Alan Carlin: Unilateral US Decarbonization Could Have Serious Economic Consequences

Credit: chicagotribune.com

As the energy policies of various countries sink ever further into the realms of fantasy over the imagined role of minor trace gases in the atmosphere, what will the US do – or not do?

The current unilateral US decarbonization proposals by various Democrats promoting the Green New Deal (GND) climate schemes suffer from two particularly crucial assumptions that they have made, says Alan Carlin.

One is the extremely doubtful assumption that CO2 levels determine temperatures as opposed to temperatures determining CO2 levels. The assumption being made is that it is the atmospheric CO2 level that is the critical determinant of temperatures.

If this is wrong, as I believe it is, any dollar spent on decarbonization will provide no benefits in terms of global temperatures.

More Failed Predictions: May Was The Second Wettest Month In US History

Credit: weather.com

H/T Climate Change Dispatch

An obvious clue in this report is the mention of the jetstream, which is not known to be related to minor trace gases in the atmosphere, despite wishful thinking in some quarters. Why do leaders ignore these failures of climate science, yet listen avidly to misguided doomsayers demanding vast spending and taxes?
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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported the month of May was the second wettest and temperatures were in the bottom-third for its 125-year US history, reports American Thinker.

The 2010 publication titled, ‘A Global Overview Of Drought and Heat-Induced Tree Mortality Reveals Emerging Climate Change Risks for Forests’, was accepted by the Obama administration as scientific evidence that climate change had made the Earth:

“…increasingly vulnerable to higher background tree mortality rates and die-off in response to future warming and drought, even in environments that are not normally considered water-limited.”

But NOAA just reported that May US precipitation totaled an average of 4.41 inches, 1.50 inches above average, and ranked second wettest in the 125-year period of record for May as well as second wettest for all months since January 1895.

The only wetter month in US history was May 2015 with 4.44 inches of precipitation.

Natascha Engel: UK’s Net-Zero Carbon Target Is Reckless And Unrealistic

Turning airy-fairy wishes into legal requirements, with little or no analysis of the likely consequences, is a very strange way to run a country – to say the least. The government’s former ‘fracking tsar’ is not impressed, and neither is the House of Lords. It appears that most members of Parliament neither know nor care what the implications might be for the national economy, but just expect people to pay a heck of a lot for very little without question.

As Theresa May takes to the G20 stage in Japan to urge her fellow leaders to follow the UK’s moral leadership on climate change, she should hope that their parting gift is, politely, to ignore her (from The Times via the GWPF).

As impressive as the target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 sounds, other countries will recognise the capacity it has to destroy UK plc for generations to come.

The lack of scrutiny of what would be the most expensive and socially disruptive public policy since the Second World War is truly remarkable.

Now 20 years with no trend in ice breakup dates for Western Hudson Bay polar bears

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In short: polar bear scares by climate alarm propaganda merchants are busted.

polarbearscience

Straight from the horse’s mouth: all polar bear females tagged by researchers around Churchill in Western Hudson Bay last year were still on the ice as of 25 June. With plenty of ice still remaining over the bay, spring breakup will be no earlier this year than it has been since 1999. Contrary to predictions of ever-declining ice cover, the lack of a trend in sea ice breakup dates for Western Hudson Bay is now twenty years long (a hiatus, if you will) and yet these bears are repeatedly claimed to have been seriously harmed in recent years by a loss of sea ice.

In fact, WH bears have faced relatively few ‘early’ years of sea ice breakup and breakup has never come before the 15th of June. The earliest recent spring breakup date did not come in 2012 – when sea ice hit a summer record low – but…

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‘Triple whammy’ threatens climate progress, says BBC News

These UN delegates won’t want to hear about the latest paper from Professor Zharkova et al, which forecasts a natural rise in global temperatures until 2600 that is much higher than the arbitrary 1.5C ‘target’ they think they can buy for themselves, at vast public expense of course, by playing around with the trace gas content of the atmosphere. But, secure in their echo chamber of man-made warming beliefs and the conviction they are somehow able to control the Earth’s climate, the chances are they either won’t hear of the new research or will ignore it anyway.

A “triple whammy” of events threatens to hamper efforts to tackle climate change say UN delegates, says BBC News.

At a meeting in Bonn, Saudi Arabia has continued to object to a key IPCC scientific report that urges drastic cuts in carbon emissions.

Added to that, the EU has so far failed to agree to a long term net zero emissions target.

Thirdly, a draft text from the G20 summit in Japan later this week waters down commitments to tackle warming.

One attendee in Bonn said that, taken together, the moves represented a fierce backlash from countries with strong fossil fuel interests.

Zharkova uses solar-planetary theory in new paper predicting Earth temperature rise to 2600 following imminent Grand Solar Minimum

An important new solar paper by Prof Valentina Zharkova and co-authors S. J. Shepherd, S. I. Zharkov & E. Popova  published in ‘Nature’ has incorporated the solar-planetary theory we’ve been researching and advancing here at the talkshop over the last decade. As well as further developing her previous double dynamo theory which now accounts for the last several millennium’s solar grand minima and maxima, she includes discussion of Fairbridge, Mackey, Shirley, Charvatova and Abreu et al’s work. Central to the new hypothesis is the motion of the Sun around the barycentre of the solar system, described as the Solar Inertial Motion [SIM].

Left plot: the example of SIM trajectories of the Sun about the barycenter calculated from 1950 until 2100³⁴. Right plot: the cone of expanding SIM orbits of the Sun³⁵ with the top showing 2D orbit projections similar to the left plot. Here there are three complete SIM orbits of the Sun, each of which takes about 179 years. Each solar orbit consists of about eight, 22-year solar cycles³⁵. The total time span is, therefore, three 179-year solar cycles³¹, or about 600 years. Source: Adapted from Mackey³⁵. Reproduced with permission from the Coastal Education and Research Foundation, Inc

Following my discussion with her at dinner following her talk in London last year, Zharkova now agrees with us that the SIM induced by planetary motion affects sunspot production and solar activity levels.

Big-Idea Energy Alternatives Are Costly And Puny

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How feeble are wind and solar power in the big energy picture i.e. not just electricity production? It could be much worse than we/you thought, but many policymakers don’t seem to know – or don’t want to know – about such realities.

PA Pundits - International

By Larry Bell ~

Those who believe in the existence of adequate non-fossil alternatives essential to achieve a “carbon-neutral” U.S. — much less global — energy balance anytime soon, or at any cost, are dreadfully misguided.

Nevertheless, there are very understandable reasons why such delusions continue to persist.

One reason behind this facetious fantasy has resulted from massively funded “renewable energy” industry subsidy-seeking propaganda campaigns.

Another is due to great successes of ideological anti-fossil activists in conflating carbon dioxide emissions with “climate pollution,” polar bear perils, and virtually any other “crisis” de jour.

A third, and one that I find particularly disturbing, is because even information sources we should expect to trust, continue to perpetuate a disingenuous and dangerous myth that non-fossil “alternatives” can meet any truly significant U.S. energy needs.

In preparing for this article, I checked data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) with a very…

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Mercury climbs as Europe braces for summer scorcher

This looks like an obvious propaganda opportunity for the usual ambulance-chasing climate alarm suspects. If warm weather blows in from the Sahara desert it must be your fault…type of thing. But for many Brits at least it will make a change from some recent cool and miserable June weather, while the French recall problems arising from a hot summer sixteen years ago.

Temperatures were climbing on Sunday as Europe braced for a blistering heatwave with the mercury set to hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) as summer kicks in on the back of a wave of hot air from North Africa, reports Phys.org.

Europeans are set to bake in what forecasters are warning will likely be record-breaking temperatures for June with the mercury set to peak mid-week.

Scientists map huge undersea fresh-water aquifer off US Northeast

Credit: thinglink.com

The world contains more fresh water than previously thought. It’s a question of looking in the right places, as this study explains.

In a new survey of the sub-seafloor off the U.S. Northeast coast, scientists have made a surprising discovery: a gigantic aquifer of relatively fresh water trapped in porous sediments lying below the salty ocean.

It appears to be the largest such formation yet found in the world, reports Phys.org.

The aquifer stretches from the shore at least from Massachusetts to New Jersey, extending more or less continuously out about 50 miles to the edge of the continental shelf. If found on the surface, it would create a lake covering some 15,000 square miles.

The study suggests that such aquifers probably lie off many other coasts worldwide, and could provide desperately needed water for arid areas that are now in danger of running out.

Experts say there is no ‘climate emergency’

Image credit: thebulletin.org

H/T The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)

Broadly speaking, two separate arguments bear the climate label. One is whether there is something wrong (whatever that may mean) with the climate, and the other is whether humans are causing changes to the climate. Of course the two are usually run together as one issue, or supposed issue. Here Canadian Professor Ross McKitrick looks at the first aspect, advising readers to ‘Clip out this column, keep it close at hand, and quote from the experts when the occasion arises.’ But most people find themselves exhorted to panic first and ignore all the underlying realities, despite the lack of anything worth panicking about.
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On June 7, I published an op-ed on this page telling the story of Roger Pielke Jr., a U.S. climate expert whose research on climate change and extreme weather didn’t support many of the alarmist slogans on the subject.

Despite his findings being squarely in the mainstream of his academic specialty, for stating them publicly Pielke Jr. was vilified, bullied and eventually harassed into quitting the field.

Conservative MP Lisa Raitt tweeted a link to my article. As if to prove the point of the story, the climate mob quickly vilified, bullied and harassed her into deleting her tweet.

I wrote Lisa an open letter, hoping she would notice the pattern.

New York State’s Energy Future: Lighting Candles?

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Another risible example of the climate ‘crusade’ to nowhere. Good luck to NY State’s energy guinea pigs in trying to keep the lights on without bankrupting themselves, all for no useful result.

PA Pundits - International

By Craig Rucker ~

The New York State Legislature just passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to sign the bill into law. This measure contains new mandates for the state to eliminate net carbon emissions in the next thirty years, by 2050, equal to just 15 percent of the 1990 levels. By 2040, just two decades from now, 100 percent of the state’s electricity generation is supposed to come from “renewable” resources, such solar and wind power.

The new law also authorizes numerous state agencies to issue regulations to achieve greenhouse gas emission limits that govern nearly every aspect of the private economy, including energy, health, housing, transportation, agriculture, economic development, and utilities. And, the new climate law also must be considered when agencies issue any permits, contracts, licenses “and other administrative approvals and decisions.”

Climate change policy now governs everything in…

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UK Minister suspended after grabbing climate activist

Time to go

London’s Mansion House will no doubt have to employ its own bouncers to protect the bigwigs at its supposedly invitation-only events in future, saving unprotected government ministers from unseemly extra ‘duties’.

Mark Field has been suspended as a Foreign Office minister after grabbing a female Greenpeace activist at a black-tie City dinner, reports BBC News.

The MP has apologised for confronting Janet Barker and marching her away as protesters interrupted a speech by Chancellor Philip Hammond.

But he said he had been “genuinely worried” she may have been armed.

Ms Barker told the BBC he should “reflect on what he did” and suggested he “go to anger management classes”.

Mysterious Moisture in the Mesosphere

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More on the mysteries behind noctilucent clouds. Lots of extra water vapour has turned up this season that can’t easily be explained.

Spaceweather.com

June 19, 2019: The 2019 season for noctilucent clouds (NLCs) has been remarkable, maybe the best ever, with NLCs appearing as far south as Los Angeles CA and Albuquerque NM. What’s going on? Researchers aren’t sure, but Lynn Harvey of the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics has just found an important clue.

“The mesosphere is quite wet,” she says. “Water vapor concentrations are at their highest levels for the past 12 years.”

Noctilucent clouds over Piwnice, Poland, on June 18th. Credit: Piotr Majewski

Noctilucent clouds form when summertime wisps of water vapor rise to the top of the atmosphere. Water molecules stick to specks of meteor smoke, gathering into icy clouds that glow electric blue when they are hit by high altitude sunlight.

When noctilucent clouds began appearing at unusually low latitudes in early June, Harvey took a look at data from NASA’s Microwave…

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Record-Setting Noctilucent Clouds

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Something of a mystery developing here. Open season for theories.

Spaceweather.com

June 11, 2019: On June 8th and 9th, many people who have never previously heard of “noctilucent clouds” (NLCs) found themselves eagerly taking pictures of them–from moving cars, through city lights, using cell phones and iPads. “I have never seen clouds like this before!” says Tucker Shannon, who took this picture from Corvallis, Oregon:

“I heard that they may have been seeded by meteoroids,” says Shannon.

That’s correct. NLCs are Earth’s highest clouds. Seeded by meteoroids, they float at the edge of space more than 80 km above the planet’s surface. The clouds are very cold and filled with tiny ice crystals. When sunbeams hit those crystals, they glow electric-blue.

Noctilucent clouds used to be a polar phenomenon. In recent years, however, researchers have noticed their electric-blue forms creeping south. Is it climate change? Or the solar cycle? No one knows for sure.

This past weekend…

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UK commits to ‘net zero’ emissions by 2050

Spurious virtue signalling trumps economics and even sanity in UK politics it seems. Belief in the empty box that is man-made climate change will be a massive and futile financial burden to the public. Our leaders are so confused, or keen to confuse everyone else, that they even equate the vital trace gas carbon dioxide with pollution.

Greenhouse gas emissions in the UK will be cut to almost zero by 2050, under the terms of a new government plan to tackle climate change, reports BBC News.

Prime Minister Theresa May said reducing pollution would also benefit public health and cut NHS costs.

Britain is the first major nation to propose this target – and it has been widely praised by green groups.

But some say the phase-out is too late to protect the climate, and others fear that the task is impossible.

Porto Santo island features on BBC News as renewables pioneer

Porto Santo airport

This tiny island near Madeira has an area of 16.28 square miles but gets a flying visit from the BBC’s leading climate alarm advocate Roger Harrabin, no doubt in a fuel-burning aeroplane or two. Has he checked his ‘carbon footprint’ lately? 😎
The idea was to give a plug (sorry) to an electric car experiment, but with such a tiny surface area it all looked like much ado about next to nothing. Not exactly a gamechanger, but he’s probably boosted their tourism – meaning more of those naughty flights.

Surprised this morning to find that the island of Porto Santo was featuring on BBC Breakfast, where it was described as “aspiring to become the first energy independent island by eliminating the use of fossil fuels altogether”, reports Madeira Island News.

The report started by showing diesel generators fuelling pollution, and moved on the detail the efforts being made to use reversible car batteries to recharge the electric grid.

The physics of evaporation explained – pressure is the key factor

Not what some might have imagined perhaps. Researchers found that temperature difference between the surface and the liquid was less important than ‘the difference in pressure between the liquid surface and the ambient vapor’.

For the first time, MIT scientists have analyzed the evaporation process in detail at a molecular level and determined the physics of evaporation, reports Tech Explorist.

Evaporation is the process by which water changes from a liquid to a gas or vapor. The process is the primary path for water to move from the liquid state back to the water cycle as atmospheric water vapor.

Evaporation commonly occurs in everyday life. When you get out of the shower, the water on your body evaporates as you dry. If you leave a glass of water out, the water level will slowly decrease as the water evaporates.

For the first time, MIT scientists have analyzed the evaporation process in detail at a molecular level. For this, they used a new technique to control and detect temperatures at the surface of an evaporating liquid. Doing this, they were able to identify a set of universal characteristics involving time, pressure and temperature changes that determine the details of the evaporation process.

Site of biggest ever meteorite collision in the UK discovered

Hebridean islands of Scotland

So it is believed at least. Researchers say a more detailed underwater survey is needed.

Evidence for the ancient, 1.2 billion years old, meteorite strike, was first discovered in 2008 near Ullapool, NW Scotland by scientists from Oxford and Aberdeen Universities.

The thickness and extent of the debris deposit they found suggested the impact crater—made by a meteorite estimated at 1km wide—was close to the coast, but its precise location remained a mystery.

In a paper published today in Journal of the Geological Society, a team led by Dr. Ken Amor from the Department of Earth Sciences at Oxford University, show how they have identified the crater location 15-20km west of a remote part of the Scottish coastline.

Electric vehicle push in Norway could add $1.3 billion to power bills by 2040: study

Teslas in Norway [image credit: Norsk Elbilforening (Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association)]

Norway is one of the world’s largest exporters of oil, also of natural gas. Loss of revenue from fuel taxes seems not to be a problem for them, but high demand by car users for electricity at certain times of the day could be. Are other countries ready for such issues?

OSLO (Reuters) – Norway’s power grid is likely to need an 11 billion crown ($1.27 billion) upgrade over the next 20 years to meet demand from the country’s growing fleet of electric cars, with consumers likely to have to foot the bill, a study has shown.

Electric car (EV) sales in Norway reached a record-high in March, with almost 60% of new cars sold fully electric, a result of state policy to exclude such vehicles from certain taxes and offer free or cheaper road tolls, parking and charging points.

The Curious Case of Dr. Miskolczi

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Curious indeed. A case of what can happen when the message becomes more important than the science that is supposed to lead to it.

[Note: this post was written in 2017]

Science Matters

Update May 18 below

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button relates the story of a fictional character who is estranged from the rest of humanity because of a unique personal quality. He alone was born an old man, grew younger as he aged, before dying as an infant. Living in contradiction to all others, he existed as an alien whose relations were always temporary and strained.

Recently I had an interchange with a climatist obsessed with radiation and CO2 as the drivers of climate change. For me it occasioned a look back in time to rediscover how I came to some conclusions about how the atmosphere warms the planet. That process brought up an influencial scientist whose name comes up rarely these days in discussions of global warming/climate change. So I thought a tribute post to be timely.

Dr. Ferenc Mark Miskolczi (feh-rent mish-kol-tsi) was not born estranged, but alienation…

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