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Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #514 – Watts Up With That?


The Week That Was: 2022-07-30 (July 30, 2022)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project

Quote of the Week: “We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.” – J Robert Oppenheimer. [H/t Paul Homewood]

Number of the Week: 250,000 GWh

THIS WEEK:

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

Scope: In 2009, Anthony Watts organized a team of volunteers who inspected and took photographs of all the US weather stations they could identify that make up the ground-based system for measuring surface-air temperature in the US. This system was once considered the gold standard for the world. The team found about 96 percent of U.S. stations failed to meet the standards the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) considers to be “acceptable.” Initially, NOAA dismissed the report claiming it could “correct” any errors in measurement. An investigation by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) followed and several “peer reviewed” papers were published demonstrating how poorly placed stations can create measurements with a considerable warming bias. NOAA and the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) promised to do better.

A 2015 report by the Watts’ team found that NOAA and NCDC hadn’t. Now a report on a new survey of surface stations by a team organized by Watts is available. Some stations are properly sited, but many are not. The new report includes some infrared photos showing how instruments can give biased readings from energy emitted by nearby structures. Details of the new project will be discussed.

On July 28, Congress passed a massive semiconductor subsidy and research bill known as the “Chips plus Science” Act. Computer chip manufacturing requires stable and reliable electricity for weeks and months on end. A system is stable and reliable when it is balanced – it meets demand exactly and all necessary conditions such as voltage and frequency are constant. Almost immediately thereafter Senators Manchin and Schumer announced a deal to expand subsidies for unreliable and erratic electricity from wind and solar generation. Some of the problems arising from this shallow thinking are discussed.

Francis Menton has been researching energy storage needed for back-up of wind and solar for a report by Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). He looked into the plans in countries and US states that are “climate leaders” in achieving Net Zero carbon dioxide emissions. Many politicians called climate leaders are heavily engaged in magical thinking – needed backup will magically appear.

The late Fred Singer and the late Dennis T. Avery co-authored the book Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years. They considered climate change is largely natural, thus unstoppable. Interestingly, Nature Magazine recently published an article showing these 1500-year cycles dating back to the Jurassic (about 155 million years ago).

The Global Warming heatwave has jumped from western Europe to the Pacific Northwest of the US. Meteorologist Cliff Mass has a good explanation why extreme weather events are not the result of carbon dioxide-caused global warming.

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As Bad As Ever: The earlier reports by Anthony Watts and his team on the poor siting of surface stations designed to provide reliable records of weather resulted in thoughtful essays and experiments. For example, the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology published the results of one such a study “Impacts of Small-Scale Urban Encroachment on Air Temperature Observations.” The abstract begins:

“A field experiment was performed in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, with four instrumented towers placed over grass at increasing distances (4, 30, 50, 124, and 300 m) from a built-up area. Stations were aligned in such a way to simulate the impact of small-scale encroachment on temperature observations. As expected, temperature observations were warmest for the site closest to the built environment with an average temperature difference of 0.31° and 0.24°C for aspirated and unaspirated sensors, respectively.”

After further discussion, the abstract concludes:

“These results suggest that small-scale urban encroachment within 50 m of a station can have important impacts on daily temperature extrema (maximum and minimum) with the magnitude of these differences dependent upon prevailing environmental conditions and sensing technology.” [Boldface added]

In light of these studies, Anthony Watts compiled another team to investigate improvements or the lack thereof. The project goals were:

“1. Photographically review as many of the USHCN [U.S. Historical Climatology Network] stations cited in the original 2009 survey as possible.

2. Note differences between 2009 and 2022 with emphasis on closures, moves, and equipment changes.

3. Determine if station ratings have changed due to additional encroachments or station moves.

4. Expand the photographic survey to look at GHCN [Global Historical Climatology Network] stations where possible to determine if GHCN stations have the same type of problems that plagued the USHCN.

5. Note the most egregious station siting violations and bring those to the attention of the NWS manager in charge.

6. Publish the photographic survey for USHCN before and after, plus new GHCN stations.

7. Examine station continuity data for the entire GHCN network to determine how much change has occurred over time.

8. Establish conclusions from the new survey.

9. Make recommendations for the future.”

The Survey Methods are given and what was observed was compared with the siting standards issued by the National Weather Service. Specifically, the temperature instruments should be installed:

“Over level terrain (earth or sod) typical of the area around the station, and at least 100 feet from any extensive concrete or paved area.” [p.21, Watts’ report]

The results and findings of the survey state in part:

“In April and May of 2022, a total of 128 stations were surveyed throughout the contiguous United States. Of ’those, 80 were USHCN stations, most of which were in the original 2009 report. A total of 528 photographs were taken. To acquire a sample for the new nClimDiv [NOAA Monthly U.S. Climate Divisional Database] dataset, 48 GHCN sites were surveyed, with 298 photographs taken. The overall sample is broadly representative of the entire network, as it samples stations in the majority of states. Regional samples comprising many nearby stations were done in the western and southeastern United States, focusing on Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and South Carolina.”

•  The 2009 report found 89 percent of stations were unacceptable by NOAA’s own standards. The 2022 report found an even greater percentage of stations—approximately 96 percent—are sited unacceptably. The official U.S. temperature record, which was shown in 2009 to be heat-biased due to poor siting issues, appears to be even more biased in 2022.

•  Of the 128 stations surveyed, only two were found to be a Class 1 (best-sited) station: the Dubois, Idaho Agricultural Experiment Farm, and the St. Joseph, Louisiana Agricultural Experiment Farm.

• Three stations were found to be Class 2 (acceptably sited).

•  The remaining 123 stations were found to be Class 3, 4, and 5, and therefore considered unacceptably sited in accordance with Leroy’s classification system and NOAA publication 10-1302.

•  The 7 percent increase in unacceptably sited stations from 2009 to 2022 seems to be in line with the Gallo and Xian study noting the increase in ISAs near USHCN stations.

•  Based on the sample, it appears that waste-water treatment plants (WWTP) comprise approximately 25-30 percent of the entire COOP network. It is difficult to get an accurate count because NOAA / NWS does not discern between WWTPs and other stations in the HOMR database. WWTPs are a poor place to measure data to detect climate change because they grow with population, and the industrial processes they perform (sewage digestion) generate substantial amounts of heat, creating a heat sink effect

From this, one can conclude that even in the US, the surface-air temperature trends used in global climate models have a major heat-island-effect bias and should not be used for policy. The records are not reliable.

Among the Conclusions and Recommendations was:

“It is important to note Watts and his fellow authors found a slight warming trend when examining temperature data from unperturbed stations, which cleaved closely to the findings of the University of Alabama-Huntsville’s satellite-derived temperature record. This warming trend, however, is approximately half the claimed rate of increase promoted by many in the climate science community.”

Thus, we have one more set of physical evidence that does not support the claim of a climate emergency. The last recommendation was:

“NOAA / NWS / NCEI should start reporting the temperature results of the USCRN in monthly and yearly State of the Climate reports issued by NOAA. The USCRN provides the most accurate surface temperature record in the United States by design. However, the media and public are not privy to the data it provides, nor are many aware of its existence.”

It is doubtful that we will see the temperature results of the US Climate Reference Network in the State of the Climate reports by NOAA or in the upcoming National Climate Assessment. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.

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A Kiss and a Promise? Many commentators were surprised by the agreement between Senators Manchin and Schumer. Manchin agreed to support the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act.” “As an article in the Wall Street Journal begins:

“Talk about bad timing. As the economy slouches near recession, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin late Wednesday unveiled a tax-and-spending deal that they call the Inflation Reduction Act. Is their aim to reduce inflation by chilling business investment and the economy?

Mr. Manchin is selling the deal as deficit reduction and a rescue for fossil fuels. If he believes this, he hasn’t thought through the impact of the 725-page bill. A more accurate name would be the Business Investment Reduction and Distortion Act since that will be the result of its $433 billion in climate and healthcare spending, and $615 billion in new taxes and drug price-control ‘savings.’

Start with the 15% minimum tax on corporate book income over $1 billion, which Democrats claim will raise $313 billion through 2031. This new alternative minimum tax will slam businesses whose taxable income is lower than the profits on their financial statements owing to the likes of investment expensing, tax credits and business deductions.

Many companies pay less than the 21% corporate tax rate because they can expense investments under the tax code up-front. Hence, the new tax will increase the cost of business investment and—irony alert—the Tax Foundation forecasts the coal industry would be hardest hit. Yet green-energy tax credits would be exempt from the new tax.”

Thus, the Act will subsidize erratic and unreliable wind and solar, precisely the wrong type of electricity generation needed for computer chip manufacturing, which is being subsidized by the “Chips plus Science” Act passed immediately before. According to other reports, Manchin received promises on drilling for oil and gas, which is being highly restricted by the anti-fossil fuel administration. Whether these secret promises come true remains to be seen.

Other reports made the strange claim that China and the rest of Asia will follow this “leadership by example.” Also in the Journal, Holman Jenkins dismissed this view. He wrote:

Let’s go to the numbers: Fossil energy accounted for 82% of global energy consumption last year, down from 85% in 2016, so fossil fuels are headed to zero, right?

No, total energy consumption is growing—last year it jumped a walloping 5.8%, the biggest increase ever, including a 2.6% increase in renewables and a 5.7% increase in coal.

The demand for energy will keep growing as a billion-plus humans seek to rise from poverty. Renewables will be lucky to hold even their current share of the market. Millions will want air conditioning if the world is warming. It will be an excellent trade-off for them. The additional emissions will be a small price to pay for being able to live and work in healthy conditions right now.

But the saddest sound effect is the claim by the Senate bill’s admirers that China, India and other emitters will be so impressed with the Manchin compromise that they will fall in the line.

This flight of fantasy informed a hundred press reports on Friday. Unfortunately, Oxford University’s Eyck Freymann, a careful reader of Chinese policy statements in the original Chinese, delivers the bad news: Beijing has already decided it makes more sense to live with rising CO2 levels than combat them. [Boldface added]

Two outcomes are guaranteed: The effect of emissions will continue to be felt whatever these effects are; and somebody will always use warming as a reason to relieve you of your tax dollars.

See Articles #1 and #2, and links under Problems in the Orthodoxy and The Political Games Continue.

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Net Zero Thinking: In his investigation of political entities claiming to pursue Net Zero including Germany, UK, California, and New York, Francis Menton wrote:

One would think that for any jurisdiction pursuing Net Zero ambitions, and seeking to abolish use of fossil fuels, it would be completely imperative that some energy storage solution absolutely must be found to provide back-up for the electricity system when the wind and sun are not producing. But what my research has shown is that every one of these jurisdictions seeking to be the leader toward Net Zero has given astoundingly insufficient consideration to the energy storage problem.

The single most astounding universal failure of all jurisdictions pursuing Net Zero is the failure to pursue any sort of working prototype or demonstration project of a Net Zero electricity system before committing the entire jurisdiction to the project on the basis of a blank check to be paid by the taxpayers and ratepayers. Who has ever heard of such a thing? In the 1880s, when Thomas Edison wanted to start building central station power plants to supply electricity for his new devices like incandescent lightbulbs, he began by building a prototype facility in London under the Holborn Viaduct and followed that with a larger demonstration plant on Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan that only supplied electricity to customers within a few square blocks. Only after those had been demonstrated as successful did a larger build-out begin.

After discussion of nuclear energy, Menton continues:

But somehow our politicians have now become so filled with hubris that they think they can just order up a functioning wind/solar electricity system and assume that backup energy storage devices will magically get invented, and it will all work fine and not be financially ruinous, all by some arbitrarily ordered date in the 2030s.

Today, all the mentioned jurisdictions and many more have embarked on ambitious Net Zero plans, and yet there does not exist anywhere in the world a functioning prototype or demonstration project that has actually achieved Net Zero in electricity generation, or anything even close. Indeed, it’s worse than that. There is a fairly substantial project that set out to achieve Net Zero (although they weren’t using the term at the time, which was 2014), and has fallen remarkably short. That project is on the island of El Hierro, one of the Canary Islands off the coast of Spain.

Menton discusses some details of El Hierro (2019 population 11,200), discussed in previous TWTWs. The only other effort TWTW has managed to find is King Island (2021 population 1,600), off Tasmania, another failure. Are we to believe that demonstration projects that fail on a small scale will succeed in a large, complex modern society? Menton discusses huge estimates by Roger Andrews and Ken Gregory on the required backup needed for a wind/solar systems. Menton then writes:

Facing such requirements to reach Net Zero and banish fossil fuels from the electricity system, the plans of these jurisdictions for acquisition of storage are quite shocking. The consultancy Wood Mackenzie reported on April 11, 2022, that Germany had announced plans to acquire all of 8.91 GWh of energy storage by 2031 — a ridiculously puny amount if Germany is actually serious about Net Zero. Utility Dive reported on April 12, 2022, that New York had plans to acquire all of 6 GW of storage (likely corresponding to about 24 GWh, since the batteries are to be of the lithium-ion type that generally have capacity for four hours of discharge at full capacity). This figure is only slightly less puny than Germany’s. Another piece from Utility Dive on April 6, 2022, reported that California’s regulators had ordered utilities to acquire what would be the equivalent of about 42 GWh of storage as part of the Net Zero plans of that jurisdiction. All of these storage acquisition plans are in the range of about 0.1% to 0.2% of the storage that would actually be needed to achieve the Net Zero goal. [Boldface added]

In the dream world of these childish politicians, they will be able to turn off electricity whenever required. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.

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Dansgaard–Oeschger Events: According to Britannica, Dansgaard–Oeschger (D-O) events are dramatic but fleeting global climate swings with abrupt warming followed by slow cooling. The are primarily observed around the North Atlantic particularly in ice cores from Greenland. Several months ago, TWTW linked to, but did not discuss, D-O glacial events detected in an ice-free sedimentary record from the Tethyan Basin about 155 million years ago.

The Tethyan Basin was a shallow sea stretching from what is now the Tibetan Himalayas to what is now the Alps. There is a great deal of speculation, but the key point is that sudden warming periods are not uncommon in the earth’s history, though the cause is not clear. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.

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Unusually Hot: This week there was a heat wave in the Pacific Northwest. Meteorologist Cliff Mass gives a good explanation of the distinction between heat waves and CO2-caused global warming. Extreme heat waves have not increased while the area is warming (by 1 to 2°F over 50 years). Extreme heat is a different animal than CO2-caused global warming. Extreme heatwaves are caused by natural variability, not CO2. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.

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SEPP’S APRIL FOOLS AWARD – THE JACKSON

SEPP is conducting its annual vote for the recipient of the coveted trophy, The Jackson, a lump of coal. Readers are asked to nominate and vote for who they think is most deserving. The entire Biden Administration won in 2021, so individuals in it are still eligible. Senators Manchin and Schumer were nominated this week.

The voting will close on August 2. Please send your nominee and a brief reason the person is qualified for the honor to [email protected]. The awardee will be announced at the annual meeting of the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness on August 14 to 16 at the South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Registration: https://aaps.wufoo.com/forms/qb79fo31o62uh1/; Hotel: https://be.synxis.com/?adult=1&arrive=2022-08-14&chain=6903&child=0&currency=USD&depart=2022-08-15&group=DOC0811&hotel=11548&level=hotel&locale=en-US&rooms=1

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Number of the Week: 250,000 GWh According to the estimate by Ken Gregory, the lower 48 of the US would require 250,000 GWh of backup if it went Net Zero.  It is difficult to put a cost on this storage requirement. The largest battery made by Tesla is the Megapack, with 3 megawatt hours (MWhs) of storage and 1.5 MW of inverter capacity. According to a March report, 10 Megapacks cost $16,048,230 or $412.37 per kWh plus a maintenance contract. The costs of the new Net Zero generation plus the storage becomes staggering. See Menton’s essay under Challenging the Orthodoxy and https://electrek.co/2022/03/21/tesla-hikes-megapack-prices-backlog-extends/

Suppressing Scientific Inquiry

State Power Doesn’t Settle Science

By Barry Brownstein, American Institute for Economic Research, July 27, 2022

A Whitewash is Not Colourful – Part 1: John Brewer Reef Fact Check

By Jennifer Marohasy, Her Blog, July 30, 2022

“Most corals at reefs around the world are their healthiest when they are beige in colour. Many beige-coloured corals have naturally florescent tips.”

[SEPP Comment: Beware of fact checkers, who do not know the difference between fact and opinion.]

Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC

Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science

Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2013

Summary: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/CCR/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf

Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts

Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2014

http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-biological-impacts/

Summary: https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-IIb/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf

Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels

By Multiple Authors, Bezdek, Idso, Legates, and Singer eds., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, April 2019

http://store.heartland.org/shop/ccr-ii-fossil-fuels/

Download with no charge:

http://climatechangereconsidered.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Climate-Change-Reconsidered-II-Fossil-Fuels-FULL-Volume-with-covers.pdf

Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming

The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus

By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Nov 23, 2015

http://climatechangereconsidered.org/

Download with no charge:

https://www.heartland.org/policy-documents/why-scientists-disagree-about-global-warming

Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate

S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008

http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf

Global Sea-Level Rise: An Evaluation of the Data

By Craig D. Idso, David Legates, and S. Fred Singer, Heartland Policy Brief, May 20, 2019

Challenging the Orthodoxy

New Surface Stations Report Released – It’s ‘worse than we thought’

By Anthony Watts, WUWT, July 27, 2022

Text: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/07/27/new-surface-stations-report-released-its-worse-than-we-thought/

Video: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/07/29/live-corrupted-climate-stations/

Link to report: Corrupted Climate Stations: The Official U.S. Surface Temperature Record Remains Fatally Flawed

By Anthony Watts, et al. The Heartland Institute, 2022

Link to earlier report: Impacts of Small-Scale Urban Encroachment on Air Temperature Observations

By Ronald D. Leeper, et al. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, June 1, 2019

https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/apme/58/6/jamc-d-19-0002.1.xml

What The Future Holds For Our Climate Leaders

By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, July 28, 2022

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2022-7-28-what-the-future-holds-for-our-climate-leaders

The Politics of Energy, Part 1

By Donn Dears, Power For USA, July 26, 2022

“Shouldn’t the use of America’s natural resources be determined by policies that protect the United States?”

Yes, sometimes the world warms up all on its own

By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, July 27, 2022

Link to paper: A Jurassic record encodes an analogous Dansgaard–Oeschger climate periodicity

By Slah Boulila, Nature, Scientific Reports, Corrected Mar 9, 2022

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-05716-8

The Great Heat Wave Dilemma Explained, Plus the End of the Heat Wave in Sight

By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, July 29, 2022

https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-great-heat-wave-dilemma-explained.html

Audio and text

Ocean Atmosphere Response to Solar EMR at Top of the Atmosphere

By Richard Willoughby, WUWT, July 23, 2022

The EU’s Green Experiment

By Andy May, WUWT, July 24, 2022

Link to report: Europe’s Green experiment: A Costly Failure in Unilateral Climate Policy

By John Constable, GWPF, 2022

Little evidence of changes in extreme weather trends

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, July 27, 2022



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