Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #486 – Watts Up With That?

The Week That Was: 2022-02-05 (February 5, 2022)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project

Quote of the Week: “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” – Albert Einstein

Number of the Week: $30.50 /million BTU, $208.24/MWh [H/t Ron Clutz]

THIS WEEK:

By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)

Scope: The TWTW summary of major contributions to climate science over the past year or so will wrap-up by discussing them in four groups: 1) use of proper data, 2) false attribution and use of data, 3) deficiencies in the current procedures used in climate science, 4) suggestions of a way forward to better understand influence of human increases to greenhouse gases in the extraordinarily complex climate system. The last topic will be discussed more fully next week.

Some in the West are slowly learning that their hope for reliable, affordable alternatives to fossil fuels is an illusion (mirage). Western leaders were driven to these hopes by the delusion (fantasy) that climate models can predict / project / forecast future temperatures. The models cannot describe what is occurring today. Thus, there is no logical reason to assume that they can predict temperatures thirty to eighty years from now. Scientific organizations that receive public money and pretend the models are useful for prediction are committing a disservice to the public. Examples will be discussed. The issue extends to scope and intensity of storage needed to back-up unreliable electricity generation.

A current term of art used in climate studies is “a new normal.” TWTW will explore how once-respected scientific organizations are using the term, even though their work demonstrates ignorance of prior significant work.

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Data Standards: To understand what is happening in the physical world researchers must use the best physical evidence, data, available. If they do not use appropriate physical evidence, the researchers are misleading themselves and others who may believe them. The results of climate models that have not been verified and validated against appropriate physical evidence are not physical evidence but speculation.

The climate industry ignores the best physical evidence, forty-two years of atmospheric temperature trend measurements from the Earth System Science Center at University of Alabama in Huntsville. These are verified against weather balloon data taken by different instruments and checked against information compiled from reanalyses of weather forecasts. There is no better global temperature data. They are not without some issues. For example, it was determined that readings need to be corrected for orbital drift of satellites. When this was discovered and verified, the corrections were promptly made, as they should be, following the scientific method.

Roy Spencer, the co-founder of the techniques of using satellite data to develop temperature trends, reports:

“The linear warming trend since January 1979 now stands at +0.13 C/decade (+0.12 C/decade over the global-averaged oceans, and +0.18 C/decade over global-averaged land).”

The Earth System Science Center reports:

“Equatorial cooling associated with the on-going presence of La Niña continued and the tropics are now substantially below the 30-year average at -0.24 °C (-0.43 °F). As is often noted on these reports, the maximum cooling effect of La Niñas usually occurs sometime from February to May.”

From this we know that the data not only include the greenhouse effect, which occurs in the atmosphere, but also includes other variations to the earth systems such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) which has been occurring for hundreds if not thousands of years. However, there is no cause to the ENSO change that has been explained satisfactorily.

Further, the data collection began after a period of global cooling during which some climate scientists were predicting Ice Age glaciation. Why this cooling stopped is not clear, but it may be due to a change in ocean oscillations such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO).

Even though the temperature trends taken by satellites include influences other than the influence of changing greenhouse gases on temperatures, they best represent the maximum change occurring from changing atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. They clearly show there is no “climate crisis” and the predictions of one in the future using global climate models that do not consider atmosphere trends are not reliable. The reports of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and reports such as the US National Climate Assessment are a disgrace to science. These government organizations ignore the scientific method requiring testing of the hypotheses against all available physical data.

The essays published in January 2021 under David Legates used proper data to strongly criticize the US National Climate Assessment Reports (NCA) mandated by Congress published under the U.S. Global Change Research Program. These NCA reports have ignored the scientific method, which the essays followed. Both Legates and Patrick Michaels gave talks explaining the problem in climate science at the 14^th International Congress on Climate Change organized by the Heartland Institute. See links under Measurement Issues – Atmosphere and links in the January 2022 TWTWs for additional links.

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Major Errors: The IPCC assumes that the sun is almost constant, with slight variation. However, in August a group of solar scientists published a paper demonstrating significant disagreement among solar scientists whether or not the assumption is correct. If the assumption is not correct, then the findings of the IPCC are largely meaningless.

Statisticians Ross McKitrick and Stephen McIntyre have found major statistical errors in the studies used by the IPCC to buttress claims that carbon dioxide is causing dangerous global warming. McKitrick focused on errors in understanding the widely accepted Gauss-Markoff theorem of Generalized Least-Squares to claim a method used for the past 20 years can calculate the probability of an event being caused by human additions of atmospheric carbon dioxide. As McKitrick demonstrates, the attribution calculations are statistically meaningless.

McIntyre focused on many studies of marine proxies of temperature being used to develop the claim that there was no variation in global marine temperatures for 2000 years until about 1850, with the start of the industrial revolution. The studies are little bits and pieces with no established relationship. The result is little better than sawdust and glue poured into a form. Again, they have no meaning. For links see January 2022 TWTWs.

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Procedural Problems: As discussed in last week’s TWTW, the books by Steve Koonin and Mototaka Nakamura bring out sever problems with global climate models, even if one accepts the use of surface temperature data, which TWTW thinks is a poor choice. As brought out by Richard Lindzen: 1) The core of the system consists in two turbulent fluids (the atmosphere and oceans) interacting with each other; 2) The two fluids are on a rotating planet that is differentially [unevenly] heated by the sun and unevenly absorbing the solar warming. Solar rays directly hit the equator and skim the earth at the poles resulting in uneven heating, which drives the circulation of the atmosphere. The result is heat transport from the equator towards the poles (meridional); and 3) The earth’s climate system is never in equilibrium.

Thus, the IPCC’s pursuit of an “equilibrium climate sensitivity” (ECS) is a fool’s errand. Despite thousands of pages of studies there will never be a solution unless there is a significant change in human knowledge of the physical world. As Nakamura writes:

“…climate simulation models are fine tools to study the climate system, so long as the users are aware of the limitations of the models and exercise caution in designing experiments and interpreting their output.”

“The models just become useless pieces of junk or worse (worse, in a sense that they can produce gravely misleading output) only when they are used for climate forecasting.”

“All climate simulation models have many details that become fatal flaws when they are used as climate forecasting tools, especially for mid- to long-term (several years and longer) climate variations and changes.”

“It means that they are also completely useless for assessing the effects of the past atmospheric carbon dioxide increase on the climate. I myself used to use climate simulation models for scientific studies, not for predictions, and learned about their problems and limitations in the process.”

Steve Koonin expresses similar views and was taken aback when a lead author of the climate model evaluation chapter in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5, 2013) publicly said that it was IPCC procedure to first adjust the models to fit surface temperatures, then to discard the adjustments when making projections. Using this procedure there is no way that one can know the errors and uncertainties in the projections, or correct them. For links see last week’s TWTW.

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A Better Way? IPCC climate science has stagnated. But, the more stagnant the science becomes, the more shrill the climate advocates become. In 2020, W. A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer submitted a paper titled: “Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases,” discussed in the January 22, 2022, TWTW. Also discussed are the views of Tom Sheahen that the paper is especially important because it shows a remarkable agreement between theory and observations under significantly different conditions: 1) the desert (the Sahara); temperate regions (the Mediterranean) and the polar regions (Antarctica). Interestingly, the atmosphere of Antarctica gives off far more infrared radiation (cooling the earth) than the surface, demonstrating the importance of convection (atmosphere and oceans) in transporting heat from the tropics to the polar regions. One must realize that the calculations for warming are for “clear skies.” Once an adequate theory for cloud formation develops the estimates for doubling of carbon dioxide will likely be below one degree C, far below the IPCC estimate of 3 °C plus or minus 1.5 °C

Also, the same TWTW discusses the recent work of Howard Hayden following on the work of van Wijngaarden and Happer. To understand the changing impacts of greenhouse gases, we must understand the flow of energy (all forms of electromagnetic radiation) from the sun to the earth, and the flow of energy (infrared radiation) from the globe with the atmosphere included to space. The IPCC does not, and only recently incorporated the important Stefan-Boltzmann law, which was used incorrectly. Future TWTWs will follow developments in understanding these energy flows. See links in the January 22, 2022, TWTW.

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Delusion Drives Illusion? According to reports, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson became an advocate of dangerous global warming after meetings with members of the UK Met Office, which makes weather predictions. It is not clear what he was told, but Johnson became an advocate of abandoning fossil fuels, in favor of electricity generation from wind. (Apparently, even solar advocates realize that cloudy, high latitude Britain is not ideal for solar generation, though it is being used without success in Germany.)

From the above, it is clear that weather modeling and climate modeling cannot make reliable predictions about the future, even a couple of years out much less to the end of the century. Based on reports, the costs of “Net Zero” are becoming obvious to many in the public who believe, correctly, they are being misled and deceived.

In the US, certain analysts cost numbers that far exceed official claims. Attorney Francis Menton has an excellent description of estimates from three sources. One is the late Roger Andrews who impressed TWTW, another by Ken Gregory, whose work appears thorough, and another for New York State by Roger Caiazza. Menton explains the assumptions that result in different estimates of needed storage and its costs. Unfortunately, Andrews never considered worse case scenarios, which are critical for net zero which the Biden Administration is pushing.

As an example, in focusing on New York State Menton writes:

“The [New York] Scoping Plan is a massive document (some 330 pages plus another 500+ pages of appendices) of breathtaking incompetence.”

TWTW has found such a characteristic in many such plans. Writing in PV Mag, the reporter states:

“US researchers suggest that by 2050, when 94% of electricity comes from renewable sources, approximately 930GW of energy storage power and six and a half hours of capacity will be needed to fully cover demand for electricity in the United States.”

Based on current peak solar production in the California ISO, in February only about seven hours of solar power is available, and it would not be available to recharge batteries for six and a half hours of capacity storage at maximum power! California’s vaunted solar power is backed-up by natural gas, nuclear (which it is closing), and imports from other states.

The cited report is from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The beginning of the Executive Summary is an example of what Menton describes in the New York Scoping Plan:

Due to rapid technology cost declines and significant potential value of energy storage, we could see hundreds of gigawatts of storage on the future grid. The Storage Futures Study (SFS) is designed to explore the potential role and impact of energy storage in the evolving electricity sector of the United States, specifically how energy storage technology advancement could impact the deployment of utility-scale and distributed storage, and the implications for future power system infrastructure investment and operations. This report—the sixth in the series— assesses the hourly operations of high storage power systems in the U.S., with storage capacities ranging from 213 GW to 932 GW.

The assessment builds upon a previously published report in the Storage Futures Study in which NREL added new capabilities to its publicly available Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) model to build least-cost scenarios for a range of cost and performance assumptions for energy storage (A. W. Frazier et al. 2021). Scenarios showed the potential for U.S. storage capacity to exceed 125 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2050, even in the most conservative estimates—a more than a fivefold increase over current U.S. storage capacity (A. W. Frazier et al. 2021).

This analysis returns to the ReEDS high storage scenarios with detailed production cost modeling to observe the hourly, daily, and annual operations and associated value of storage. Overall, we find that the high storage (and often high variable generation) power system scenarios envisioned in ReEDS successfully operate with no unserved energy and low reserve violations, showing no concerns about hourly load balancing through the end of 2050. The successful hourly load balancing indicates the various improvements to ReEDS in previous work are effective in envisioning these future scenarios.

On a daily basis, we find storage operations are heavily aligned with the availability of solar photovoltaics (PV), which has a predictable daily on and off cycle that aligns well with the need for storage to charge and discharge. Wind, on the other hand, has a less apparent daily cycle and often experiences long periods of overgeneration stretching for many hours or days, which is much longer than the duration of storage we explore here. Although storage can play a key role in utilizing energy from both PV and wind, the synergies with PV are more consistent.

The declines in technology costs are not specified, Other than recognizing the erratic nature of wind power, the NREL report is a great show of bureaucratic incompetence, one incompetent study following a previous incompetent study. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy, Defending the Orthodoxy, Science, Policy, and Evidence, and Questioning European Green.

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The New Normal – Ignorance? A press release from the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California announced a new normal for ocean temperatures. It was based on simulations of marine heat with the baseline being 1870 to 1919. Who knows how realistic the simulations are? Apparently, the simulations were not checked against measurements taken during the 1970s GEOSECS program in which the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego was a major participant. See links under Changing Seas.

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Number of the Week: $30.50 /million BTU, $208.24/MWh. According to Ron Clutz, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported New England natural gas prices peaked at $30.50 per million BTU and electricity peaked at $208.24 per million watt-hours. These prices are similar to what energy costs in Europe and are consistent with the EIA New England Dashboard. Deliveries of liquified natural gas (LNG) delivered by ship peaked on February 1.

Thanks to the energy policies of New England and New York, New England does not have access to inexpensive natural gas from the nearby Marcellus Shale in New York and Pennsylvania. In Mid-Atlantic, the city gate price of natural gas was running about $6.00 per million BTU and the electricity power less than $70.00 per MWh. Amazing what politicians driven by ideology can do. See Energy Issues – US, https://www.eia.gov/dashboard/newengland/naturalgas, and https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/.

Censorship

Fact checkers defend activist scientists because they agree with them not because they are right

By Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, Feb 1, 2022