The Chance of Storms Just Doubled

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A prediction for the Talkshop to mull over.

Spaceweather.com

April 8, 2021: If you think you are safe from geomagnetic storms, think again. A new study just published in the journal Space Weather finds that powerful storms may be twice as likely as previously thought.

Jeffrey Love of the USGS, who authored the study, analyzed Earth’s strongest geomagnetic storms since the early 1900s. Previous studies looked back only to the 1950s. The extra data led to a surprise:

“A storm as intense as, say, the Québec Blackout of 1989 is predicted to occur, on average, about every four solar cycles. This is twice as often as estimated using only the traditional shorter dataset,” says Love.

Above: The data Love used in his extreme value analysis. Red and blue circles denote the two strongest storms in each solar cycle.

A study like this is part physics, part math, and part detective work.

Love has spent recent years digging deeply into…

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Many Brits underwhelmed by so-called ‘climate crisis’, Sky News poll finds

Credit: planetsave.com

The prospect of a cool country becoming marginally warmer, should that happen, isn’t an urgent problem or maybe even any problem for the average Brit, judging by this poll. Climate fearmongers may need to look elsewhere for a good source of propaganda victims.
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Only 50% of respondents in the YouGov poll for Sky News supported a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030.

Almost 25% of Britons are unwilling to change key habits that would help tackle climate change, an exclusive poll for Sky News suggests.

The survey, conducted by YouGov, asked participants what they would be prepared to do in order to reduce the country’s carbon emissions.

The Daily Climate Show: Track global warming with our live counters, says Sky News

Get your climate change to 9 decimal places with one click. Who are they kidding? Never mind — happy tracking! 😂
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Rising temperatures, CO2 emissions and where our energy is sourced are all tracked here at Sky News.

America Pursues Expensive Electricity While Much Of The World Lives In Energy Poverty

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Climate virtue signallers demand belief in their fool’s paradise, regardless of cost.

PA Pundits - International

By Ronald Stein ~

With many still living with little to no access to electricity, American politicians are pursuing the most expensive ways to generate intermittent electricity with offshore wind turbines on the East and West Coasts.

The U.S Energy Information Administration (EIA) has already documented that offshore wind continues to be one of the most expensive forms of electricity generation.

Energy poverty is among the most crippling but least talked-about crises of the 21^st century. Electricity is the one of the simplest solutions to improved health, economic opportunity, education, nutrition, and comfort in the developing world, especially for women and girls.

In the world’s poorest countries, there are 11 million children in the world dying every year.

Those fatalities are from the preventable causes of diarrhea, malaria, neonatal infection, pneumonia, preterm delivery, or lack of oxygen at birth as many developing countries have no…

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A sun reflector for Earth? Scientists explore the potential risks and benefits

UK summer 2018 [image credit: BBC]

The Sun is more than capable of regulating itself. Attempts by humans to interfere with its effects are by definition ill-conceived. No trend in Arctic summer sea ice data since the early 2000s, for example, despite so-called experts claiming it was doomed several years ago, so who needs any intervention?
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Nine of the hottest years in human history [Talkshop comment – meaning since 1979, when satellite data became moderately reliable] have occurred in the last decade.

Without a major shift in this climate trajectory, the future of life on Earth is in question, claims Phys.org.

Should humans, whose fossil-fueled society is driving climate change [Talkshop comment – evidence-free assertion], use technology to put the brakes on global warming?

New study ties solar variability to the onset of decadal La Niña events

Solar activity [image credit: NASA]

What drives the weather can drive the climate. In this case the chances of non-correlation are said to be extremely low.

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A new study shows a correlation between the end of solar cycles and a switch from El Nino to La Nina conditions in the Pacific Ocean, suggesting that solar variability can drive seasonal weather variability on Earth, Phys.org reports.

If the connection outlined in the journal Earth and Space Science holds up, it could significantly improve the predictability of the largest El Nino and La Nina events, which have a number of seasonal climate effects over land.

For example, the southern United States tends to be warmer and drier during a La Nina, while the northern U.S. tends to be colder and wetter.

“Energy from the Sun is the major driver of our entire Earth system and makes life on Earth possible,” said Scott McIntosh, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and co-author of the paper.

As Brits dream of continental holidays, Prince William warns humans must ‘reset trajectory’ to avoid climate disaster

Prince William [image credit: Frankie Fouganthin @ Wikipedia]

We’re in the realms of vague waffle here. Where the climate fits in to anything he says is a mystery, in this report at least. Anyway, who is interested in yet another jet-setting promoter of a so-called ‘great reset’ that boils down to yet more restrictions on lifestyles — for the many, but not the favoured few like him?
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Prince William is calling for humanity to “reset our relationship with nature and our trajectory as a species” in a bid to avoid a climate disaster, reports Sky News.

In a special video message broadcast at the Conservation International Gala in the US, the Duke of Cambridge said the next decade would be “one of our greatest tests”.

Scam Alert: Hydrogen Hoax – The Next Great ‘Renewable’ Energy Fraud

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Prof. Ian Plimer’s warning: “We have the DNA skills now to identify a person from a tiny little piece of meat. And that’s what would be left if you have an accident in a hydrogen-driven vehicle.”

STOP THESE THINGS

Wind and solar power’s hopeless intermittency has forced rent seekers to engineer yet another fraud: hydrogen gas – which is to be purportedly produced using wind and solar’s occasional and chaotic output. Where wind and solar have never made any sense, the hydrogen proposition is completely bonkers.

Defying the laws of physics and thermodynamics – just for starters – the economics would make hydrogen gas produced using already heavily subsidised wind and solar the most expensive energy in human history.

And yet, the same class of dimwitted politicians are signing up in feverish earnest, as if they’re about to back a surefire Melbourne Cup winner.

As with wind and solar power, it’s the same too-good-to-be-true pitch directed at the starry-eyed, gullible and naïve. All, of course, in the name of obtaining a stream of taxpayer back subsidies that will outlast religion.

STT, always ready to rain on the renewable energy…

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Companies back moratorium on deep sea mining in ‘sustainability’ row

Deep sea mining illustration [image credit: youtube]

Deep sea mining supporters argue along the lines that the ocean floor is such a big place that scraping a few bits of it won’t matter on a global scale. Is this a row between the haves and have-nots, as limited supplies on land of the required materials are fought over?

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A long-running dispute over plans to start mining the ocean floor has suddenly flared up, reports BBC News.

For years it was only environmental groups that objected to the idea of digging up metals from the deep sea.

But now BMW, Volvo, Google and Samsung are lending their weight to calls for a moratorium on the proposals.

The move has been criticised by companies behind the deep sea mining plans, who say the practice is more sustainable in the ocean than on land.

UK company creates ‘world’s most sustainable electric vehicle motors’

Typical electric car set-up

Reducing both costs and mining waste sounds good, if it can be developed to industrial scale.
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A UK-based company has unveiled its what it believes to be the world’s most sustainable motor for electric vehicles, says ElectricHybridVehicleTechnology.

Its new motors are completely free of rare earth magnets, yet are said to be able to offer all of the performance and efficiency benefits and more of a conventional permanent magnet motor, without their considerable environmental drawbacks.

Unlike today’s standard EV motors, its HDSRM and SSRD motors do not feature rare earth magnets so do not require the harmful mining of materials such as neodymium and dysprosium.

According to independent research, every tonne of rare earth material mined produces up to 1.4 tonnes of radioactive waste, 200m3 of acid-containing sewage water, 60,000m3 waste gas containing hydrochloric acid and 27.6 tonnes of CO2.

Based on a global car production of 97 million vehicles, AEM’s technology could save the production of 133 million tonnes CO2 per year as well as 300,000 tonnes of radioactive waste.

Korea: Carbon neutrality plan lacks plan for carbon neutrality, say experts

South Korean coal plant [image credit: worldcoal.com]

What a shame — but all too familiar. Attempts at climate virtue signalling are easy but trying to spell out, let alone impose, unrealistic ‘solutions’ is not.
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The push for carbon neutrality is one of the biggest policy initiatives under the Moon Jae-in administration, but energy experts say that the plan to make Korea a carbon neutral society by 2050 is both unclear and unrealistic, reports the Korea JoongAng Daily.

The science minister, industry minister and environment minister on Wednesday announced an investment strategy to fund research and development (R&D) efforts for carbon neutrality.

The basic idea of the government’s Wednesday plan is to develop technology that could reduce carbon dioxide emissions to match the amount that is produced at Korea’s industrial sites — not a small task considering that Korea’s economy is still dominated by manufacturing industries.

Extinction Distortion

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Climate alarmist overreach rears its ugly head again.

PA Pundits - International

By Dr. Jay Lehr~

This is one of the shorter articles I have written each week at CFACT. The reason is that the fraudulent distortion of species extinction has so little data behind it for me to dissect, actually none. So there is little to write about. Patrick Moore did write about it in his new book Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom. He has been personally involved in the blatant lies made from the imagination of the perpetrators I am about to describe.

On May 22, 2019 Patrick Moore and Climate Depot’s Marc Morano appeared before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife. They were invited by the minority Republican members of the committee. A committee whose primary purpose was to hear three so called UN scientists from the awkwardly named Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. They were there to…

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Climate change: Net zero targets are ‘pie in the sky’

Clearly ‘net zero’ is just a game that only a group of wealthy countries with more money than sense, and a deluded belief in ‘temperature targets’, think they can afford to play.
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Sharp divisions between the major global emitters have emerged at a series of meetings designed to make progress on climate change, reports BBC News.

India lambasted the richer world’s carbon cutting plans, calling long term net zero targets, “pie in the sky.”

Their energy minister said poor nations want to continue using fossil fuels and the rich countries “can’t stop it”.

Federal auditors question viability of the German ‘energy transition’

‘The donkey goes on to the ice until it breaks’ – German proverb [image credit: evwind.es]

H/T The Global Warming Policy Forum & Die Welt.

While the auditors are piling on the criticism, the politicians are toying with the idea of producing hydrogen from solar energy in Morocco. That would surely be good for another upward twist to the already spiralling costs of the ‘green dream’.
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The Federal Audit Office has accused the Federal Ministry of Economics of insufficiently monitoring the energy transition and of poorly managing it.

The auditors have now renewed this criticism of energy policy expressed three years ago in a further special report – and added an explosive analysis of security of supply.

Why are people not doing more about climate change? — asks BBC Scotland

Scotland’s new Queensferry Crossing road bridge [image credit: BBC]

‘Saving the world’ just isn’t value for money to most Scots it seems, as they look at their ever-rising energy bills. And buying any brand new car is an expensive option anyway. Much-touted ‘green’ ideology and the shrill propaganda of climate alarmists don’t work so well in the real world, where economics matter more than ’emissions’. 
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Cost and confusion are the two main reasons people are not changing to greener options, the BBC finds.

I drive a diesel car, eat meat and just a few months ago had a gas boiler installed in my house, that’s quite an admission for an environment correspondent who reports on climate change, says BBC Scotland’s Kevin Keane.

The problem is that greener options are financially out of reach for me and – it seems – most Scots. That is something I have been investigating for BBC Scotland’s Disclosure.

Sky News to broadcast ‘The Daily Climate Show’

Does Sky think it has a ready-made successor to its daily Covid news bombardment? Welcome to the world of dodgy climate data, viewers.
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Starting this week, Sky News will get deadly serious in its coverage of climate change by highlighting every night the time we have left until the planet overheats, says I-news.

The figure is already less than 12 years, and the on-screen ticker will be counting down, second by second, as we head towards the ominous limit of 1.5°C hotter than when the Earth’s temperature was first comprehensively measured in 1880.

That ceiling was set in Paris at COP21, the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference, and Sky News has made its bold statement as we approach COP26 in Glasgow in November.

The ticking clock, built by Concordia University in Canada, will feature on a giant dashboard that will be a permanent studio fixture on The Daily Climate Show, which begins on 7 April as the UK’s first prime-time news show dedicated to the environment crisis.

Not an April Fools: Green economy incredulous over Nigel Farage’s new green finance job

This news has set the cat among the pigeons in climate obsession circles.

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Green campaigners and clean energy experts have expressed shock at the appointment of broadcaster, former politician, and long-time critic of climate action Nigel Farage to the advisory board of a European green finance firm focused on the fast-expanding carbon offset market, says Business Green.

Dutch Green Business Group, a firm focused on financing nature-based carbon offsets, announced on Sunday it had appointed Farage to its new advisory board, arguing he had “unique abilities to communicate relevant ideas to a global audience”.

Former Green Party leader Natalie Bennett, Green Alliance executive director Shaun Spiers, conservation campaigner Miles King, and BloombergNEF founder Michael Liebreich were among those to express incredulity at the news in light of Farage’s long record of climate scepticism.

Just One Number Keeps the Lights On

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There’s going to be a lot more ‘demand management’ aka use of price variation, deals with industrial users, and other tools to lower peak demand when it threatens to get too high for a renewables-oriented system to handle. Whether that will always work is anyone’s guess, but seems unlikely due to cost if nothing else.

Science Matters

David Wojick explains how maintaining electricity supply is simple in his CFACT article It takes big energy to back up wind and solar.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds. (H/T John Ray)

Power system design can be extremely complex but there is one simple number that is painfully obvious. At least it is painful to the advocates of wind and solar power, which may be why we never hear about it. It is a big, bad number.

To my knowledge this big number has no name, but it should. Let’s call it the “minimum backup requirement” for wind and solar, or MBR. The minimum backup requirement is how much generating capacity a system must have to reliably produce power when wind and solar don’t.

For most places the magnitude of MBR is very simple. It is all of the juice needed on the hottest or coldest low wind…

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Super-cold thunderstorm sets temperature record

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

But that’s not the whole story. It seems from long-term data ‘that these super-cold thunderstorms may be increasing in frequency. There have been as many such events across the globe in the past three years as there were in the 13 years before that.’ Could this be in some way related to the big decline in sunspot activity over the last two solar cycles?
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We’ve all seen those majestic anvil storm clouds that form on a hot summer’s day, but what do you think is the temperature right at the very top? – asks BBC News.

It’s very cold, obviously; at high altitude it is well below freezing.

But would you be surprised to learn it is sometimes below even -100C?

Indeed, scientists have just published research showing the top of one tropical storm cloud system in 2018 reached -111C. This is very likely a record low temperature.

EU’s top court rejects effort to force tougher climate rules

Speculative climate ‘lawfare’, a form of extortion via the courts, has overreached itself again and been declared out of scope. Any idea of weather control is an illusion.
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BRUSSELS — The European Union’s top court on Thursday rejected an effort by a Scandinavian youth group and families around the world to force the EU to set more ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that they were not “individually” affected by Europe’s climate policy, reports The Global Warming Policy Forum.

Those behind the initiative — including a Portuguese farmer, an Arctic indigenous activist and German islanders — expressed disappointment at the ruling, but also were determined to keep fighting for faster action against climate change.

Families from Kenya, Fiji, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and Romania, along with the Swedish Sami Youth organization, launched the legal action in 2018.