The Week That Was: 2023-03-11 (March 11, 2023
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “So I hope you can accept Nature as She is—absurd.”— Richard P. Feynman, QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter
Number of the Week: 2.3% increase
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: This week TWTW will discuss two presentations at the 15th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-15) in February by The Heartland Institute. Physicist Thomas Sheahen discusses that in Science, Data Trumps Theory and that the history of science shows that eventually physical evidence replaces speculation and conjecture.
AMO physicist Howard “Cork” Hayden exposes self-contradictions that appear in the latest Assessment Report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, AR6, 2021). Although recognizing that better data, physical evidence, is available on what is actually occurring in the atmosphere, where the greenhouse effect occurs, Hayden uses the IPCC data to show its self-contradictions.
Astrophysicist Willie Soon has a video in which he goes into greater detail than at ICCC-15. Some of the key points will be briefly discussed.
Ecologist Jim Steele has another clear presentation of what is wrong with some political claims concerning climate change and wildfires. Steele was being considered to be a witness for a Senate hearing on the subject but did not make the cut. He posted his presentation on his website, A Walk On The Natural Side.
Efforts to produce inexpensive nuclear power are running into problems of scale. On Master Resource, former editor of POWER magazine and former editor of Electricity Daily discusses the problems occurring at three different projects: 1) NuScale; 2) X-energy and DOW; and 3) Virginia’s SMR (Small Modular Reactor) plan.
The integration of unreliable solar and wind electricity generation into a carefully controlled, reliable electricity grid remains a problem. The UK is having major problems with using wind power, the providers of which are demanding higher prices than what their contracts stipulate. Germany is being forced to reopen coal-fired power plants. South Australia is being held up as an example of what can be done. Planning Engineer Russ Schussler and semi-retired New Zealand power station engineer Chris Morris present part 2 of their explanation why this example may be illusionary.
The acclaimed 1200-year drought in the West (another exaggeration in the press) to be over. Tony Heller presents evidence on his blog and Chris Mass explains the drastic cold hitting the West Coast.
Several questions arose regarding sea level rise in Scandinavia and Finland. TWTW found a newer study of the issue by the Ministry of Rural Affairs and Infrastructure in Sweden that further explains the geological rebound from the last glaciation.
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Data (Physical Evidence) Trumps Theory: In discussing the development of physical science, physicist Tom Sheahen asserts a basic rule of science: “Any Theory must conform to data or it will be dismissed.” Further, “Data, not theory, is the cornerstone of the Scientific Method.” Sheahen recalls the importance of data (from both experiment and observation) through the development of the Law of Inertia, and later in correcting Classical (Newtonian) Mechanics by Relativity, including seeing gravity as curvature of space-time. We must realize that no theory is ever final. It is always subject to future corrections, because new data may show discrepancies in regions not anticipated by old theory. The new theory should encompass the old theory.
Sheahen goes into recent incorrect postulates in science, such as acceptance of limits of economic growth models which become meaningless if carried too far forward. Unfortunately, government entities including the UN IPCC do not understand such limitations. Sheahen discusses the deficiencies of global climate models used by the UN IPCC. These programs require ignoring physical evidence that contradicts the models. Sheahen concludes with what is necessary to restore the Scientific Method: “Always remember the supremacy of data over theory.”
To this excellent summary on conducting proper physical science, TWTW adds an aside from global climate modeler’s Tim Palmer’s book The Primacy of Doubt. In the chapter discussing Chaos, Palmer brings up the nineteenth century race to find a formula to calculate a multi-body system (three or more bodies) using gravity to explain planetary motion. The French physicist and mathematician Henri Poincaré discovered that no such formula exists.
This is one more example of what the renown physicist Richard Feynman stated when he wrote that applying rigorous mathematics to an imperfectly understood concept may produce absurd results. Unfortunately, in modeling the global climate Palmer and many other modelers use an assumption on increasing water vapor content in the atmosphere that over fifty years of weather balloon observations are demonstrating to be wrong.
See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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IPCC Conflict: In demonstrating the self-contradictions appearing in IPCC’s AR6, 2021, Howard Hayden asserts that he is not claiming that his climate model is better than the ones used by the IPCC because he does not have a global climate model. Instead, Hayden discusses fundamental physics, in particular the conservation of energy. He finds that IPCC’s definition of “radiative forcing” is a little odd: the dramatic IPCC term refers to changes in the amounts of infrared and/or visible light compared to the 1850-1900 period, not to the earth’s entire radiative environment.
Hayden shows that in one part of the IPCC report the present greenhouse effect is identified as 159 W/m2. In another part, the “forcing” from a doubling of CO2 is calculated as 3.7 W/m2. Everything is referenced to the period 1850 to 1900. Everything before is “pre-industrial.” According to the IPCC the climate of the earth was stable before 1850. But this means that there were no Ice Ages or periods much warmer than today, etc.? This belies actual data and is clearly wrong.
Thus, the IPCC uses an imaginary climate, one in which there was no climate change before 1850. As stated in previous TWTWs, the Summary for Policymakers of the AR6 has a graph showing a remarkably stable climate (temperatures only) from about the year zero AD to the 1850-1900 period. The IPC is clearly and gleefully rewriting actual history!
Hayden discusses the heat-balance drawings (Earth’s Energy Budget) prior to AR6, showing a mysterious blank region in the atmosphere for which there are no numbers; the drawings leave out the greenhouse effect. [NASA posts a similar graph.] Hayden fills in the blank region with 159 W/m2, the difference between surface radiation and radiation leaving the top defined by the IPCC after 31 years, to be the present greenhouse effect.
After going through the calculations and warning that one should not be obsessed by the pretentious precision, Hayden lists all of the IPCC projects as heat balance charts in the future – NONE AT ALL.
Hayden discusses that according to the Stefan-Boltzmann law of total radiation emitted by the surface of an object, IPCC’s most probable increase in temperatures of three degrees Celsius, due to a doubling of CO2. would result in an increase in surface radiation of 16.7 W/m2 supposedly caused by a mere 3.7 W/m2 “radiative forcing” due to a doubling of CO2. He then presents some of the bazaar projections of the IPCC models that account for radiative forcing from all causes. Every single one results in surface radiation that far exceeds the ability of radiative forcing to contain it – for the simple reason that all models predict too much surface temperature rise.
Hayden concludes with a take-home message: The IPCC does not apply the Stefan-Boltzmann law to their results, therefore everyone else must do so. If they do, then they should compare the results to those that the IPCC calculates, and they will understand how the IPCC fools themselves as well as the public. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Amplifying Man-made or Human Caused? Last week, TWTW discussed Willie Soon’s presentation at the 15th ICCC. Tom Nelson recorded a one hour and twenty-minute video in which Soon extended his remarks regarding the recent work at the Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences (CERES). This goes through the cycles of climate change covering the topics:
- History and the evolution of the global land temperature records
- The urban heat island problem and other non-climatic biases
- What happens if we just use rural stations?
- ‘Statistical homogenization of the temperature data’ as a possible solution?
- Problems with current “homogenization” attempts
- Are the IPCC’s “solar forcing’ estimates correct?
- Can the Sun explain the global warming of rural stations?
See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Ignorance of Natural History: Many politicians push conspiracy theories that skeptical scientists are being paid by dark money from fossil fuel sources. As with many critics of climate skeptics who make these claims, these politicians fail to give concrete evidence supporting their claims and use the personal allegations as a cover for their own failure to provide concrete evidence of their false climate claims. Ecologist Jim Steele prepared for a Senate committee hearing headed by Senator Whitehouse on wildfires such as Colorado’s destructive Marshall Fire, Dec 30, 2021. He did not make the cut and used his material for a presentation titled “Time to Learn Some Science.” Steele writes:
“The Marshall Fire was a grass fire. Grasses become highly flammable in just hours of dry weather. Grasses become highly flammable independent of climate change. The Marshall Fire was not evidence of a climate crisis!
The Marshall Fire was ignited by humans.
Human ignitions have expanded fire season into the coldest seasons, making deadly fires less predictable. Natural lightning fires are more predictable in the summer months of the more limited lightning season.”
Steele discusses strong winds which quickly spread grass fires then continues:
“Fires require high amounts of energy to ignite and spread.
It is well proven that increasing CO2 from burning fossil fuels adds about 2.4 W/ m2 of energy. But that can’t ignite even a paper fire.
In contrast, 3,400 W/m2 will ignite grassy vegetation in seconds.
It is also well proven that grass fires emit about 35,000 W/m2 of energy.
Depending on the vegetation density, that’s up to 10 times more energy than what’s needed to sustain a grass fire.”
He displays a graph showing the difference between rate of temperature increase generated by a grass fire and that generated by a tree limb. Showing a photo of a suburb with homes destroyed with trees still standing, Steele continues:
“In contrast to Whitehouse’s call for a CO2 safety zone, a defensible space is created only by removing any vegetation that carries a fire too close to one’s home. Only then can a reasonable wildfire safety zone be realized.
The introduction of Eurasian cheatgrass over 100 years ago, has enabled increased fire ignitions and created more pathways carrying fire into shrubland, forests, and rural towns. Cheatgrass creates a dense carpet of highly flammable fuel that dies and dries by June, and cheatgrass’s spread is one correlates with the disproportional number of fires in the West.”
Steele shows graphs on the spread of cheatgrass. Steele states that restoration of natural grasses would be a first step in the West. Also, we must recognize that policies of fire suppression then followed by policies of “let it burn” have added to complications created by changing weather patterns. Global climate models fail to explain this. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Problems of Scale: Economies of scale do not necessarily occur. The automobile assembly line may be considered an exception, not a general economic reality. This appears to be one of the problems in creating Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMR). In discussing three different nuclear projects: 1) NuScale; 2) X-energy and DOW; and 3) Virginia’s SMR (Small Modular Reactor) plan, Kenneth Maize brings up the problems of changing scale and the ever-present problem of politics. Maize concludes with a fitting quote from Vaclav Smil:
“In light of the past experience with nuclear promises, the only sensible attitude is to wait and see how many of these announced plans will, even with the added incentive of accelerated decarbonization, become actual working prototypes, and then how many of those will make the second cut to lay the foundations of future commercial opportunities. In any case, no nation has announced any specific, detailed, and binding recommitment to what would have to be a multidecadal program of reactor construction.”
See link under Nuclear Energy and Fears
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Australia Too? Smil’s advice of “wait and see” may also apply to replacing reliable fossil fuel-power electricity generation with wind and solar. The problems are many, including that the heavy turbines of coal-fired and combined cycle natural gas-fired and hydroelectric power plants can be geared to match closely to controlled power transmitted on the grid (synchronized). Wind and Solar need complex electrical systems to do so, which have not been fully developed and proven.
Some highly optimistic “experts” point to South Australia and West Australia as examples on how wind and solar can be integrated into a national grid. Writing in Climate Etc., Planning Engineer Russ Schussler and Chris Morris continue their two-part series exploring how well integrated are wind and solar into a national grid. As with the problems with scale in nuclear plants, the solutions appear to be “just around the corner,” wherever the corner may be. The authors conclude:
“South Australia’s initial efforts are less revolutionary than they appear. Their efforts instead show the importance and centrality of synchronous machines. Australia is retiring synchronous generators and replacing them with other synchronous machines. This step is not revolutionary. That and the other solutions they are incorporating confirm that a net-zero grid faces considerable challenges. Combined with other planned changes, their overall efforts will aggravate existing reliability trends. AEMO [Australian Energy Market Operator]is currently seeing inertial shortfalls and poor system security. Will the new efforts continue the trends towards a costlier less reliable grid? The authors believe it is most likely that costs will increase significantly, and reliability will degrade considerably even if they do a great job of implementing all the planned changes. Higher energy costs will hurt their consumers and industry while moving manufacturing and industry away from Australia to areas with cheaper (fossil fuel based) energy. The end result may cause far greater environmental harm.
The effectiveness of South Australia’s future plans remains to be demonstrated. It’s not clear how complicated or expensive it may be to implement the proposed changes. Curtailing residential solar to allow greater grid-based wind and solar, suggest s that it may be inordinately complicated. Australia is not solving these problems, or showing how they might be solved, as much as they are just grappling with them. How well operators will be able to deal with the complexity is unknown. How much this might cost is a complete unknown. How much it costs and how well it operates will need to be carefully considered before declaring this a path to be emulated across other grids and power systems in the future. The work to replace synchronous machines with inverter-based resources is at best in its infancy. Documentation around their efforts shows that concerns about high levels of penetration by asynchronous renewables are well founded. It is premature to declare any kind of a victory here. They may find that things are more challenging than they thought.”
Readers need to know that extremely precise requirements are needed in phase-matching and cycles per second are needed to prevent energy loss or even grid failure, The inverter-based matching is needed to convert DC power from wind and solar to AC power commonly used in distribution. See link under Energy Issues – Australia.
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Drought Over? TWTW was extremely skeptical about claims that the recent drought in the western US was the worst in 1200 years. TWTW is also skeptical that the drought is over, based on the rain (or snowfall) this winter. However, it has been quite a season, with homes near Lake Tahoe being crushed by the snow load and estimates that about 40 feet of snow fell in parts of California. Tony Heller presents maps from the USDA National Water and Climate Center on the snowpack in the western US which is far above average. A check of California water supply reservoirs show that a number of reservoirs are nearing or above historic averages. As of March 11, the second largest, Oroville, is at 115% of historic average and opened its spillway. Shasta, the largest, is at 85% of historic average. See links under Changing Weather and https://cdec.water.ca.gov/resapp/RescondMain
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Additions and Corrections: Several readers inquired about the assertions in TWTW regarding different sea level trends in Finland. The comments came from the Finnish Meteorological Institute. The problem is extrapolating (generalizing) short-term trends into long-term trends. The tidal gauges in the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland change dramatically because both are at the narrow end of a funnel opening to the Baltic Sea, then through a narrow passage to the North Sea
TWTW found more recent work on the postglacial uplift for the Fennoscandia [the spelling checked out] and the Baltic Region. The center of the uplift is near Umea, Sweden. The rate of uplift is 10 mm, or 0.393 inches per year, or a rate of 39.4 inches per century. Natives noticed it hundreds of years ago. See links under Changing Earth.
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Number of the Week: 2.3% increase. As calculated by Howard Hayden from IPCC numbers a doubling of CO2 will increase the greenhouse effect by only 2.3%. No wonder leaders of China are building large numbers of coal-fired power plants. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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:
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
IPCCs Exercise in Self-Contradiction
By Howard “Cork” Hayden, 15th ICCC, Via SEPP, Feb 24, 2023
http://www.sepp.org/science_papers/Hayden%20Heartland%20Orlando%202023.pdf
In Science, Data Trumps Theory: Correcting Errors in Science
By Thomas P. Sheahen, 15th ICCC, Via SEPP, Feb 24, 2023
www.sepp.org/science_papers/Data%20%20Trumps%20%20Theory.pptx
Willie Soon: Global warming: Mostly human-caused or natural?
By Tom Nelson Podcast #79, Mar 8, 2023
Former NOAA Meteorologist: Natural Cycles Now Steering Our Planet Into An “Extremely Cold Period”
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Mar 3, 2023
Link to Global Weather Oscillation.com
https://www.globalweatheroscillations.com/gwo-home
Setting Senator Whitehouse Straight on Climate & Wildfires
By Jim Steele, A Walk On the Natural Side, Mar 7, 2023
Text: https://perhapsallnatural.blogspot.com/2023/03/teanscipt-for-setting-senator.html
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07juDXNa72M
The Misguided Crusade to Reduce Anthropogenic Methane Emissions
By Clyde Spencer, WUWT, Mary 6, 2023
Defending the Orthodoxy
Study into global daily air pollution shows almost nowhere on Earth is safe
Study of daily ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) has found that only 0.001% of the global population are exposed to WHO safe levels
From Press Release, Monash University (Melbourne), Science Daily, Mar 7, 2023 [H/t William Dwyer]
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230307073211.htm
Link to paper: Global estimates of daily ambient fine particulate matter concentrations and unequal spatiotemporal distribution of population exposure: a [deep ensemble] machine learning modelling study.
By Wenhua Yu et al. Lancet, March 2023
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(23)00008-6/fulltext
“Funding: Australian Research Council, Australian Medical Research Future Fund, and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council.”
[SEPP Comment: Did anyone in the US Midwest survive the 1930s Dust Bowl? Did humanity spring up after the last Ice Age glaciation ended about 18,000 years ago when the great breadbaskets of the Northern Hemisphere were barren dust bowls?]
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Plants seek climate refuge across our changing planet
When plants move, they take entire ecosystems with them
Press Release, NSF, Mar 6, 2023
https://beta.nsf.gov/news/plants-seek-climate-refuge-across-our-changing?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery
Link to paper: The past as a lens for biodiversity conservation on a dynamically changing planet
By Jenny L. McGuire, PNAS, Feb 6, 2023
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2201950120
From the abstract: “Both climate and land-use change have accelerated over the past decades.”
[SEPP Comment: Do not question accelerating changes in land use, but promote climate?]
Claim: Climate Change will Cost Germany $960 Billion by 2050
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Mary 8, 2023
Questioning the Orthodoxy
PM2.5: Mass Killer or Mass Fraud?
By Steve Milloy, Junk Science, Mar 8, 2023
Lowland Snow Flakes in March Plus Does Global Warming Contribute to Cold Waves
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Mar 8, 2023
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2023-03-10T06:00:00-08:00&max-results=2
Podcast: “Has Global Warming/Climate Change contributed to increased numbers and intensity of cold waves…and particularly cold waves over the western U.S.?”
Strangling The Environment
By Susan Goldhaber MPH, ACSH, Feb 28, 2023
https://www.acsh.org/news/2023/02/28/strangling-environment-16868
“That is because glyphosate is the most effective tool for eradicating invasive plants that are destroying many native species.”
The problem with cheap power is the cost
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 8, 2023
Are Butterflies Wildlife?
By Kip Hansen, WUWT, Mar 9, 2023
Problems in the Orthodoxy
Japan No Kyoto (Or Net Zero)
Twenty-six years after the Kyoto Protocol, drastic action on climate change is more like “a dream than a reality.”
By Robert Bryce, His Blog, Mar 5, 2023
https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/japan-no-kyoto-or-net-zero
[SEPP Comment; The difference between imagination at Davos and reality.]
Science, Policy, and Evidence
How Low Can You Go? For Energy, We’re Already There
By Brigham McCown, Real Clear Energy, Mar 8, 2023
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/03/08/how_low_can_you_go_for_energy_were_already_there_885857.html
Models v. Observations
Warming could raise UK flood damage bill by 20%, Say Make-Believe Computer Simulations
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 7, 2023
Model Issues
Response to comment on “Climate sensitivity, agricultural productivity and the social cost of carbon in FUND”
By Ross McKitrick, His Blog, Mar 10, 2023
https://www.rossmckitrick.com/
Reply to comment on “climate sensitivity, agricultural productivity and the social cost of carbon in fund” by Philip Meyer
By Kevin Dayaratna & Ross McKitrick, March 2, 2023
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10018-023-00364-2
[SEPP Comment: A minor quibble meaningless, when one recognizes the enormous cost of unreliable electricity.]
Measurement Issues — Atmosphere
Global Temperature Report, February 2023
By Staff, Earth System Science Center, The University of Alabama in Huntsville, Mar 6, 2023
Map: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2023/february/202302_Map.png
Graph: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2023/february/202302_Bar.png
Text: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2023/february/GTR_202302FEB_1.pdf
Changing Weather
Worst Drought In 1,200 Years
By Tony Heller, His Blog, March 10, 2023
Link to: National Water and Climate Center
By Staff, USDA
https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/wcc/home/quicklinks/imap#version=167&elements=&networks=!&states=!&counties=!&hucs=&minElevation=&maxElevation=&elementSelectType=any&activeOnly=true&activeForecastPointsOnly=false&hucLabels=false&hucIdLabels=false&hucParameterLabels=true&stationLabels=&overlays=&hucOverlays=2&basinOpacity=75&basinNoDataOpacity=25&basemapOpacity=100&maskOpacity=0&mode=data&openSections=dataElement,parameter,date,basin,options,elements,location,networks&controlsOpen=true&popup=&popupMulti=&popupBasin=&base=esriNgwm&displayType=station&basinType=6&dataElement=WTEQ&depth=-8¶meter=PCTMED&frequency=DAILY&duration=I&customDuration=&dayPart=E&year=2023&month=3&day=8&monthPart=E&forecastPubMonth=3&forecastPubDay=1&forecastExceedance=50&useMixedPast=true&seqColor=1&divColor=7&scaleType=D&scaleMin=&scaleMax=&referencePeriodType=POR&referenceBegin=1991&referenceEnd=2020&minimumYears=20&hucAssociations=true&lat=41.121&lon=-109.292&zoom=6.0
Record late-winter cold wave hits the western U.S.
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Mar 6, 2023
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2023/03/record-late-winter-cold-wave-hits.html
California Permanent Drought
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Mar 9, 2023
With a cooling La Niña gone, media will go into “Global Warming Overdrive” as El Niño hits.
By Emily Becker, NOAA, Via WUWT, Mar 9, 2023
David Viner’s Thing Of The Past
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 10, 2023
Name that weather
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 8, 2023
Hot Winter
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Mar 9, 2023
Video
Changing Climate – Cultures & Civilizations
Maybe they were just smarter than us
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 8, 2023
“It is of course the fact is that there were drastic natural fluctuations in climate throughout the prehistoric period, and any other period you care to study, and humans could not have caused them.”
“That ‘cave men’ did not actually live in caves is a regrettable but fairly well-established fact. For one thing, there aren’t enough caves to go around. For another, skins are warmer than rocks. But they also weren’t the kind of dunces who would just sit there as the cold came and wiped them out. They scooped up their spears, bone fishhooks and makeup kits (yes, really), whistled for the dogs, and headed for the Costa del Sol. Whereas we prepare to sacrifice our cars, furnaces and stoves on the altar of Gaia and hope it gets colder right where we are.
Changing Seas
Science Yields Surprises! Island Nations Growing… “Atoll, Island Stability Is Global Trend”!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Mar 7, 2023
Surprise! 1,000 Pacific and Indian Islands are still *not* shrinking due to climate change
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Mar 9, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Good examples of island growth.]
Recent Shoreline Changes To Pacific Islands ‘Dwarfed’ By Change Magnitudes Of The Past
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Mar 6, 2023
Link to paper: Reef islands have continually adjusted to environmental change over the past two millennia
By P. S. Kench, et al, Nature Communications, Jan 31, 2023
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36171-2
More Evidence Emerges That Mid-Holocene Sea Levels Were 1.5 to 3 Meters Higher Than Today
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Mar 9, 2023
Link to paper: Sequence stratigraphy and sedimentary processes since the last glacial maximum in Nha Phu Bay and adjacent shelf, central Vietnam
By Nguyen Trung Thanh, et al. Journal of Sea Research, April 2023
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1385110123000199?ref=pdf_download&fr=RR-2&rr=7a16aa782e4486f3
[SEPP Comment: The western Pacific is subject to dramatic changes from changing prevailing winds.]
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Greenland Meltdown Update
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Mar 10, 2023
Link to: Polar Portal
By Staff, The Danish Arctic Research Institutions, 2022-2023
http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/
“The surface mass balance is NOT identical to the TOTAL mass balance (i.e. overall gain or loss of the ice cap), which also includes the mass that is lost when glaciers calve off icebergs, the melting of glacier tongues as they come into contact with warm seawater and frictional and other effects at the bottom of the ice sheet.”
Early birthing polar bear female with new cubs out on the ice already in Western Hudson Bay
By Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, Mar 5, 2023
Changing Earth
Postglacial land uplift
By Staff, Lantmäteriet, Accessed Mar 11, 2023
https://www.lantmateriet.se/en/geodata/gps-geodesi-och-swepos/reference-systems/postglacial-land-uplift/
NKG2016LU: a new land uplift model for Fennoscandia and the Baltic Region
By Olav Vestø, et al. Journal of Geodesy, July 18, 2019
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00190-019-01280-8
Historical land cover changes in Australia
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 8, 2023
From the CO2Science Archive:
Land use change and the climate
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 8, 2023
“It’s far simpler for the IPCC to blame everything on your carbon sins. But in doing so they are overlooking an obvious alternative possibility. Pielke Sr. notes:
“’The complexities of the human influences on climate challenge simple assertions of attribution for observed changes and create significant obstacles to the skillful projection of how regional climates might change in the future.’”
Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine
Bureaucracies Utterly Incapable Of Making Reasonable Tradeoffs
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Mar 7, 2023
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2023-3-7-bureaucracies-utterly-incapable-of-making-reasonable-tradeoffs
“Nitrogen is an essential building block of life, including human life, without which we all starve to death. Every protein is made up of amino acids, and every amino acid has at least one atom of nitrogen in it.”
[SEPP Comment: And bureaucrats dream of no nitrogen because N2O is an insignificant greenhouse gas!]
Lowering Standards
Met Office Peddle Extreme Rainfall Lies
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 8, 2023
“All in all this is a thoroughly disgraceful and baseless piece of scaremongering, even by Met Office standards.”
Met Office accused of implausible worst-case climate prediction
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 9, 2023
We’re Saved! Biden’s Army Sec. Christine Wormuth declares climate resiliency ‘a priority for me & our US Army’ – Brags about Army having ‘the largest floating solar array’
By Marc Morano, Climate Depot, Via WUWT, Mar 6, 2023
NAO Whitewash The Govt’s Decarbonisation Strategy
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 6, 2023
Link to report: Decarbonising the power sector
By Staff, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, National Audit Office, Mar 1, 2023
“A thorough and truly independent report by the NAO would surely have called into question the whole decarbonisation strategy, as being wasteful and poor value for money, poorly thought through, impractical and endangering the UK’s energy security.”
BBC Lies About Heat Pumps Exposed
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 10, 2023
“Nowhere in the article is there any acknowledgement of the correction, and as always everybody who read the original version have been badly misled.
“But the real issue is why these sort of lies keep proliferating whenever the subject is climate and renewable energy.
“Clearly the reporter did not check the facts before he wrote the piece. Did he believe it himself, did he hear it from unreliable source such as Carbon Brief.
“Or did he just write it anyway, not caring whether it was true or not?”
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
Climate Fact Check: February 2023 Edition
By Steve Milloy, JunkScience.com, Mar 7, 2023, [H/t WUWT]
Cinderella Citizens: ARD Public Broadcasting Expects Regular Germans To Eat Worms, Live In Squalor
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Mar 4, 2023
“Deutschlandfunk, also a part of the massive German public broadcasting organization, recently compared meat eaters to ‘consumers of child pornography’.”
Texas Tribune: Misleading on Climate
By Sterling Burnett, Master Resource, Mar 10, 2023
Guardian Panicking About Methane
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 9, 2023
“4) Although in theory methane is a powerful GHG, in the real atmosphere its effect is irrelevant because the absorption bands of methane are already dominated by water vapour”
Clueless Ben
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 9, 2023
“It is little wonder that circulation of the Telegraph has halved in the last decade, and sales are so poor that they have not even released their readership data in the last three years.”
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Off Target: An Evaluation of the Stern Review’s Climate Disaster Predictions
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 10, 2023
[SEPP Comment: The Stern Review was a work of deceitful mathematics.]
Communicating Better to the Public – Do a Poll?
Guardian Touts Trotskyist Survey
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 8, 2023
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
Just another warm summer day made to look like hell on Earth
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Mar 6, 2023
Is the NY Area Seeing an Explosive Growth in Electric Car Ownership?
By Kip Hansen, WUWT, Mar 7, 2023
Questioning European Green
The green elites really do want climate rationing
A new paper has exposed the miserable reality of Net Zero.
By Laurie Wastell, Spiked, Mar 6, 2023
[SEPP Comment: In the UK electricity rationing is called “smart.”]
How heat pumps leave some homes so cold people are ripping them out
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 10, 2023
“Regular readers will be very familiar with all of these complaints; their uselessness in winter, the fact that they cost more to run, noisiness and so on.
“Two particular comments struck me though:
1) The comment that the fans tend to ice up in humid and foggy weather.
2) Their inability to provide really hot water.
“As I have often pointed out, most houses will need standalone electric water heaters/immersion tanks because of the latter point. Not only will these add to capital costs, but the cost of energy will be three times that of a gas boiler.” [Boldface added]
Questioning Green Elsewhere
Feasibility for achieving a net zero economy for the U.S. by 2050
By Michael Kelly, Climate Etc., Mar 4, 2023
America’s $100 billion climate change flop
By Stephen Moore, Washington Examiner, Mar 3, 2023
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/americas-100-billion-climate-change-flop
Energy Colonialism Will Worsen the Urban-Rural Divide
By Joel Kotkin, National Review, Mar 3, 2023
“The green dreams of urbanites spark outrage in rural areas.”
Funding Issues
Pinkerton: The Circle of Green — Big Money, Big Democrats, and Climate Change
By James Pinkerton, Breitbart, Mar 4, 2023
https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2023/03/04/pinkerton-the-circle-of-green-big-money-big-democrats-and-climate-change/
The Political Games Continue
Lauren Boebert on climate and politics at Heartland’s Climate Conference in 2023
Posted by Charles Rotter, WUWT, Mar 9, 2023
Video
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
Electric Truck Manufacturer Featured in Super Bowl Ad Got $186 Million in Taxpayer Subsidies
Stellantis, one of the largest automakers on the planet with billions in cash on hand, got a generous handout from the state of Indiana for choosing to build its battery manufacturing plant there.
By Joe Lancaster, Reason, Feb 13, 2023
Link to press release: Stellantis and Samsung SDI to Invest Over $2.5 Billion in Joint Venture for Lithium-Ion Battery Production Plant in United States
By Staff, Stellantis, May 24, 2022
https://www.stellantis.com/en/news/press-releases/2022/may/stellantis-and-samsung-announce-battery-plant-in-kokomo
[SEPP Comment: $132,857 in tax subsidies per new job?]
Energy Issues – Non-US
Europe Wants To Wind Down Fossil Fuel Subsidies
By Irina Slav, Oil Price.com, Mar 06, 2023
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Europe-Wants-To-Wind-Down-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies.html
“The European Union has spent more than $700 billion on shielding households and businesses from the worst of the energy crunch.
“Most of the decarbonization burden created by the EU falls on the shoulders of the business world.
“From the EU’s perspective, green subsidies are the only way to move the energy transition forward.”
[SEPP Comment: Forcing transition for its own sake, without any necessity.]
As German Economy Reels, Chancellor Promises Going Green Will Lead To “Economic Miracle”!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Mar 10, 2023
“Last September, German Economics Minister, Robert Habeck (Green Party), told a stunned national television audience that ‘companies won’t really go bankrupt, they’ll just stop producing.’”
Germany To Build 25GW of New Gas Power plants.
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 9, 2023
[SEPP Comment: According to the news report, the gas plants are needed to replace coal-fired power plants and will be replaced by hydrogen power “as soon as possible.”]
Analysis: UK emissions fall 3.4% in 2022 as coal use drops to lowest level since 1757
By Simon Evans, Carbon Brief, Mar 6, 2023
Is Hornsea Viable At £37.35/MWh?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 5, 2023
“In my view, Oersted never had the slightest intention of taking up its CfD [Contract for Difference]. But with its costs rising rapidly, they must be having grave doubts whether Hornsea will even be able to make money at current market prices, which are currently around £130/MWh.”
[SEPP Comment: Not only is wind power unreliable but the cost is unreliable. Is the UK government engaged in panic buying?]
Net Zero Watch urges UK government to stand up to the wind lobby’s blackmail
Press Release, Net Zero Watch, Mar 8, 2023
Link to Factsheet, The Economics of Wind Power
By Andrew Montford, Net Zero Watch, 2023
“Conclusion: It is clear that claims of a cost revolution were designed to mislead public and Parliament. Wind power remains uneconomic, even with billions of pounds of subsidy, both direct and indirect. It also imposes costs on the rest of the energy system, and therefore on consumers.”
Making bedfellow of serpent
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 8, 2023
Twilight of Abundance: Energy
By David Archibald, Wentworth Report, Mar 7, 2023
Australian renewables integration. Part 2
By Planning Engineer (Russ Schussler) and Chris Morris, Climate Etc. Mar 8, 2023
Brown coal is so cheap AEMO [Australian Energy Market Operator] forgets to mention it
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Mar 10, 2023
Energy Issues — US
American suppression of fossil fuels courts a national security disaster
By Ronald Stein, CFACT, Mar 8, 2023
https://www.cfact.org/2023/03/08/american-suppression-of-fossil-fuels-courts-a-national-security-disaster/
The Heat Is On – Is New England Headed For An Electricity Supply Crisis?
By Housley Carr, RBN Energy, Mar 7, 2023
https://rbnenergy.com/the-heat-is-on-is-new-england-headed-for-an-electricity-supply-crisis
Washington’s Control of Energy
Business and Labor Agree: It’s Time for Permitting Reform
By Mike Sommers & Sean McGarvey, Real Clear Energy, Mar 8, 2023
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/03/08/business_and_labor_agree_its_time_for_permitting_reform_885859.html
[SEPP Comment: The opinions of the CEO of the American Petroleum Institute and President of the North America’s Building Trades Unions mean little in Washington, which greens control, citing bogus climate science.]
American Politics, Permitting Reform, and So Much More
By Michael McKenna, Real Clear Energy, March 6, 2023
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/03/06/american_politics_permitting_reform_and_so_much_more_885254.html
Return of King Coal?
Renewable Energy Fail, as British Coal Generators Fired Up AGAIN to Cover Shortfalls
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Mar 10, 2023
New Nuclear: Three Projects, Three Problems
By Kennedy Maize, Master Resource, Mar 9, 2023
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
CCC: Here’s how the UK can get reliable zero-carbon electricity by 2035
By Multiple Authors, Carbon Brief, Mar 9, 2023
Link to report: Delivering a reliable decarbonised power system
By Staff, Climate Change Committee, Mar 9, 2023
“This report illustrates what a reliable, resilient, decarbonised electricity supply system could look like in 2035, and the steps required to achieve it. It provides new insights and new advice on how such a system can be achieved by 2035, using real weather data and hourly analysis of Great Britain’s power system (Northern Ireland is part of the all-Ireland system). It also looks at the implications for hydrogen.”
Nooooo, not Rudolph
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 8, 2023
“As Michael Shellenberger explains: ‘The underlying problem with renewables is their low power density, which is why it takes wind/solar projects 300-800x more land to generate the same amount of electricity as from conventional sources’.”
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
CCC Call For An End To Biomass Subsidies
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 10, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Biomass burning is reliable but may not be sustainable. Wind power is neither. Doubt any virgin forests in the US are being timbered for the UK.]
ExxonMobil Cans Algae (greenwash failure)
By Robert Bradley Jr, Master Resource, Mar 6, 2023
Hydrogen boilers might need ‘four-inch holes in walls to prevent explosions’
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 6, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Isn’t hydrogen a “safe alternative fuel?”]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Storage
The coming EV batteries will sweep away fossil fuel transport-AEP
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 10, 2023
“Of course, now that we have such wonderful technology coming soon, there will obviously be no need to ban petrol cars, as they will become obsolete anyway.”
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
Effect of BEVs on Electric Grid
By Donn Dears, Power For USA, Mar 7, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Replacing beautiful dreams with ugly numbers.]
Free market wins: Subsidies end, and electric vehicle sales collapse
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Mar 4, 2023
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 8, 2023
Seven Injured In Scooter Battery Fire
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 6, 2023 [Bronx, NY]
“More than 200 firefighters.”
Carbon Schemes
Mobilizing for Carbon Removal
By Peter Eisenberger & Sasha Mackler, Real Clear Energy, Mar 8, 2023
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/03/08/mobilizing_for_carbon_removal_885901.html
It is well known by now that the world’s climate system is increasingly out of balance, due to more than a century of accumulating carbon dioxide emissions in our atmosphere. The fossil fuel driven economy has, by and large, created a miracle of economic and social development but left us with a deeply challenging carbon problem that can no longer be ignored.”
[SEPP Comment: Bring on global cooling and mass starvation?]
Climate experiment to dump minerals in Cornish sea to absorb carbon
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 4, 2023
[SEPP Comment: CO2 in oceans promotes growth in phytoplankton, the energy base for animal populations in the oceans. “Although coastal upwelling [including CO2] regions account for only one percent of the ocean surface, they contribute roughly 50 percent of the world’s fisheries landings.] https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/upwelling.html
Carbon Capture & Storage: ExxonMobil’s Big Political Play
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Mar 7, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Tax subsidy games.]
Health, Energy, and Climate
COVID Lab leak Evidence is Compelling for Good Reason
By Matt Ridley, His Blog, Mar 4, 2023
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Global Cooling Alert! (1972)
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Mar 8, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Is Senator Whitehouse (D-RI) aware of this alarm raised by professors at Brown University in Providence – lower food production, changed rainfall distribution, increased frequency and amplitude of extreme weather, etc. from global cooling?]
Al Gore melts down in Davos
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Mar 8, 2023
Block the sun, save the planet?
By Arianna Skibell, Politico, Feb 27, 2023 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/power-switch/2023/02/27/block-the-sun-save-the-planet-00082767
Billionaires Give Cows New Year’s Resolutions to Stop Burping
By Luc Woodall Gillard, Real Clear Energy, March 06, 2023
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/03/06/billionaires_give_cows_new_years_resolutions_to_stop_burping_885628.html
[SEPP Comment: At least they got right the end of the cow where methane comes.]
ARTICLES
Coal Keeps Germany’s Lights On
The supposedly evil energy source saves the day in Europe.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ,. March 9, 2023
https://www.wsj.com/articles/germany-coal-energy-electricity-renewables-4700b442?mod=hp_opin_pos_6#cxrecs_s
TWTW Summary: The editors write:
“Germany did itself and Europe a favor by managing to avert an energy-shortage recession this winter, and now we know how they did it: supposedly evil coal. Data released Thursday show coal’s role in electricity generation growing in Germany for the second year running.
Coal accounted for 33.3% of electricity production in 2022, according to the Federal Statistical Office, up from 30.2% in 2021. This is partly because coal picked up some of the slack from natural gas—whose share of electricity production dropped to 11.4% from 12.6%—as a halt of gas imports from Russia forced Germany to use other fuels. But coal’s resurgence started in 2020, before the Ukraine war triggered fears of a gas crisis.
Blame renewables and the politicians who love them. The renewable share of Germany’s electricity generation grew to 46.3% from 42.3% in 2022, the data point Berlin will want to highlight.”
The editorial discusses the failure of wind and solar to provide reliable electricity then continues:
“Cheap and easy means coal, which is why coal’s share of German electricity increased even as the overall share of conventional sources of energy declined to 53.7% from 57.7%.
Another explanation for coal’s resurgence is the political hostility of Germany’s green left to nuclear power, whose share of electricity production fell to 6.4% from 12.6% as three reactors were shut, leaving only three left to limp along this spring. Germany could tap its shale-gas reserves for a cleaner-burning alternative to coal, but that option is politically toxic too. So in an hilarious green irony, coal is keeping the lights on.
Berlin still plans to ban coal by 2030. Maybe before that day arrives politicians in Berlin will catch up to what the market already knows: Fossil fuels remain indispensable for powering modern economies.”797
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