Miranda Devine: Eco Madness May Be The Reason For Disastrous Boeing 737 MAX Crash

Boeing 737 MAX 8 landing [image credit: Acefitt @ Wikipedia]

What is or isn’t genuinely ‘climate-friendly’ is a separate issue, but public perceptions are obviously important to competitive airlines and the plane makers they buy from.

We need to know if safety considerations at Boeing took a back seat to producing a climate-friendly plane, says Miranda Devine @ The New York Post (via The GWPF).

When Swedish eco-pessimist Greta Thunberg came to New York to shout, “How dare you!” last month, she maintained her climate purity by traveling on a carbon-neutral, solar-powered yacht.

Now that she’s in Canada, the teen doomsayer hasn’t explained how she’ll travel 4,000 miles home to Sweden without flying. She’s given up airplanes because she believes their greenhouse emissions drive cataclysmic climate change.

Air travel, which accounts for 2 percent of global emissions, has become the great bogeyman for climate alarmists, sparking a backlash against airlines.

A new run of the CLOUD experiment examines the direct effect of cosmic rays on clouds

As this is going on, cosmic rays are near a record high since measurements began. Researchers are using natural cosmic rays this time.

CERN’s colossal complex of accelerators is in the midst of a two-year shutdown for upgrade work.

But that doesn’t mean all experiments at the Laboratory have ceased to operate.

The CLOUD experiment, for example, has just started a data run that will last until the end of November, reports Phys.org.

The CLOUD experiment studies how ions produced by high-energy particles called cosmic rays affect aerosol particles, clouds and the climate.

New method gives first global picture of mutual predictability of atmosphere and ocean

Stating the obvious, but most of the heat is in the oceans if compared to the heat in the atmosphere. Wikipedia says ‘the top 2.5 m of the ocean holds as much heat as the entire atmosphere above it.’ If improved predictions are expected, evidence of that will be needed.

University of Maryland (UMD) scientists have carried out a novel statistical analysis to determine for the first time a global picture of how the ocean helps predict the low-level atmosphere and vice versa, reports Phys.org.

They observed ubiquitous influence of the ocean on the atmosphere in the extratropics, which has been difficult to demonstrate with dynamic models of atmospheric and oceanic circulation.

The Climate Cult

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At least carbon dioxide can take comfort from its popularity in real greenhouses, as opposed to alarm-filled imaginary ones.

PA Pundits - International

By Dr. Jay Lehr and Burt Prelutsky ~

It is a phenomenon of modern life that as membership in the old established religions wane, cults continue to sprout up like toadstools. Most of them have a very limited number of adherents and unless 75 people are killed at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, or 900 are killed or commit suicide at Jonestown, Guyana, we don’t hear about cult leaders like David Koresh or Jim Jones.

Occasionally, a smaller cult manages to make the news when they commit mass suicide in order to board a spaceship that will take them to Cloud Cuckooland.

But when it comes to sheer numbers and influence, there’s nothing to match the doomsday cult that has sprung up in the wake of Al Gore’s warning us about the imminent threat of global extinction. What makes the longevity of…

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UK Government to ban fossil fuel systems in new builds by 2025

Gas is supposed to be ‘polluting’, but wood-burning power stations are OK? Yet more climate-related government policy nonsense is wheeled out, in line with the obsession over a minor trace gas in the atmosphere.

Polluting fossil fuel heating systems such as gas boilers will be banned from being installed in new homes by 2025 under new plans proposed by the government, reports Energy Live News.

They will be replaced with the latest generation of clean technologies such as air source heat pumps and solar panels, according to Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick.

Scientists predict average late winter precipitation in western Europe for the next decade

We like to see a few bold predictions here at the Talkshop, even if they expect things to be ‘average’, but as these go out to ten years ahead we’ll add them to the (imaginary) list. The current very low solar minimum could be a wild card.

In a new study, scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) show that the average March precipitation, over the next ten years in western Europe is predictable using a novel method, says Phys.org.

The research team also issued a forecast for the coming years.

Pielke Jr.: Net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050 requires a new nuclear power plant every day

Ringhals nuclear power site, Sweden [image credit: Vattenfall]

Or, theoretically at least, an equivalent amount of power from other so-called ‘green’ sources, requiring vastly greater amounts of non-renewable mined materials than are currently available – assuming they even exist on such large scales. Not to mention all the other practical difficulties of such dodgy ideas.

What makes achieving Net Zero by 2050 impossible is a failure to accurately understand the scale of the challenge and the absence of policy proposals that match that scale, says Roger Pielke Jr. @ Forbes (via The GWPF).

More than a decade ago, Gwyn Prins and Steve Rayner characterized climate policy as an “auction of promises” in which politicians “vied to outbid each other with proposed emissions targets that were simply not achievable.”

For instance, among Democrats competing for the presidency in 2020, several, including Joe Biden, have committed to achieving net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. Candidate Andrew Yang bid 2049, and Cory Booker topped that by offering 2045. Bernie Sanders has offered a 71% reduction by 2030.

One reason that we see this “auction of promises” is that the targets and timetables for emissions reductions are easy to state but difficult to comprehend.

Wilson and Sidorenkov – A Luni-Solar Connection to Weather and Climate III: Sub-Centennial Time Scales

Thanks to Ian Wilson for introducing us to his new paper, which is part three of the planned four-part series. The paper can be downloaded from The General Science Journal here. Abstract below.

Abstract

The best way to study the changes in the climate “forcings” that impact the Earth’s mean atmospheric temperature is to look at the first difference of the time series of the world-mean temperature, rather than the time series itself.

Therefore, if the Perigean New/Full Moon cycles were to act as a forcing upon the Earth’s atmospheric temperature, you would expect to see the natural periodicities of this tidal forcing clearly imprinted upon the time rate of change of the world’s mean temperature.

Using both the adopted mean orbital periods of the Moon, as well as calculated algorithms based upon published ephemerides, this paper shows that the Perigean New/Full moon tidal cycles exhibit two dominant periodicities on decadal time scales.

Is theory on earth’s climate in the last 15 million years wrong?

Himalayan region

The report says: ‘Many scientists believe that ocean acidification from high carbon dioxide levels will reduce the calcium carbonate in algae, especially in the near future. The data, however, suggest the opposite occurred over the 15 million years before the current global warming spell.’ Evidence meets ‘greenhouse gas’ based climate theory, which struggles. Time for a re-think?

A key theory that attributes the climate evolution of the Earth to the breakdown of Himalayan rocks may not explain the cooling over the past 15 million years, according to a Rutgers-led study.

The study in the journal Nature Geoscience could shed more light on the causes of long-term climate change, says Phys.org.

EU plans to spend more on private jets for top officials

It’s the old ‘do as we say, not as we do’ routine again. What about those supposedly naughty emissions? Hollow laughs all round.

Move comes despite pledges to do more to cut emissions, says Politico.
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The European Union is planning to spend millions of euros more on private jet flights for its top officials — just as it is proclaiming its green credentials and pledging to step up the fight against climate change.

The bloc has raised the amount that can be spent under a five-year contract for “air taxi” flights by more than €3.5 million, according to a document published this month in the EU’s tenders database.

European Green Deal portfolio handed to EU vice president, in major elevation

Money to burn?

A major elevation of the delusion of having some control over the weather, that is. Looks like evr more vast sums of money will have to poured down the drain before anyone notices it’s not having any effect on the climate, if they ever do notice.

Dutch social democrat Frans Timmermans has been named executive vice president responsible for strategy to make the EU climate neutral by 2050, reports Climate Home News.
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Climate action is getting a promotion in the next European Commission, with the portfolio assigned to one of three executive vice presidents.

Dutch social democrat Frans Timmermans was nominated on Tuesday to develop the “European green deal” over the next five years. He is to directly manage the climate change directorate (DG Clima) and coordinate efforts across agriculture, health, transport, energy, cohesion and environment.

Announcing the line-up in a webcast press conference, commission president Ursula von der Leyen said she wanted to create a “flexible, agile” team to deliver on the bloc’s priorities.

Dense Antarctic water returning to the Atlantic surprises experts

Antarctica

The lead oceanographer in this research says: “The deep oceans have been warming across much of the world for decades, so we were surprised to suddenly see this trend reversing and stabilizing in the Scotia Sea.”
Carbon dioxide up, warming down – surprising to some it seems.

The supply of dense Antarctic water from the bottom of the ocean to the Atlantic has declined in recent years, says Phys.org.

However, a new study explains for the first time how since 2014 this has stabilized and slightly recovered due to the variability in upstream dense waters, with implications for the global climate.

The study, led by British Antarctic Survey, is published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change.

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.”

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.

UK weather latest: Downpours set to last ‘until end of August’

Credit: BBC

What happened to the ‘unprecedented’, ‘new normal’ hot weather that blew in from north Africa for a few days, then blew away again? Or was that just the media and warmist climate pundits shooting the breeze for yet another opportunistic headline? In any case it looks as if the Great British Summer is now back to its usual erratic self, but becoming somewhat wetter than the seasonal average.

Thunderstorms and heavy downpours are set to hit the UK this week, as Brits face what could be one of the wettest Augusts on record, says the Evening Standard.

Severe thunderstorm warnings are in place for London and the south east on Monday, with the chance of flooding, travel disruption and power cuts, the Met Office warns.

Where is Iceberg Alley?

Iceberg alley [credit: U.S. Coast Guard]

On the day Belfast’s Harland & Wolff – famously the builders of the Titanic – goes bust (it seems), let’s look at a question posed by the U.S. Coast Guard…

WHERE IS ICEBERG ALLEY?

The area we call “Iceberg Alley” is located about 250 miles east and southeast of the island of Newfoundland, Canada. Iceberg Alley is usually considered to be that portion of the Labrador Current, that flows southward from Flemish Pass, along the eastern edge of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, to the Tail of the Banks. This area extends approximately from 48 to 43 degrees North Latitude at 48 degrees West longitude. Icebergs and sea ice flowing south from Iceberg Alley created the Titanic disaster of 1912. This is the area of the ocean we patrol and monitor most carefully. [bold added]

https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=iipWhereIsIcebergAlley

What is the latitude and longitude for the Titanic?
Latitude: 41° 46′ North
Longitude: 50° 14′ West
Was Titanic’s last reported position when it sank.

https://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_latitude_and_longitude_for_the_Titanic

(For a perhaps surprising comparison, the latitude of Italy’s capital Rome is almost the same.)

Liverpool: huge tidal power plant on the Mersey could make city a renewable energy hotspot

Map of the Manchester Ship Canal (= blue line)
[click on map to enlarge]

H/T TechXplore

Sounds expensive. But as Liverpool is near the start of the Manchester Ship Canal any barrage should have low impact on shipping, in theory at least. As far as a ‘climate emergency’ is concerned, I’ve lived near the Mersey for a long time and haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary with the weather – so far at least 😐

Liverpool has declared a climate emergency, says The Conversation.

The mayors of both the city itself and the surrounding “city region” have recognised the emergency, and both have suggested that a tidal barrage on the River Mersey could form part of the solution.

And on a recent visit to the city, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said his party would support the £3.5 billion project.

Two years ago, I teamed up with colleagues at the National Oceanography Centre and University of Liverpool to look at how to realise the River Mersey’s energy potential: we concluded that a tidal power station could be part of the solution.

So what actually is a “tidal barrage”, and why do we think the Mersey is so suitable?

IPCC Scientists: Setting a Climate Deadline is Dangerous

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Climate nonsense on stilts has gone way too far. Time to kick the stilts away.

Science Matters

Recently published in Nature is a comment article Why setting a climate deadline is dangerous by
Shinichiro Asayama, Rob Bellamy, Oliver Geden, Warren Pearce & Mike Hulme.

H/T Robert Walker, who explains in his post at Science 2.0 Should IPCC Openly Challenge ‘Only 12 Years To Save Planet’ Deadline Rhetoric? Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Ever since the IPCC report in 2018, there’s been an increasing surge of doomist reporting, to the point that it is no surprise that there are many of our youngsters are naturally depressed and suicidal, thinking there is little point in life, and that they won’t live to be adults. Others are leading the way with politically unrealistic demands that we decarbonize completely within 12 years. These new requirements they are making are not supported at all by science, rather they are a result of emotional rhetoric, journalistic exaggerations, and junk science

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Paris Agreement hampered by inconsistent pledges, new research finds

This study is probably stating the obvious, but doing so in a bit more detail than some other less formal assessments. Being a study, they can’t say anyone’s climate ‘pledge’ was not worth the paper it was written on, because that wouldn’t be polite. Instead they question ‘ambition’ and use phrases like ‘at worst, grossly ineffective’. But we get the idea. Whether the whole Paris thing is an exercise in futility anyway is another discussion.

Some countries’ Paris Climate Agreement pledges may not be as ambitious as they appear, a new study has found.

The Paris Agreement takes a bottom-up approach to tackling climate change, with countries submitting pledges in the form of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to greenhouse emissions, says EurekAlert.

However, writing today in Environmental Research Letters, researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), Spain, reveal a lack of consistency and transparency between the various commitments.

Putting a Cap on Heat Hysteria

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Forecaster Joe Bastardi attempts to cool some fevered brows with a more rational view of recent weather.

PA Pundits - International

Joe Bastardi  ~   

It’s summer, it’s hot, and the climate-change agenda is turning up the heat on the weaponization of weather. So I thought some perspective may be in order.

No question the last three Julys have been warmer than average for a large area of the nation.

But for perspective, the three Julys before that were quite cool in the U.S.

The 2015-16 Super El Niño, with its input of massive amounts of water vapor, changed all that. How can we tell it’s water vapor and not CO2? Because nighttime lows (mins) are beating out daytime highs (maxes) in relation to averages. The moisture in the air when the air is stable at night effectively keeps temperatures up (as do Urban Heat Islands). However, because there is not enough corresponding warming aloft, more clouds form during the day from convective processes as it heats up…

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