always a pleasure to interact with Roger Pielke Sr. A climate scientist who is open to debate, respectful of honestly held opinion, and willing to concede ground where the facts dictate.

Roger A. Pielke Sr@RogerAPielkeSr·1hNice to see sfc moist enthalpy that we proposed being added to the assessment of heat. “Outdoor Thermal Comfort and Building Energy Use Potential in Different Land-Use Areas in Tropical Cities: Case of Kuala Lumpur” https://res.mdpi.com/d_attachment/atmosphere/atmosphere-11-00652/article_deploy/atmosphere-11-00652.pdf… Our paper is https://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/r-290.pdf…

Rog Tallbloke @RogTallbloke·1hMy experiment ended today Roger. It took 25ml of water at 20C at sfc pressure 12 days to evaporate compared to 2.5 hours at 20C in 266 times less pressure. What do you think really makes Earth’s surface ~90K warmer than the moon’s; GHGs or atmospheric pressure?

Noctilucent Clouds over London

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This phenomenon seems to be flourishing during solar minimum.

Spaceweather.com

June 23, 2020: On June 21st, something rare and magical happened in London. The skies of the great city filled with noctilucent clouds (NLCs). Phil Halper noticed the display, grabbed a camera, and raced from one landmark to another, hurriedly recording pictures like this:

“Even the bright lights of the London Eye on the river Thames couldn’t drown out the display,” says Halper. “These were the most spectacular NLCs I’ve ever seen.”

If NLCs look alien–that’s because they are. The clouds are seeded by meteoroids. They form every year around this time when summertime wisps of water vapor rise up to the mesosphere, allowing water to crystallize around specks of meteor smoke.

Usually you have to be under a dark sky at high latitudes to see these rare clouds–but 2020 is not usual. Record-cold temperatures in the mesosphere are boosting NLCs, brightening them enough to see from places…

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Ross McKitrick: The flaw in relying on worst-case climate modelling

Credit: Wikipedia

H/T The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF).

Or relying on any climate modelling, some might say given its current tendency toward overheated predictive mediocrity.
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The purpose of global climate policy is to get us from the dangerous upper end of the forecast range down to the safe bottom end. In fact, we are already there.

Whenever you read a media story about how we’re heading toward catastrophe if we continue operating “business as usual” — i.e., if we don’t slash carbon emissions — the reports are almost always referring to a model simulation using RCP8.5.

And you can bet that nowhere in the story will they explain that RCP8.5 is an implausible worst-case scenario that was never meant to represent a likely base case outcome, or that scientists have begun castigating its usage as a prediction of a doomed business-as-usual future.

Electric vehicle ownership must increase by 11,000% for a net zero UK

Standing around at the EV charging station [image credit: makeitsunderland.com]

At the moment this is like trying to fill a bath from a very slowly dripping tap. A lot would need to happen to turn the tap of public enthusiasm for EVs on, starting with much lower prices. Where is all the extra electricity supply supposed to come from, and who voted for ‘net zero’ anyway?
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Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) today publishes new research on the uptake of low carbon technologies (LCTs) required to put the UK on the road to net zero.

Examining the expected changes in SSEN’s two distribution areas in the south of England and north of Scotland, the data reveals electric vehicle ownership will increase from 44,000 to 5m in these two areas alone.

Nabta Playa: The World’s First Astronomical Site

Nabta Playa

An inventory of Egyptian archaeo-astronomical sites for the UNESCO World Heritage Convention evaluated Nabta Playa as having “hypothetical solar and stellar alignments.” – Wikipedia.
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This 7,000-year-old stone circle tracked the summer solstice and the arrival of the annual monsoon season. It’s the oldest known astronomical site on Earth, says Discover magazine.

For thousands of years, ancient societies all around the world erected massive stone circles, aligning them with the sun and stars to mark the seasons.

These early calendars foretold the coming of spring, summer, fall and winter, helping civilizations track when to plant and harvest crops.

They also served as ceremonial sites, both for celebration and sacrifice.

These megaliths — large, prehistoric monuments made of stone — may seem mysterious in our modern era, when many people lack a connection with, or even view of, the stars.

Pushback on EU ‘Green New Deal’ leads to alternative proposals.

Green blob [credit: storybird.com]

From GreenTech media

The EU is currently working through the details of a €1.85 trillion ($2.08 trillion) recovery package. Before the stimulus was signed, a leaked document by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy (DG Energy) ran through a serious of policy plans to marry the European Green Deal and the COVID-19 recovery effort.

Those plans included a possible 15-gigawatt EU-wide renewable tender designed to help make up for a shortfall in national tenders. Support for green hydrogen was also advanced as a potential item for inclusion.

But the plans have not survived a barrage of lobbying by vested interests and pushback from member states still married to a more traditional energy mix, according to multiple sources following the green recovery’s development.

Gerry Pease: Solar outlook

From looking at the 30 day Wolf number and NOAA sunspot number it looks like Solar Minimum could have been in December, 2019 but possibly as late as mid-March this year. 

 Coincidentally, there are peaks in barycentric solar torque (dL/dt, where L denotes the Sun’s angular momentum, ref https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.03553v3) on March 19 and April 24, 2020: 

Italian glacier covered to slow melting

Alps weather: Heavy snow cuts off ski resorts
[image credit: BBC News]

How does this make any sense?
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A vast tarpaulin unravels, gathering speed as it bounces down the glacier over glinting snow.

Summer is here and the alpine ice is being protected from global warming, reports Phys.org.

In northern Italy, the Presena glacier has lost more than one third of its volume since 1993.

Once the ski season is over and cable cars are berthed, conservationists race to try and stop it melting by using white tarps that block the sun’s rays.