Compasses at Greenwich are about to do something not observed for 360 years

Credit: JS Pailly

What a time to be alive says ScienceAlert.
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For the first time in centuries, compasses in Greenwich are about to point directly at true north: an epic coincidence of time and magnetism that hasn’t taken place for some 360 years.

This serendipitous occurrence – which is set to occur within the next fortnight – serves as a startling reminder of how Earth’s magnetic north pole is constantly wandering, unlike the fixed ‘true north’ of Earth’s geographic north pole.

The angular difference between those two different points is called magnetic declination, and while the gap might not be something ordinary people spend a great deal of time thinking about, it’s a disparity that can last for centuries at a time.

For hundreds of years now in the UK, due to Earth’s shifting magnetic north pole, declination has been negative, meaning compass needles have been pointing west of true north.

But nothing lasts forever.

Walruses climbing cliffs and falling off them are natural events: 1994 video from Alaska

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Yet another manufactured climate scare bites the dust. Is Attenborough enjoying his self-appointed role as an alarmist myth-maker?

polarbearscience

US Fish and Wildlife officials in 1994 explain walruses falling to their deaths from a cliff at Cape Pierce in the southern Bering Sea (a haulout for adult males during the ice-free season). Explanation? Overcrowding (too many walruses)!

Hype from the Netflix/Attenborough ‘climate change is gonna destroy the world’ fearmongers earlier this year notwithstanding – or the media this summer trying to stir up climate change fever – the US Fish and Wildlife Service determined in October 2017 that the Pacific walrus is not being harmed by climate change and is not likely to be harmed within the foreseeable future (USFWS 2017). The IUCN Red List (2015) lists the Pacific walrus as ‘data deficient‘.

Large herds onshore are a sign of population health, not climate change, and walruses have come ashore in the Chukchi Sea during the ice-free season in summer and/or fall for more than 100…

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More than a third of UK smart meter users report having problems

Smart or not?

Beware energy firms bearing obsolete smart meters – or even up-to-date ones in many cases. Their record so far looks dismal.

New research suggests the number of people having issues totals around four million, with just over a year to go until the installation deadline, reports Energy Live News.
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More than a third of households that have had smart meters installed have reported having problems.

That’s according to new data from uSwitch, which suggests the number of people having issues totals around four million, despite the installation deadline being just over a year away and the rollout needing to accelerate.

A “Super Sprite” over China

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Are the increased cosmic rays of solar minimum at work here? A strong possibility it seems.

Spaceweather.com

August 30, 2019: You never know what you might see in the wake of a big storm. On Aug. 25th, Chinese astrophotographer Chao Shen of Shaoxing City went outside to photograph the Milky Way. A typhoon named “White Deer” had passed through the day before, and the storm clouds were parting. “I saw the stars–but that’s not all,” says Shen. “A Gigantic Jet leaped up right before my eyes!”

Gigantic Jets are lightning-like discharges that spring from the tops of thunderstorms, reaching all the way to the edge of space. They’re related to sprites, but larger and more powerful.

“Shen definitely caught a Gigantic Jet,” confirms Oscar van der Velde of the Lightning Research Group at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. “It looks like it may have reached as high as 90 km above the ground.”

“Gigantic Jets are much more rare than sprites,” says van der Velde. “While…

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Dorian becomes a Category 4 monster powering toward Florida

Credit: weather.com (31 Aug. 2019)

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UPDATE 1st Sept.: Dorian is now reported to be a Category 5 storm as it strikes the Bahamas.
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After an unusually quiet start to the Atlantic hurricane season, things have suddenly become serious. Uncertainty abounds but this could become ugly for south-eastern USA, Florida in particular. This report says ‘there were fears it could prove to be the most powerful hurricane to hit Florida’s east coast in nearly 30 years.’ Or it might not hit at all – at this stage, nobody knows.

Hurricane Dorian powered toward Florida with increasing fury Friday, becoming an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm but leaving forecasters uncertain whether it would make a direct hit on the state’s east coast or inflict a glancing blow, reports Phys.org.

The storm’s winds rose to 130 mph (215 kph) and then, hours later, to a howling 140 mph (225 kph) as Dorian gained strength while crossing warm Atlantic waters.

The hurricane could wallop the state with even higher winds and torrential rains late Monday or early Tuesday, with millions of people in the crosshairs, along with Walt Disney World and President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

The Metonic cycle in long-term lunar harmonics

Image credit: interactivestars.com

In 2015 this post discussed long-term lunar precession from an apsidal, or anomalistic, standpoint.

We saw that all the numbers related to an exact number (339) of Metonic cycles (19 tropical years each, as discussed below).

Here we show the equivalent from a nodal, or draconic, standpoint.

Again, all the numbers relate to an exact number (337 this time) of Metonic cycles.

Science Goes Up In Rainforest Smoke

Amazon near Manaus [credit: Wikipedia]

If journalists, politicos, celebs and the Pope can fall for scientific myths and get the facts so wrong, why should we believe them on other climate issues? – asks Climate Change Dispatch.
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The idea that the Amazon rainforest is the lungs of the world is so embedded in our minds that few questioned its widespread use when news about fires in the Amazon was reported this summer, writes Dr. David Whitehouse.

The idea is everywhere—so it’s obviously true. Trees absorb carbon dioxide (bad), don’t they, and give off oxygen (good), and there are billions of trees in the Amazon, so surely it makes sense.

Responding to the fires in the Amazon the Pope has said that the “Lungs of the forest are vital for the planet.”

UN Flies In 5,000 People To Salt Lake To Complain About Fossil Fuels

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Who in the end is paying for all these time-wasting, and – by their own definitions at least – polluting, freeloaders?

PA Pundits - International

From the team at CFACT ~

How does the United Nations convince people that they are super serious in their outrage about fossil fuels? How about flying 4,000 people from all over the world in fossil-fueled jet airplanes to isolated Salt Lake City to whine about it? Sounds like a good plan to the United Nations bureaucracy, which is sponsoring a sustainability and climate change conference this week in Salt Lake City.

The UN brags that up to 4,000 people are likely to attend, representing more 300 nongovernmental organizations (read, environmental activist groups) and more than 80 countries. There is no compelling agenda, no compelling actions items, and no expected meaningful outcome from the conference. It is simply an opportunity for leftist global activists to get together and express outrage about economic freedom and the existential global climate disruption that is the greatest crisis humanity has ever faced –…

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Water harvester makes it easy to quench your thirst in the desert

Credit: UN/WWAP

The report says the productivity of the new water harvester is ’10 times that of the previous device and 100 times higher than the early proof-of-concept device’, and that ‘no traces of metal or organics have been found in the water’.

In 2017, UC Berkeley chemists demonstrated that a new MOF design could rapidly adsorb water from even dry air, allowing it to be condensed and collected for drinking, reports TechXplore

A second-generation MOF can now cycle through adsorption and desorption in 20 minutes, allowing continous collection of more than a liter per day per kilogram of MOF using solar power.

The new MOF is the basis of a planned microwave-sized device that delivers 7-10 liters per day.

With water scarcity a growing problem worldwide, University of California, Berkeley, researchers are close to producing a microwave-sized water harvester that will allow you to pull all the water you need directly from the air—even in the hot, dry desert.

EU destroys 700,000 hectares of rainforest for biofuels

H/T The GWPF

All those trees would have absorbed large amounts of the carbon dioxide they claim to be so scared of. Somehow all this is deemed to be ‘sustainable’, using the climate excuse.

The EU wants to save our climate with supposedly green biofuels and has deemed palm oil “sustainable”. Yet on the other side of the globe, rainforests are being clear-cut to produce the 1.9 million tons of palm oil that end up in European fuel tanks every year, says Rainforest Rescue.

The European Union wants to protect the climate and reduce carbon emissions from motor vehicles by blending fuels with increasing shares of supposedly eco-friendly “biofuels”.

Last year, 1.9 million tons of palm oil were added to diesel fuel in the EU – in addition to millions of tons of equally harmful rapeseed and soybean oils.

The plantations needed to satisfy Europes’s demand for palm oil cover an area of 700,000 hectares – land that until recently was still rainforest and the habitat of 5,000 endangered orangutans. Despite the clear-cutting, the EU has classified palm oil as sustainably produced.

This policy has now blown up in the legislators’ faces, with scientists confirming what environmentalists and development experts have long asserted: biofuels help neither people nor the environment – and they are most certainly not climate-neutral, as even studies commissioned by the EU show.

UK Government announces £300m to accelerate greener travel – they hope

Ex-drone, somewhere in Siberia

Incontinent pigeons could be the least of pedestrians’ worries if any of these headline-seeking flights of fancy come to fruition. Election soon?

Funding will support new technologies including electric passenger planes, flying urban taxis and freight-carrying drones, says Energy Live News.

Up to £300 million of investment has been announced for the development of cleaner and greener forms of transport in Britain.

The government will provide £125 million of funding, which will be supported by industry co-investment of up to £175 million for new technologies including electric passenger planes, flying urban taxis and freight-carrying drones.

It is part of a new Future of Flight Challenge announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, which will be delivered by UK Research and Innovation.

Giant pumice raft from underwater volcanic eruption makes its way to Great Barrier Reef

Coral reef [image credit: Toby Hudson / Wikipedia]

An example of how a volcano can help replenish coral reefs. Great Barrier Reef doomsters take note: ‘Associate Professor Bryan said this sort of event was occurring every five years.’

Drifting through the ocean, the sailors suddenly lost sight of water as The New Daily reports.

Surrounding their boat was a floating mass of pumice rocks — the result of an an underwater volcanic eruption near Tonga two weeks ago.

Queensland University of Technology geologist Associate Professor Scott Bryan said it “would have been a really eerie experience sailing into this sea of floating rock”.

“No longer seeing water and hearing the scratching of the pumice against the hull,” he said.

Known as a pumice raft, this so-called island of floating rock is gradually heading for Australian shores and is so expansive it can be tracked via satellite.

Merkel’s Madness: €7,6 trillion For Germany’s climate project

German Chancellor Merkel surveys an offshore wind site [image credit: evwind.es]

H/T The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)

Germany looks set to win the title of biggest punter in the climate gambling game. Believing in failing climate models and alarmist propaganda can lead to some amazingly poor political decisions, but this one surely takes the cake for its extravagance.

Angela Merkel has called for a further tightening of Germany’s climate target – the nation should become CO2-neutral. By 2035, the costs will be twice of Germany’s economic output of a whole year.

For Angela Merkel, these are just a few words: “We want to be climate neutral by 2050”,
say Fritz Vahrenholt & Roland Tichy.

In the devotional mood at the Protestant Church Congress in Dortmund, where the Chancellor spoke these words, the faithful applauded her. No wonder: After all, the former investigative journalist Hans Leyendecker had announced ex cathedra – as president of the Kirchentag: “Anyone who does not acknowledge that climate change is man-made has no place at the Kirchentag.”

It is no longer a question of scientific debate and research, but of a new dogma of faith – who would dare to have any doubts if his name were not Galileo Galilei?

Climate alarmists foiled: No U.S. warming since 2005

Somehow this apparently innocuous non-problem has to be hyped up into a crisis of epic proportions. To help achieve this, an army of climate spin doctors is always on hand to attempt the never-ending task of blaming humans for any kind of unpleasant weather.

When American climate alarmists claim to have witnessed the effects of global warming, they must be referring to a time beyond 14 years ago, says James Taylor @ RealClear Energy.

That is because there has been no warming in the United States since at least 2005, according to updated data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

In January 2005, NOAA began recording temperatures at its newly built U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN). USCRN includes 114 pristinely maintained temperature stations spaced relatively uniformly across the lower 48 states.

Australia facing energy reliability challenges says report

Power lines in Victoria, Australia [credit: Wikipedia]

The long-term consequences of exchanging on-demand for unpredictable power generation are not hard to figure out. But political leaders in some countries prefer to ignore such issues, in favour of a questionable ideology that guarantees problems in their increasingly unreliable electricity systems.

A report from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) is a stark reminder of the reliability challenges facing the country’s National Electricity Market (NEM), says PEI.

The Andrews Labour government has been accused of failing to properly replace ageing infrastructure which has created unnecessary risk to the affordability and reliability of the NEM.

Petitioning Against Climate Alarmism Goes Global

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Once more: carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is an essential trace gas in the atmosphere.

PA Pundits - International

By Larry Bell ~

A petition being submitted by hundreds of independent climate scientists and professionals from numerous countries to heads of the European Council, Commission and Parliament declares “There is No Climate Emergency.”

Briefly summarized, the request for consideration conveys five urgent messages:

• Climate change is real and has been occurring with nature-driven cold and warm cycles for as long as the planet has existed.

• There should be no surprise that the Earth has been warming through natural causes since the last Little Ice Age ended around 1870. Actual temperature increases, however, are far less than predicted by theoretical climate models.

• There is no real evidence that anthropogenic (human-caused) CO2 emissions are a major or dangerous warming influence. They instead offer great benefits to agriculture, forestry and photosynthesis that is the basis for life.

• There is also no scientific evidence that increasing CO2 levels are causing more natural disasters…

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Ditch cars to meet climate targets, say MPs

‘You first’ might be one response. Once again the BBC, like a lot of the media, tries to frame ‘greenhouses gases’ and ‘pollution’ as the same thing, which confuses the reporting even more. Note the capital letters: ‘Zero Carbon’. All part of the make-believe future they are trying to sell to the public, but now exposed as unrealistic.

MPs say people will have to stop driving if the UK is to meet its Zero Carbon goals by 2050, reports BBC News.

The Science and Technology Select Committee says technology alone cannot solve the problem of greenhouse gas emissions from transport.

It says the government cannot achieve sufficient emissions cuts by swapping existing vehicles for cleaner versions.

The government said it would consider the committee’s findings.

In its report, the committee said: “In the long-term, widespread personal vehicle ownership does not appear to be compatible with significant decarbonisation.”

Origin of massive methane reservoir identified

Natural gas flare {credit: Wikipedia]

As we already knew from elsewhere in the solar system, fossils are not essential for the production of methane aka natural gas. Only two ingredients are needed, one being water, as explained below.

New research from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) published Aug. 19, 2019, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science provides evidence of the formation and abundance of abiotic methane—methane formed by chemical reactions that don’t involve organic matter—on Earth and shows how the gases could have a similar origin on other planets and moons, even those no longer home to liquid water.

Researchers had long noticed methane released from deep-sea vents, says Phys.org. But while the gas is plentiful in the atmosphere where it’s produced by living things, the source of methane at the seafloor was a mystery.

National Grid’s Preliminary Report On Blackout

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Thanks to Paul Homewood for the initial analysis. Note that module 1 of Hornsea wind farm operated normally throughout, even though modules 2 and 3 cut out.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/information-about-great-britains-energy-system-and-electricity-system-operator-eso

Key points:

• Lightning was the original cause, even though such strikes are perfectly common, and do not usually result in such catastrophic blackouts
• Hornsea wind farm tripped first, contrary to original reports.
• They still don’t seem to know exactly why either Hornsea or Little Barford tripped, though it was obviously due to the lightning.
• Along with the loss of 500MW of small embedded generation (wind and solar), the total loss was about 1878MW
• National Grid has 1000MW of automatic back up power available, incl 472MW of battery storage. Clearly this was not enough.
• Following the lightning strike, the grid’s protection systems worked properly

Certain aspects don’t seem to have been highlighted:

• When Hornsea wind farm is fully operational in the next year or so, it will have capacity of 1200MW. In addition, Hornsea Project 2, due on line in 2024, will have an additional 1386MW capacity…

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How do Power-to-X technologies work?

Some expensive ways of trying to ‘solve’ a non-existent problem, namely reducing the amount (currently about 0.04%) of the vital trace gas CO2 in the atmosphere, which gets spuriously linked to pollution. These proposed so-called solutions usually turn out to be not sufficiently ‘mature’ or ‘advanced’ – yet – suggesting it’s only a matter of time, or is that wishful thinking?

P2X, P2Y, PtG, PtL, power-to-gas… These somewhat cryptic terms stand for energy conversion processes that can be used to store surplus power from renewable sources and help meet climate targets.

But whether they will actually reduce emissions depends on many  different factors, EURACTIV Germany reports.