What hockeystick eh?
A new atlas shows droughts of the past were worse than those today — and they cannot have been caused by man-made CO2. Despite the claims of “unprecedented” droughts, the worst droughts in Europe and the US were a thousand years ago. Cook et al 2015[1] put together an old world drought atlas from tree rings data as a proxy for summer wetness and dryness across Europe. They compare the severity and timing of European droughts with the North American Drought Atlas (NADA) released in 2004. Yes, it’s a tree ring study with all the caveats about how trees are responding to several factors at once etc etc. But at least the modern era is measured with the same proxy as used in the old eras.
Something else is causing droughts, something modern models don’t include:
“megadroughts reconstructed over north-central Europe in the 11th and mid-15th centuries reinforce other evidence from North America and Asia that droughts were more severe, extensive, and prolonged over Northern Hemisphere land areas before the 20th century, with an inadequate understanding of their causes.”
The worst megadrought in the California and Nevada regions was from 832 to 1074 CE (golly, 242 years). The worst drought in north-central Europe was from 1437 to 1473 CE, lasting 37 years.
Climate models don’t predict any of the droughts below, and all of them occurred before 99% of our emissions were released.
Authors compare results from the new atlas and its counterparts across three time spans: the generally warm Medieval Climate Anomaly (1000-1200); the Little Ice Age (1550-1750); and the modern period (1850-2012).
The atlases together show persistently drier-than-average conditions across north-central Europe over the past 1,000 years, and a history of megadroughts in the Northern Hemisphere that lasted longer during the Medieval Climate Anomaly than they did during the 20th century. But there is little understanding as to why, the authors write. Climate models have had difficulty reproducing megadroughts of the past, indicating something may be missing in their representation of the climate system, Cook said.
Figure 3A Maps from a new 2,000-year drought atlas show rainfall conditions over the whole continent, and much of the Mediterranean. A chart for 1741 shows severe drought (brown areas) running from Ireland into central Europe and beyond. A chart for the year 1315 shows the opposite problem—too much rain (dark green areas), which made farming almost impossible. (Cook et al., Science Advances, 2015)
A large part of the Northern Hemisphere is included in the study.
Figure 4B
The worst droughts:
Besides the MCA, Fig. 3B also reveals the occurrence of a mid–15th-century megadrought in north-central Europe. The most intense drought phase lasted for 37 years from 1437 to 1473 CE (−1.84 ± 0.20), with only two isolated years of positive scPDSI. The timing of this megadrought is similar to that of the worst drought reconstructed to have occurred over the past 1000 years in the southeastern United States (27). This suggests the existence of some common hydroclimate forcing across the North Atlantic, perhaps related to Atlantic Ocean sea surface temperature variations and/or the North Atlantic Oscillation (31, 32). Finally, a third megadrought occurred from 1779 to 1827 (−1.34 ± 0.16). This period has a subperiod of “major long-duration drought” (33) from 1798 to 1808 (−1.89 ± 0.38) in England and Wales identified from early instrumental and historical climate information. It is also the driest period within the longer epoch (1779–1827) of persistently drier-than-average conditions over north-central Europe.
More generally, Fig. 3B reveals the existence of large-amplitude decadal to centennial hydroclimate variability over Europe and shows that, like North America, megadroughts in the Old World were not restricted to just the MCA period. In comparison, hydroclimate variability over the 20th century, although large, does not appear unprecedented in amplitude or trend. Isolating signals of recent GHG-induced hydroclimate change from this complex record of natural variability will be challenging.
REFERENCES
[1^] Cook, et al (2015) Old World megadroughts and pluvials during the Common Era, Science Advances 06 Nov 2015: Vol. 1, no. 10, e1500561 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1500561
…
Jo, you say Yes, it’s a tree ring study with all the caveats about how trees are responding to several factors at once etc etc. But at least the modern era is measured with the same proxy as used in the old eras. Agreed and add tree rings a likely to be better proxies for rainfall than temperature.
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Yes, and after quite a few long, very arduous threads on Climate Audit relevant to this, I agree
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The first time that I came across Bristlecone pines, they were a proxy for the summer growing season on the valleys nearby. When I saw what sort of terrain that they lived on I realised why. The spring melt drains away pretty quickly so growth is heavily dependent on frequent summer rains. The areas they live are semi-arid (250mm per annum) and dry quickly so in extreme years (which would also be hotter) they don’t even add a ring.
I know that the trees used by Mann and peers are those higher up and supposed to be better for a temperature proxy but I still laugh at the choice.
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The 12th century was a horror century for mega-droughts in Australia. Here is the abstract from the 2015 Vance et al study. This study found 8 mega-droughts over the last 1,000 years.
T. R. Vance,
J. L. Roberts,
C. T. Plummer,
A. S. Kiem,
T. D. van Ommen
First published: 5 January 2015Full publication history
DOI: 10.1002/2014GL062447View/save citation
Cited by: 3 articlesRefreshcitation countCiting literature
Article has an altmetric score of 9
Funding Information
——————————————————————————–
Abstract
The Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) influences multidecadal drought risk across the Pacific, but there are no millennial-length, high-resolution IPO reconstructions for quantifying long-term drought risk. In Australia, drought risk increases in positive phases of the IPO, yet few suitable rainfall proxies and short (∼100 years) instrumental records mean large uncertainties remain around drought frequency and duration. Likewise, it is unknown whether megadroughts have occurred in Australia’s past. In this study, an atmospheric teleconnection in the Indian Ocean midlatitudes linking East Antarctica and Australia is exploited to produce the first accurate, annually dated millennial-length IPO reconstruction from the Law Dome (East Antarctica) ice core. Combined with an eastern Australian rainfall proxy from Law Dome, the first millennial-length Australian megadrought (>5 year duration) reconstruction is presented. Eight megadroughts are identified including one 39 year drought (A.D. 1174–1212), which occurred during an unprecedented century of aridity (A.D. 1102–1212).
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For a perspective on droughts and flooding rains in Australia over the last 100+ years the following is a good primer – https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/products/pdf/australiasvariablerainfall.pdf The hard copy poster is more educational than a Pirelli calendar for your office wall too!
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Jo also covered the Vance et al OZ drought study in Dec 2014.
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/12/australia-has-had-megadroughts-for-the-last-thousand-years-says-ice-core-study/
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Rainfall/ drought variation is far more significant for food production than a fractional increase in temperature, so this is an aspect of climate change in its true sense that desperately needs more research. The more we know, the more we find we don’t know.
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I am not sure what a drought in Ireland might be like (see the map for 1921). From what I saw recently the Irish might welcome it as the most marvellous weather (ie 3 or 4 days of sunshine in every week)!
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Ah, I was waiting for a little dry humour …
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Could the megadroughts, as expressed in trees, be on a non-comparable basis because of a theorised lack of CO2 fertiliser in earlier times?
CO2 has not been far above minimum required-for-growth levels, we are told, until it started to increase around 1900.
Geoff.
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Or, the corollary to that claim is: higher atmospheric CO2 improves drought tolerance.
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An excellent question Geoff & Rob.
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Surely a slip of the mouse for someone to give you guys a red thumb!
30
You see those zig-zag graphs where CO2 drops to 180 or so.
It would not surprise me if the droughts corresponded well with those periods.
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I’m sure that NOAA, the BOM etc will be able to ‘homogenise’ the data to show that these were not the driest periods in history.
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They will claim it was dry rain. Nothing to see … etc.
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Agreed. Hope you are well, John. Cheers.
00
Like the “sort of rain that won’t fill the dams.”
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How can Global warning be causing anything ?
There hasn’t been any for nearly 2 decades !
Any body see that elephant ?? >>>>
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/clip_image002_thumb1.jpg?w=597&h=279
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Yes, the world hasn’t been warming for almost 20 years now. Yet according to that dimwit clown Bill Nye the world is melting dramatically and we must do something right now before it’s too late. I wonder where he’s getting his data from. It’s certainly not from the real world.
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Bill Nye , the [snip] Propaganda Guy !
[Please stay away from the subject I snipped. It opens the discussion to things we don’t have the space or time to deal with. Thanks.] AZ
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Wot’s data?
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BoM climate change department media release creation room?
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In the new world of computer modelling, you do not have to fit the past. You only have to fit the future.
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Which future? Certainly not the real one.
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I am reminded of the adage in old communist Russia. “The future is certain. Only the past is uncertain.”
In the new world of computer climate modelling, the future is certain and the past is irrelevant.
That is why Paris is happening. We have unquestioned runaway man made Climate Change without any change to the temperature or any connection with CO2. The facts are irrelevant.
By the way, I now read of ‘Climate Warming’, so a bit each way.
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Can you imagine 100,000 people flying into a conference on something which is not happening? An imaginary crisis. Gosh, I hope the scientists can fix this one and we can give the UN enough money and power. Think of the children and our children’s children! Oh, the humanity of nothing happening.
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Or our children’s children’s children’s, children’s children.
Must dig that movie out.
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Or our children’s children’s children’s, children’s children.
Must dig that movie out.
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Maybe there could be a “What has CO2 ever done for us?” Skit as well.
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‘Climate Warming’ ??
How about ‘Climate Medievalism’ ?
Or as El Presidente O’Bummer has said ‘Global Climate Disruption’ , or more accurately ‘Global Climate Corruption’ , his one true expertise !
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My guess is that tree ring proxies are a damn sight better as proxies for water availability than they were said to be for infinitesimal changes in local temperature. That said, the current [Snip – some words land you in moderation – Fly] fixation on CO2 as we all know, has nothing whatsoever to do with anything other than the Marxist UN Agenda to reinvent the wheel in their own ugliness, to try and redistribute money and guilt, and to make all that is unequal, appear equal to the politically decorticated.
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decorticated – I love it!! Friendlier than lobotomised.
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On another point, the Ebola vaccine works! Fantastic. Now how many people flew into a conference on Ebola? How much is this incredible triumph of science made known to the world? How many hundreds of millions of people are not going to die horribly. I have read nothing for months of this triumph, almost nothing at all. It seems climate Change remains the number one biggest crisis facing humanity today, bigger than the war in Syria or the human flood engulfing Europe. Why?
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CAGW /CACC or whatever they call it this month is the ‘Number One Racket’ , that is why it is flogged so hard ……Facts don’t matter if the Propaganda level is adequate !
The moneytrain is at the Multi – Trillion dollar level , and the powers that be are not going to let little details like ‘Facts’ get in the way !
Harper and Abbott, the last holdouts have been conveniently removed before the Paris Pre-Enlightenment Hajj , just as Monckton both predicted and warned of .
Charles Ponzi and Herr Joseph Goebbels would be proud !
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It can all be blamed on climate change ? But seriously … Everyone can take credit for solving climate change.
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and here’s how. Shun the cow.
Beware , Cowspiracry and the spread of the vegan virus
and if that wasn’t cool enough DiCaprio has pitched into the Netflix version
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Off topic, but…
Hey Jo, remember the ’30 years for offending a privileged white woman with a blog’?
Here’s the follow up:
Modern Educayshun
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And for those that missed the first one…
#Equality
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Fried brains. Or is it refried brains? Also brilliant.
I guess I’m an ageist, whatever that is. I’m not willing to turn the world over to a 4 year old — not even to 40 year olds.
And about disagreeing with a woman… …I’d be in jail for sure since my wife and I disagree on all sorts of things. Luckily we learned the skill called working things out to a compromise that satisfies us both. But I guess the experts haven’t discovered that magical solution yet.
I can only imagine the sad fate of the human race were this to go as far as pictured — oblivion because of a zero birth rate.
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So real
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Brilliant. But not funny at all. Educayshun has tragically been going that way for a long time with society not far behind.
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How do we get this guy’s work off of YouTube and onto mainstream prime time TV?
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EEEK! That is earily like some universities today (i.e. MacGill & the University of Toronto)
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How inconvenient for the “consensus”.
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The rain in Spain
doesn’t always fall on the plain.
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This piece of work has …57 authors.
It doesn’t say which one made the tea.
Some branches of science seem to have been watching too many films, and they have gotten the democratic idea that everybody who contributed (even those who only stand and wait) must be elevated into the credits. Best Boy…Clapper operator…Gaffer…Wardrobe Assistant…Key Grip….
I’d like to see some papers showing.. “based on an idea by Svante Arrhenius” – credit where credit is due – but with the disclaimer that “..some of the facts have been changed to protect the innocent, and any similarity to any real facts, living or dead, is purely co-incidental”
—
But I guess it helps the citation count a bit.
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Don’t you mean, to protect the guilty?
Just thought I’d ask to be sure. 😉
30
Politics in science is wonderful. I came into a lab and rewrote a paper for them that had been rejected, adding a new section. My boss had the nerve, at the beginning of the age where the tea lady gets a mention, to suggest that I hadn’t done enough for co-authorship.
30
There was a megadrought in Queensland between 1760 and 1780.
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Actually it was more like 70 years.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v421/n6924/fig_tab/nature01361_F2.html
30
I shouldn’t worry too much about droughts. According to “research” conducted by Climate Central, predictably trotted out by the UK Daily Telegraph, we’re all going to be underwater anyway, especially if we live to be about two thousand years old (they’re a bit fuzzy about the timescale). The DT article may be paywalled, but it’s at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/11983115/How-our-megacities-will-slip-under-the-waves-with-two-degree-rise-in-temperatures.html .
The link from the article is to http://sealevel,climatecentral.org , where you can enter the coastal town of your choice and see how massive rises in sea levels will require everyone to wear a snorkel at all times. I tried Valparaiso, which turned out to be a bit boring. Helpfully, the busy Climate Central people managed to find the time to Photoshop a few famous cities under water, including London and Sydney (but not Paris, which is, presumably, too far from the sea). I like the one purporting to show LaGuardia airport, which will apparently turn into a submerged 4×4, in the event of sea level rise. According to everything I’ve ever heard about LaGuardia, that’ll be an improvement.
The article is execrably written, even for a cut-and-paste job, but it does contain some gems. I was struck by this bit:
The projections are based on climate models taking into account the expansion of ocean water as it warms, the melting of glaciers, and the decay of both the Greenland and West Antarctic icesheets.
Timing is harder to predict, Strauss said: “It is easier to estimate how much ice will eventually melt from a certain amount of warming than how quickly it will melt.”
Normally a study of this nature would be published by a peer-reviewed journal, as was the earlier research on the US.
In this case, however, Strauss felt that the new results should be taken into account ahead of the crucial climate summit in Paris.
“These findings seemed too relevant to COP21” – the 21st Conference of the Parties, the official name for the UN climate meeting – “to risk that they be published afterwards,” he said.
AFP sent the study to four experts – including Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, until this year Vice-President of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – for evaluation, and all of them described the work as “solid” and methodologically sound.
Strauss said his study shows that the stakes at the Paris negotiations are extremely high.
Strauss is “Ben Strauss, vice president for sea level and climate impacts at Climate Central” – there’s glory for you. I wonder who the vice president for Photoshop is. After everything Donna Laframboise has written about IPCC methodology, the idea that the endorsement of the ex-VP of the IPCC now supposedly equates to “peer-review” beggars belief.
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http://sealevel.climatecentral.org , not as in my previous post – sorry.
10
I wonder if I even want to live another 20 or 30 years the way things are going. And I’m serious about it. The next 15 to 30 years look terrible from where I sit every day watching things go downhill faster and faster.
But I can at least laugh at a dire prediction aimed at scaring me into something two thousand years from now. 🙂
LaGuardia has it’s problems to be sure. But they only bother pilots and safety experts. Passengers seem oblivious to the safety considerations and it remains a busy airport.
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Here’s a link to the sectional chart showing LaGuardia. Can you even find it in all the complications around New York?
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Well, you did help, by leaving it bang in the middle. Is there really a “Hicksville” in Long Island?
20
Was Hicksville on the chart? And there’s your answer. 😉
I got to that chart with LaGuardia centered on the monitor from a site called airnav.com. I looked up LaGuardia by name on airnav knowing they would link to the sectional chart. Otherwise I wouldn’t have an easy time finding it either.
My point was that LaGuardia is right in the middle of one of the busiest air traffic areas in the world and though it’s not evident from the chart unless you know how to read all its markings and then study it a while, there are very narrow safe corridors in and out of the place — not exactly the pilot’s dream airport. A guy like me would have a hard time getting advanced permission to land. That’s how busy the area is. To get the full picture you need arrival and departure charts as well as the sectional and current airport information from the FAA. It gets complicated.
If it interests anyone — you can go to airnav.com without needing to join, pay for anything or prove you’re a pilot and look around all you want to. Just please, please do not leave a comment about anything. Otherwise there’s no restriction on use. You can even download current IFR and airport charts. But even though they’re kept up to date it’s still a violation to use charts from airnav for actual flight.
00
Great site, Roy.
If you are in the continental US, Canada, or one of the American Pacific Islands, that is.
I couldn’t find information about anywhere else though. I thought LHR might be interesting …
00
Rereke,
As you surmise, airnav is a site set up for the North American and U.S. territories private pilot. Small charter services and maybe corporate pilots also use it. You may have noticed that arport data includes availability of jet fuel and not very many private pilots fly jets.
When I was playing around with a flight simulator I would go to airnav to download instrument departure and approach charts to use with my simulated flights because the flight simulator lacked all those things.
By the way, I didn’t think anyone would go look. A pleasant surprise that you did and then commented.
00
The baseless scaremongering made it into the local rag:
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/30042499/life-on-planet-at-stake-warnings-over-climate-change-catastrophe/
I find it difficult to believe they print this garbage without a minimum of due diligence. The MSM is a joke anymore… guess they have been for a while. Hardly surprising that people are cutting the cord and switching to Netflix and the like.
10
Being a bit thick, one thing I had failed to notice about the piece I cited above was its origin: AFP.
I always check the authorship of an article but noted merely that this was agency stuff. “AFP”, however, is “Agence France-Presse”, so this really is the French établissement desperately plugging the upcoming boondoggle in Paris.
The giveaway is in one line I quoted: “AFP sent the study to four experts…”
10
Slightly off topic I know but during Roman times Cyprus was abandoned for nearly 300 years due to drought.
71
That is the Roman Warm Period when the subtropical high pressure cells over North Africa and the Azores would have pushed more poleward.
Similar to the Mediaeval Warm Period and the recent warm period.
The level of solar activity appears to be relevant to such changes in the global air circulation pattern.
90
Stephen,
How can you dare to suggest that solar activity is relevant when all the experts agree that it isn’t? 😉
Sorry, I couldn’t resist the stab at the consensus people.
70
During the RWP and MWP the STR was closer to the poles in both hemispheres?
10
Cyprus was never abandoned in Roman times. There is a theory that there may be evidence from Cypriot archaeology of a widespread Mediterranean 300-year drought in the second millennium B.C. (i.e. before the foundation of Rome, mythical or otherwise), which led, supposedly, to the downfall of various civilisations, notably the Mycenaean and the Hittite. On the well-preserved walls of the mortuary temple of Rameses III, at Medinet Habu, near Luxor, there are scenes celebrating his defeat of assorted “Sea Peoples”, who were trying to invade Egypt. The fact that there was a kind of alliance of apparently unrelated peoples, from various regions of the Mediterranean, does suggest that some sort of ecological event may have prompted mass migrations, since the beebyanka and Angela Merkel didn’t exist, back then.
Three hundred year drought, though? I’m a bit sceptical. That would take in the heydays both of the Hittite and of the Mycenaean cultures, pretty much implying that the entire era of the greatness of both civilisations occurred during a period of catastrophe.
60
So we may disagree on the details. But it’s not really in doubt that extreme drought was well known before now. How interesting.
UN, are you listening?
California, are you listening?
President Obama, are you listening?
No, of course not. 🙁
80
Obama listen? That’s the joke of the century. He is a committed follower of the AGW scam.
50
Actually, Obama is listening.
Then he’s cancelling the Keystone project, anyway.
Then he’s laughing at you.
(Then he’s playing golf.)
Then he’s laughing at you.
(Then he’s playing golf.)
40
Where does Michelle come into the picture? Surely he must do more than golf and laugh. 😉
00
Interesting but Cyprus is usually pretty dry anyway. I used to marvel at how they produced so much good food in such an arid looking place. Cyprus is one of my favourite places and the Cypriots some of my favourite people.
Most winters there was enough snow in Troodos for a bit of skiing though some years it was very thin. We used to watch cloud start building up over the mountains from mid September and hope for some rain up there.
30
This is a terrific post. Whenever I read a paper like this it makes any reference to how our current climate is “unprecedented” just completely laughable. The deeper I get into studying AGW, it seems I find more of these studies that discredit the warmists in any of their proclamations. A Great Big Bookmark for this one. I can’t wait to use Cook, et al 2015 when I hear about the unprecedented droughts of today.
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off topic-
“In 1971, the top climatologists at NCAR and NASA reported that a runaway greenhouse effect is not possible, because the CO2 absorption spectra is nearly saturated already”
http://vademecum.brandenberger.eu/pdf/klima/rasool_schneider_1971.pdf
h/t tony hellar
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Convicted by one of their own. 🙁
50
off topic again but does anyone know why?
the last glacial period-
“The Arctic Ocean between the huge ice sheets of America and Eurasia was not frozen throughout, but like today probably was only covered by relatively shallow ice, subject to seasonal changes and riddled with icebergs calving from the surrounding ice sheets. According to the sediment composition retrieved from deep-sea cores there must even have been times of seasonally open waters.[9]”
active volcanoes under the Arctic ?
“Hidden 2.5 miles (4,000 meters) beneath the Arctic surface, the volcanoes are up to a mile (2,000 meters) in diameter and a few hundred yards tall. They formed along the Gakkel Ridge, a lengthy crack in the ocean crust where two rocky plates are spreading apart, pulling new melted rock to the surface”
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Richard,
There is a lot of anecdotal evidence to support you. No one thing is conclusive. But when a lot of such evidence accumulates, it becomes very hard to ignore.
It’s hard to believe the Arctic was always frozen for another reason too. Someone posted actual photos of U.S. nuclear submarines surfaced at the north pole in open water, in March, a normally very cold month up there, right here on this blog. The photos were taken in the 1960s. The man who posted those photos was a member of the crew of one of the subs in the pictures. I have no reason to doubt anything he said when it’s backed up by actual photographs.
One thing he had to say about the publicity photos the public saw was that they searched for ice to punch up through so they had believable pictures of the conning tower sticking out of the ice for public release. How’s that for deception?
It can’t get any better than to be told by someone who was there.
60
Would be a good topic to cover here one day . . . . . .
30
It is a matter of latitudinal climate zone shifting in response to solar variations.
The location of droughts represents the changing locations of the main permanent high pressure cells.
For California it is a question of the position of the subtropical high pressure cell that sits close to the south western USA.
For Europe, droughts arise when either the polar hgh pressure cells are dominant (more meridional, equatorward jet stream tracks) or the Azores high is dominant (more zonal, poleward jet stream tracks).
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“It is a matter of latitudinal climate zone shifting in response to solar variations”.
How does this work Steven?
Why is there currently drought conditions covering the entire planet?
210
There isn’t. It only takes one example to prove you wrong, and New Zealand can provide that.
And you loose additional marks for appaling grammar. “Why is there …”, implies the singular.
Get a grip, Don.
100
Heavy rain and gales in Cumbria too according to my mama, hardly global drought.
30
Don Gaddes
“Why is there currently drought conditions covering the entire planet?”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You have GOT TO BE KIDDING!
I was unable to plant winter rye this year because it has never quit raining long enough for the fields to dryout enough to disc. My neighbor lost their crops because it was too muddy to get the tractors into the fields.
Heck we had ONE(1) day in the last ten when it finally quit raining… No that is not right, it only quit raining for about ten hours. Heck it was forecast to be sunny today and it is STILL RAINING! HARD They have the road flooded signs up at one end of our street.
(I am in North Carolina)
In South Carolina they had flooding.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/05/us/south-carolina-east-coast-rain-flood/
40
Sorry to wonder of topic but i’ve just got up to a UK met office statement on BBC radio news, where in order to describe this years average world temperature so far, in the most scary terms possible, they have moved the goal posts by instead of comparing against the usual average from 1950 to whenever ( i guess because of the pause its just not scary enough anymore) they compare the 2015 average to a period during the LIA starting from 1750 can you believe! They say we’ve had over one degree of warming since that period and so are dangerously closing in on the two degree limit that “scientists” say will cause disaster. I thought Halloween had come and gone but Slingo and co clearly forgot to take of their costumes and are practicing ” trick or treat science ” in the build up to Paris.
92
I wrote, and complained, to the UK Met Office about a previous statement from Julia Sligo, that was equally as zany as this one.
The response I received stated that she was an expert in her field, and that Her Majesty had every confidence in her ability, and that should be the end of the matter!
I am left wondering where her particular field, with its other-worldly properties is located. I am also curious about what grows in this field. A variety of hemp, perhaps?
70
Slightly OT but important:
Our newly elected liberal government in Canada is off to the races in Paris to bring the country to its knees. Not hyperbole unfortunately as the Environment Minister has stated:
http://www.cp24.com/news/climate-science-is-indisputable-canada-s-environment-minister-says-1.2648995
So, I would encourage/ask all who care to post comments on the following sites to enlighten this “climate scientist” to the fact that the science is very much under dispute and remind the public of this.
http://www.cp24.com/news/climate-science-is-indisputable-canada-s-environment-minister-says-1.2648995
https://twitter.com/ec_minister
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/environment-minister-paris-mckenna-climate-talks-1.3309855
http://www.desmog.ca/2015/11/04/meet-canada-s-new-environment-minister-catherine-mckenna
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/11/04/trudeau-sends-signal-with-appointment-of-environment-and-climate-change-minister-catherine-mckenna.html
http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/on-climate-change-canada-agrees-the-science-is-indisputable-minister-1.2649065
http://www.timescolonist.com/climate-science-indisputable-environment-minister-catherine-mckenna-1.2106664
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/new-environment-minister-attends-climate-change-talks-in-paris/article27168650/
And, of course, her email address is [email protected]
Thanks all. We have to speak up as right now only the CAGW folks are being heard.
[Bill, Use of many external links put this in moderation. I’m approving it because otherwise it’s acceptable. desmog will probably be useless as far as protest. Everyone should keep external links to a minimum because readers seldom visit all of them and they become overwhelming.] AZ
41
Under moderation? Was there a naughty word?
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Thanks for the clarrification AZ, appreciated.
30
Thanks for brining this up, Bill. Being a Canadian myself, I am deeply worried about where this new government is going to take us; the poorhouse probably, if we can even afford that by the end.
Reading some of the comments by people on the news site, http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/on-climate-change-canada-agrees-the-science-is-indisputable-minister-1.2649065, gives me pause as the level of fanaticism shown by a few of them is extreme to say the least.
You are correct, we have to speak out.
20
I strongly suggest people in Canada make sure they have alternate heating capability. Unfortunately here in the USA the EPA is also going after Wood Stoves.
Wood fireplaces and stoves banned in new buildings
60
Alarmists continue to flout,
The concerns of any who doubt,
Their outrageous claim,
That man is to blame,
But only for modern-day drought.
130
History is irrelevant to the complainers. It gets in their way and they don’t like any inconvenience.
If you have any grip on history you take claims that the current California drought is unprecedented with more than a grain of salt. You swallow a handful of the stuff when reading the dire news.
It’s bad enough that we have this problem. We don’t need to be told, implicitly or explicitly that it’s our fault. It’s not.
50
So true. History tells us that the first colonies to California died out from lack of water, yet …. history is not the true believers’ strong suit.
40
Yes, much of California is, after all, a desert. And the most desirable part of the state, the Los Angeles basin, is right in the middle of that desert, notwithstanding being on the Pacific coast of North America where there’s a certain amount of rain every year. But that rain falls usually only in December through February and is totally inadequate for the current population. So water is imported from hundreds of miles away. And yet with all that infrastructure to supply water a serious drought threatens our viability if it isn’t relieved soon.
We are mere mortals after all and not in such good control of things as we would like to believe.
60
57 authors, come on….
22
This one was particularly bad in the central Sierra Nevada mountains in California. A 200 year megadrought.
http://www.hcn.org/issues/44.22/underwater-forest-reveals-the-story-of-a-historic-megadrought
30
Rereke: I’m afraid you also lose a few marks for using “loose” instead of “lose”.
50
“I halve a spelling checker, it came with my pea sea …”
Good spot – I tip my hat to you.
10
And what should pop up on my home page but this. Disaster may bring extreme poverty by 2030. All, of course, from climate change caused droughts and the like.
I hope it works for everyone. Sometimes Verizon links don’t work for just anyone. And I don’t know why. I tested the link and it works for me so it should work for anyone.
31
And as if we don’t have more than enough poverty and suffering already.
If even half the effort, time and money spent on this nonsense was spent doing something constructive, imagine what the benefit could be. 🙁
51
Well, for a start, we could have a better quality of poverty and suffering. Quantity and quality.
21
You sound a little cynical, Rereke. But I suppose you’re right, there’s unlikely to be a magic solution to poverty and suffering. Nevertheless I would take any improvement in the situation that we could manage to achieve.
01
I believe that we moving into “The Age of Duh”.
An Age where independent thinking, and original initiative, are treated with suspicion; and stupidity is supported by emotional hand-wringing and Government largesse (using resources taken from the first group).
I guess some folks might call that cynical.
01
Duh???
Whatzhemean???OMG, I’m going in that direction myself. I wonder what that means — maybe climate change has become so dire it’s melting my brain, even as I type this.
Help! Help! Help!
😉
01
Or maybe not.
01
Off topic but yesterday was working from home and my young bloke had ABC 3 of when the unfortunately ( but as it turns out accurately) named “Horrible Science” came on.
I gradually became aware they were talking about CO2 and the level of kiddie scaring was incredible. Among the zingers was “CO2 levels have been quite stable for 2000 years and life has evolved to be used to these levels. Now what happens if we add CO2 pollution to the air? The oceans become acidic.”
Horrible Science indeed.
101
Off topic but yesterday was working from home and my young bloke had ABC 3 of when the unfortunately ( but as it turns out accurately) named “Horrible Science” came on.
I gradually became aware they were talking about CO2 and the level of kiddie scaring was incredible. Among the zingers was “CO2 levels have been quite stable for 2000 years and life has evolved to be used to these levels. Now what happens if we add CO2 pollution to the air? The oceans become acidic.”
Horrible Science indeed.
61
The study of brain coral cores off the Queensland coast shows we haven’t visited the droughts before white settlement.
30
Steven Wilde amongst others has suggested changes in solar activity are responsible for Mega droughts in the past by changing ciculation patterns , but it doesnt have to be down to changes in the Sun, back in the climate optimum the Sahara was a green and fertile land but its thought that changes in the Earths rotation ( wobble) on its axis caused the Monsoon rains to retreat south, a process that continued through the Minoan and Roman warm periods , the Sahara turning to dust is the biggest mega drought of them all . thanks
20
I agree that other changes could affect circulation patterns and could contribute to or cause Megadroughts.
40
Actually it is more a case of the temperature. During the Holocene optimum the Sahara and most of the earth was green. During the Wisconsin Ice Age there was drought.
This url has maps of the vegetation at various time periods for various continents. It is quite interesting to look at.
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nerc.html#maps
20
Looking at Australia, ‘lake levels from the south-east of Australia were still generally higher than today at 28,000-25,000 14C y.a. (Harrison 1993).’
Low evaporation and glacial runoff, the Willandra Lakes were filled by a stream which went uphill before reaching a tipping point.
Mungo Man probably witnessed it, but many of the locals would have moved north as the dunes took over south-east Australia and the lakes dried up completely.
The people around Lake Carpentaria were well placed to survive.
20
In 1994 the NY Times knew that ancient droughts in the California area were much worse than in modern times – something which they have conveniently forgotten.
“BEGINNING about 1,100 years ago, what is now California baked in two droughts, the first lasting 220 years and the second 140 years. Each was much more intense than the mere six-year dry spells that afflict modern California from time to time, new studies of past climates show. The findings suggest, in fact, that relatively wet periods like the 20th century have been the exception rather than the rule in California for at least the last 3,500 years, and that mega-droughts are likely to recur.”
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/09/17/in-1994-the-nyt-knew-the-real-truth-about-californian-droughts/
30
In 1994 the NY Times knew that ancient droughts in the California area were much worse than the modern ones – something which they have forgotten.
“BEGINNING about 1,100 years ago, what is now California baked in two droughts, the first lasting 220 years and the second 140 years. Each was much more intense than the mere six-year dry spells that afflict modern California from time to time, new studies of past climates show. The findings suggest, in fact, that relatively wet periods like the 20th century have been the exception rather than the rule in California for at least the last 3,500 years, and that mega-droughts are likely to recur.”
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/09/17/in-1994-the-nyt-knew-the-real-truth-about-californian-droughts/
30
I don’t know about past mega droughts but the last fifteen years will do me for a mega event.
In the Wimmera we have seen seven outright droughts or very poor seasons since 2000.
It is a cycle but the break in it is far from certain. Anyone with a clue?
21
Anyone with a clue?
Glad you asked. Look what I found:
ABC: When BOM gets it wrong: Wimmera farmers calculate the cost of living in a weather radar black spot
Weather information for the Wimmera Southern Mallee region is based on data from radars across the border in Mount Gambier and further north in Mildura.
WDA executive director, Jo Bourke, said the computer modelling system was notoriously inaccurate.
11
Wimmera 28-day rainfall forecast (eldersweather.com.au)
Summary: Over southern and eastern Australia the cold front events with potential to bring widespread rain are now expected about 25 November to 29 November, 1 December to 5 December, and 6 December to 10 December.
Rain events originating in the tropics and moving south are possible about 15 November to 19 November, 6 December to 10 December, and 13 December to 17 December.
Over Western Australia the strongest cold fronts should occur about 17 November to 21 November, 24 November to 28 November, and 28 November to 2 December.
11
People seem to expect that climate models be able to predict/retrodict everything. There are also external/extra-terrestrial factors being discovered all the timer, such as this:
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/151026/ncomms9611/full/ncomms9611.html
01
7 Nov: OC Register: Mark Landsbaum: Expect global warming rhetoric to heat up
Let’s be blunt. Forty years of global warming hysteria never has been about the globe getting warmer, or saving the planet. It’s always been about control and money. Their control. Your money. If you need to be told who “they” are, you haven’t been paying attention.
They are a cabal of intertwined common interests that include government regulators who stand to gain power, financial opportunists who stand to profit and ideologues whose mission is to separate you from your money, and from control over your lives. They are socialists or progressives. They like to be called “environmentalists,” tarring the reputation of an otherwise well-intentioned group…
Scratch the surface of this international divide-up-the-booty gathering, and you will see that, even if all their schemes, regulations, taxes, penalties and wealth redistributions are enacted, there’s no guarantee the Earth’s temperature will be affected at all. That’s a pretty costly gamble…
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/emissions-690952-gore-control.html
so to today’s big scare, leading BBC/ABC & other MSM news bulletins:
9 Nov: WMO: Greenhouse Gas Concentrations Hit Yet Another Record
Interaction between CO2 and water vapour amplifies warming
Geneva 9 November 2015 (WMO) The amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached yet another new record high in 2014, continuing a relentless rise which is fuelling climate change and will make the planet more dangerous and inhospitable for future generations.
The World Meteorological Organization’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin says that between 1990 and 2014 there was a 36% increase in radiative forcing – the warming effect on our climate – because of long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) from industrial, agricultural and domestic activities…
“Every year we report a new record in greenhouse gas concentrations,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud. “Every year we say that time is running out. We have to act NOW to slash greenhouse gas emissions if we are to have a chance to keep the increase in temperatures to manageable levels.”…
The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin provides a scientific base for decision-making. WMO releases it ahead of the U.N. climate change negotiations in Paris, to be held from 30 November to 11 December. A separate Emissions Gap report, from the United Nations Environment Programme, focuses on annual emissions of CO2…
https://www.wmo.int/media/content/greenhouse-gas-concentrations-hit-yet-another-record
21
pdf: 4 pages: 9 Nov: WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin: The State of Greenhouse Gases in the Atmosphere Based on Global Observations through 2014
http://library.wmo.int/pmb_ged/ghg-bulletin_11_en.pdf
20
For Steven Wilde
Monsoons and the Sun
The Holocene Asian Monsoon: Links to Solar Changes and North Atlantic Climate (Links to more articles)
Paleotemperature variability in central China during the last 13 ka recorded by a novel microbial lipid proxy in the Dajiuhu peat deposit
hol(DOT)sagepub.com/content/23/8/1123.abstract
Atlantic Forcing of Persistent Drought in West Africa
(wwwDOT)sciencemag.org/content/324/5925/377.abstract
Multidecadal to multicentury scale collapses of Northern Hemisphere monsoons over the past millennium
(wwwDOT)pnas.org/content/110/24/9651.abstract
A 2,300-year-long annually resolved record of the South American summer monsoon from the Peruvian Andes
(wwwDOT)pnas.org/content/108/21/8583.abstract
Decreasing Asian summer monsoon intensity after 1860 AD in the global warming epoch
(DOT)springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00382-012-1378-0
STORMINESS and The Little Ice Age
The impact of North Atlantic storminess on western European coasts: A review
connection(DOT)ebscohost.com/c/articles/80000825/north-atlantic-storms-medieval-warm-period-vs-little-ice-age
This discussion is very much worth the read because it uses several different methods to show storminess ” is high during the LIA with a marked transition from reduced levels during the MCA [hereafter MWP]
…..
New Insights into North European and North Atlantic Surface Pressure Variability, Storminess, and Related Climatic Change since 1830
connection(DOT)ebscohost.com/c/articles/36003438/new-insights-north-european-north-atlantic-surface-pressure-variability-storminess-related-climatic-change-since-1830
Aeolian sand movement and relative sea-level rise in Ho Bugt, western Denmark, during the `Little Ice Age’
hol(DOT)sagepub.com/content/18/6/951.abstract
41
???
9 Nov: UK Met Office: Global temperatures set to reach 1 °C marker for first time
Stephen Belcher, Director of the Met Office Hadley Centre, said: “We have seen a strong El Nino develop in the Tropical Pacific this year and that will have had some impact on this year’s global temperature.
“We’ve had similar natural events in the past, yet this is the first time we’re set to reach the 1 °C marker and it’s clear that it is human influence driving our modern climate into uncharted territory.”
Early indications suggest 2016 will be similarly warm and while it’s more difficult to say exactly what will happen in the years immediately after that, we expect warming to continue in the longer term.
Peter Stott, Head of Climate Monitoring and Attribution, said: “This year marks an important first but that doesn’t necessarily mean every year from now on will be a degree or more above pre-industrial levels, as natural variability will still play a role in determining the temperature in any given year.
“As the world continues to warm in the coming decades, however, we will see more and more years passing the 1 degree marker – eventually it will become the norm.”…
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/release/archive/2015/one-degree
01
The NYTimes has been desperately seeking to exploit the California drought even if it means lobotomising itself! From 1994.
Severe Ancient Droughts: A Warning to California
By WILLIAM K. STEVENS
Published: July 19, 1994
BEGINNING about 1,100 years ago, what is now California baked in two droughts, the first lasting 220 years and the second 140 years. Each was much more intense than the mere six-year dry spells that afflict modern California from time to time, new studies of past climates show. The findings suggest, in fact, that relatively wet periods like the 20th century have been the exception rather than the rule in California for at least the last 3,500 years, and that mega-droughts are likely to recur.”
The recent past is not necessarily the normal!!!
11
9 Nov: UK Independent: Mark Leftly: Swansea’s tidal lagoon project delayed amid concerns over costs
Government officials are reviewing whether the technology behind a proposed £1bn tidal lagoon in Swansea Bay, the first of its type in the world, could be as easily exported as its backers have claimed…
It is understood that Decc is also concerned about the strength of the private investment case, given that the project’s price-tag is nearly double initial estimates.
Officials also want to check that it will produce the electricity its backers have claimed: 155,000 homes for 120 years…
Stephen Kinnock, (Labour) MP fo Aberavon: “The prospect of this technology being exported has to be judged by instinct as much as hard-headed analysis, but from what I’ve heard other countries are interested.”…
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/swanseas-tidal-lagoon-project-delayed-amid-concerns-over-costs-a6726451.html?utm_content=buffer7d7fa&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
comments at the following are scathing:
9 Nov: UK Telegraph: Alistair Phillips-Davies: A huge opportunity beckons as the Government ‘resets’ energy policy
(Alistair Phillips-Davies is chief executive of SSE)
Back in 2008, our own generation fleet was around one third renewable energy sources, one third from gas generation and one third from coal. The way we saw it was that if the UK as a whole was to make the transition to a low-carbon electricity system, then SSE would need to change.
Since then, we have invested around £4bn in renewable generation and £2bn in the infrastructure that supports it, leaving us with more renewable energy capacity in the UK and Ireland than any other company.
We’re moving our portfolio from a mix that was once weighted towards coal and gas towards one that is now weighted towards gas and renewables. And we want to do more.
Energy needs a period of clarity and stability to deliver the next stage of investment in new energy infrastructure – and the Government can provide this…
But to deliver the stability required, this Government can help, and making sure the full cost of carbon dioxide emissions is factored into energy investments from the outset is a key part of this.
The UK has rightly made the case for strengthening carbon pricing across the EU. Alongside this, greater long-term stability in the UK’s unilateral carbon price floor is required if it is to be a policy underpinning low-carbon investments…
And we have a huge opportunity to help customers with smart metering…
It is the gateway to having more bespoke energy tariffs that suit customers’ lifestyles and ultimately save them money…
Of course, during all of this we must also keep the lights on. This is the job of the National Grid and the Government…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/11983230/A-huge-opportunity-beckons-as-the-Government-resets-energy-policy.html?utm_content=buffer3e9f8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
11
9 Nov: Guardian: Graham Readfearn: Why Robyn Williams won’t broadcast ‘shameless’ climate science deniers
After 40 years of fronting ABC Radio National’s Science Show, Robyn Williams says climate science deniers have said nothing different ‘for bloody years’
To say that Robyn Williams is a bit of a legend of science broadcasting on the radio is a bit like saying David Attenborough is a dab hand at nature documentaries on the telly…
Last week Williams was in Brisbane for a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the show put on by the University of Queensland.
Williams, 71, was in conversation with ABC personality John Doyle to an invited audience of a couple of hundred. I was there too…
Joining Williams onstage was outgoing chief scientist Ian Chubb. On a big screen, there were video dedications from the likes of actress Cate Blanchett, theoretical physicist Professor Paul Davies, Nature editor-in-chief Philip Campbell and former UK chief science advisor Lord May.
Oh, and David Attenborough…
(ORESKES, TOBACCO, EXXON, CAGW SCEPTIC ATTACKS ON CLIMATE SCIENTISTS & HARASSMENT OF INSTITUTIONS, UNIVERSITIES, BROADCASTERS)
WILLIAMS: “Now all of the people who are deniers have been on the programs that my colleagues and I put out. We did so because most of us frankly like and enjoy contrarian views. We like a variety of opinion.
But then you find – as I did – that the people you are inviting in to give their contrarian views are always saying the same bloody thing. You can actually mouth the paragraphs. Here it comes again … just as if they were politicians rather than people considering science.
The people I put on the radio [now] have just written papers, they have published considered books. In other words, you are doing what you hope is serving the public by getting fresh ideas out to them to consider. But the people you are describing – those deniers – I have not noted saying anything new in bloody years.
Here it comes again. Favourite phrases are … CO2 is a colourless harmless gas … it’s good for growing plants … and on and on it goes. It’s shameless.”…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2015/nov/09/why-legendary-science-broadcaster-robyn-williams-wont-broadcast-shameless-climate-science-deniers-any-more
31
The ABC, Gaia bless their little collective cotton sox, have created a new web page:
ABC: science videos from the vault
First up: How we explained the greenhouse effect in 1988
Have fun with that.
. . .
Meh? No where do they recite the heat hiding in the oceans during a hiatus, or, how long this hiatus will be, until a Godzilla El Niño will help unleash a climate doomsday upon humanity, who, may I add, is armed only with a tax on carbon with which to defend itself.
But, that’s just meh.
41
The Bolter has a post about Robyn Williams who is their ABC science guru. He’s the one that told Bolt that 100 metres SLR was possible by 2100.
This taxpayer funded nong has just informed us that he refuses to interview sceptics because they won’t change their arguments about his CAGW. They evidently will not change their views about SLR, polar bears, extreme events, Greenland/ Arctic/ Antarctic ice build up, no warming for over 18 years, recovery from the LIA, droughts, floods, snowfalls etc. So silly sceptics just accept the observable science and not the endless nonsense emanating from useless models, sarc.
But their taxpayer ABC will continue to allow any delusional left wing pollie or misinformed dummy to parrot any nonsense that suits them. Yet their charter states that this mob are supposed to be unbiased in their reporting. What a 1 billion $ per year joke on conservatives and libertarians. Here’s the link to the Bolter’s post.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/no_wonder_robyn_williams_has_given_up_interviewing_sceptics_like_me/
61
a must-read:
8 Nov: UK Daily Mail: PETER HITCHENS: Warmists armed with windmills are the REAL threat to Britain
As we squeak and gibber about the distant danger of terrorism, this country stands on the brink of a real threat to its economy, its daily life and its order.
It is a threat we have brought on ourselves by embracing an obsessive, pseudo-scientific dogma, a dogma that is also destroying irreplaceable industries and jobs week by week.
Last week we came within inches of major power blackouts, though official spokesmen claim unconvincingly that all was well…
Experts on the grid have for some time predicted a crisis of this sort, but had not expected it anything like so soon, or in such warm weather conditions. It is the fact that they were taken by surprise that warns us there may be worse to come…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3308821/PETER-HITCHENS-Warmists-armed-windmills-REAL-threat-Britain.html
21
Neville –
the ABC Board now has Robyn Williams’ words in writing. despite many Australians being sceptical of CAGW, he will not allow them to have a voice. the Board – or the Govt – must deal with this NOW.
meanwhile:
9 Nov: ABC: Jessica van Vonderen: Australian Conservation Foundation challenges Adani’s Carmichael coal mine in Federal Court
Mr Cousins said he believed this latest challenge would succeed.
“The aim of the Australian Conservation Foundation … is to stop this mine,” he said…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-09/adani-mine-australian-conservation-foundation-court-challenge/6923598
while over in climate saviour Obama-land:
3 Nov: Financial Post: Yadullah Hussain: America has built the equivalent of 10 Keystone pipelines since 2010 — and nobody said anything
While TransCanada Corp. has been cooling its heels on its Keystone XL proposal for the past six years, the oil pipeline business has been booming in the United States.
Crude oil pipeline mileage rose 9.1 per cent last year alone to reach 66,649 miles, according to data from the Washington, D.C.-based Association of Oil Pipe Lines (AOPL) set to be released soon…
Between 2009 and 2013, more than 8,000 miles of oil transmission pipelines have been built in the past five years in the U.S., AOPL spokesperson John Stoody said, compared to the 875 miles TransCanada wants to lay in the states of Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska for its 830,000-bpd project. By last year, the U.S. had built 12,000 miles of pipe since 2010…
“That’s the point we make,” Stoody said. “While people have been debating Keystone in the U.S. we have actually built the equivalent of 10 Keystones. And no one’s complained or said anything.”…
But the opposition has done little to stop the surge of Alberta crude flowing through the U.S. pipeline systems: Canadian crude oil exports to the U.S. soared to 3.4 million barrels per day in August – a new record.
http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/america-has-built-the-equivalent-of-10-keystone-pipelines-since-2010-and-no-one-said-anything
21
how did the public allow things to get so out of hand in the name of CAGW?
8 Nov: Financial Times: Demands grow for overhaul of UK energy policy
by Christopher Adams and Kiran Stacey
Ministers are facing calls for an urgent overhaul of UK energy policy, with politicians and industry experts demanding swift investment in new power plants and storage after a near-breakdown in the electricity network.
Fergus Ewing, Scotland’s energy minister, has written to UK energy secretary Amber Rudd voicing concern over the country’s “worryingly low” safety margin of supply over demand. He accuses the government of having ignored repeated warnings that critical infrastructure is near breaking point…
On a balmy, windless November day, the National Grid’s plans for dealing with the failure of back-up power plants were sufficient. But what about a midwinter supply squeeze?
Last week’s scramble highlighted the challenge facing Ms Rudd as older, uneconomic coal-fired power stations are closed to meet new EU rules on air quality and ageing nuclear plants are retired. While the closures have long been expected, not enough new capacity is being built. Malcolm Webb, former head of industry group Oil & Gas UK, blames failures by successive governments, describing British energy policy as an “unholy mess”…
“Affordability is the top priority now, while decarbonisation has taken more of a back seat,” says one industry insider…
However, wind and solar power cannot meet the grid’s baseload needs because they do not provide a guaranteed uninterrupted supply of power. Sometimes, like last week, things can go wrong. The UK looks likely to become more dependent on undersea interconnectors and imported gas…
Mr Davey agrees. The grid, he argues, should be able to encourage more businesses to reduce their consumption at peak times…
Smart meters could help. If households can measure the cost of peak usage, they might curb their demand. But predicting such behaviour is difficult…
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1daa082a-8611-11e5-9f8c-a8d619fa707c.html
21
some reality, as usual, from Nick Butler at FT:
8 Nov: Financial Times Blog: Nick Butler: Iran’s return to the oil market
The international oil companies see Iran as their last great hope of getting access to large-scale reserves of oil and gas. The country has a resource base matched by very few others and it has local skills. The fields that could be developed are well known and the costs are low. Seventy per cent of the remaining reserves are onshore and within reach of existing infrastructure, which could easily be upgraded. The terms of the Iranian contract agreement with the companies are comparable to the standard production-sharing model and far better than those available in many other Opec member states, including Iraq. By comparison with many oil-producing countries, the Islamic Republic is orderly and secure. That means that Iran is almost a dream destination for the companies, especially for the majors which have been finding it so difficult lately to replace their production with new reserves.
Many of the companies are indeed constrained by US sanctions because they work in America, but US companies also want access and would not wish to see others taking all the prizes…
Those who want the revolution to survive see the need to provide jobs and wealth to the country’s 80m people…
Investment in new fields could begin next year, lifting production within a year or two. Looking at the list of prospective developments it is easy to envisage Iran output rising to 4.5m or even 5m barrels a day (from 2.8m barrels a day now – Bloomberg 1 Oct: “Iran Aims to Boost Oil Output by 2 Million Barrels From Projects”) by 2018. Then the next game would begin — a contest for quotas within what remains of Opec and a direct battle for market share and revenue between Saudi Arabia, Iraq (which could also be producing more) and Iran. Nothing in this analysis suggests a return to high prices anytime soon.
http://blogs.ft.com/nick-butler/2015/11/08/irans-return-to-the-oil-market/
11
this seems to be a Graham Lloyd article, for those who can access it. could someone excerpt it:
10 Nov: Australian: Paris pledges ‘wishful thinking, not optimism’: Bjorn Lomborg
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/paris-pledges-wishful-thinking-not-optimism-bjorn-lomborg/story-e6frg6xf-1227602438341
Bolt has a link to wileyonlinelibrary, but it isn’t working for me…
Bolt Blog: No point to Paris
Bjorn Lomborg measures the difference the Paris climate talks will make to the world’s climate if:
– countries really do back up their promises with action this time.
– the climate really is as sensitive to man’s emissions as alarmists claim.
Hardly worth the trillions of dollars, you might think: …
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/no_point_to_paris/
21
A MUST-READ:
9 Nov: UK Telegraph: Ben Riley-Smith:Britain will miss legally-binding renewable energy target, Energy Secretary admits
Amber Rudd, the Energy Secretary, warns ‘absence of a credible plan’ will trigger repeated fines and a judicial review in leaked letter
Britain will miss a major legally-binding renewable energy target, Amber Rudd, the Energy Secretary, has privately admitted in a letter to other cabinet ministers leaked to the press.
In a candid private message to senior Tories, Ms Rudd downplayed the chances of the UK sourcing 15 per cent of energy, including for transport, power and heating, from renewables by 2020.
She warned that the “absence of a credible plan” to meet the target could trigger repeated fines from the EU Court of Justice and a judicial review.
***Ms Rudd also said that while internal forecasts predicted Britain will fall short of the goal, “publically” the government would say the country “continues to make progress” to hit it…
The letter also appears to suggest buying hydropower from Norway, purchasing clean energy from other EU states or doing a deal with a European country which has over-achieved on its targets to buy their “credits” to help hit the target…
Daisy Sands, head of energy at Greenpeace, said the leaked letter showed “the dark side of the government’s incoherent energy policy in full technicolour”….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11985050/Britain-will-miss-legally-binding-renewable-energy-target-Energy-Secretary-admits.html
get lost Greenpeace.
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“Isolating signals of recent GHG-induced hydroclimate change from this complex record of natural variability will be challenging.”
That’s very funny.
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finally came across the Russia Today Philippe Verdier clip:
Video: 2mins21secs: ‘Crime of opinion’: French weatherman sacked for climate change skeptic book
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfpMXz2bQuw
update: 19,397 supporters have now signed the petition at change.org to have Verdier reinstated.
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http://youtu.be/OWXoRSIxyIU
Nice simple Warmist presentation with 1.5m. Views.
Makes our arguments hard to counter.
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***you should read it all – it’s all about MORE ICE – to see how absurd it is ABC went to Kelleher for a CLIMATE CHANGE quote!
9 Nov: ABC: China and Australia to share Antarctic research to better forecast sea ice conditions
Australian and Chinese scientists have agreed to share information predicting the GROWTH of sea ice in Antarctic waters to help researchers navigate the complex waterway…
The research groups’ aim is to enable collaborative forecasting between the two nations, in an effort to reduce the costly impact of sea ice.
Each year, icebreakers make the voyage to Antarctica to restock the stations there and to conduct scientific research.
Last year saw record sea ice levels that led to icebreakers getting stuck…
***”Interest is growing in the Antarctic, particularly in relation to its importance for understanding climate change,” he (ACE CRC acting chief executive Mark Kelleher) said…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-09/china-and-australia-to-share-antarctic-sea-ice-research/6923262
TChange – making a sea change to Tasmania: Roaring 40s, Tasmania – Woolnorth and Studland Bay wind farms
“There is overwhelming evidence that climate change is real,” says Mark Kelleher, chief executive of Roaring 40s. “Wind-power is going to be a major source of the world’s energy. It is necessary to reduce the amount of fossil fuel being used.”
“Wind is currently the best large-scale application in the world and it has grown worldwide at 28% a year for the past five years,” he said…
However, according to Mark Kelleher, the Australian federal government has started to show concern over global warming caused by carbon emissions. Renewable energy is bound to become more and more valued, he said.
http://www.tchange.com.au/infrastructure/roaring40s.html
LinkedIn: Mark Kelleher, Deputy CEO at Antarctic Climate and Ecosystem Co-operative Research Centre
Experience:
General Manager Business Development
Hydro Tasmania
July 2001 – September 2004
General Manager Corporate / CFO
Hydro Tasmania
July 1998 – June 2001
Manager Finance
Hydro Tasmania
July 1992 – June 1998
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In 2014, the UK Met Office sent up weather balloons – but could not find the ‘Jet Stream’ where it was supposed to be. Soon after, the computer modellers came up with the concept of a ‘waving’ Jet Stream. Manipulating this ‘Wave’ seemed to neatly explain both longitudinal and latitudinal aspects of extreme weather events in especially the Northern Hemisphere. All this without one shred of empirical evidence,(that I could see.)
It seems Stephen Wilde has extended this ‘model’ to include Southern California – presumably to accommodate the ‘death throes’ of the ‘ENSO Fantasy’.
As I wrote previously, the planet is currently subject to a prevailing Solar- induced Orbital ‘Dry Period’ – made up of various ‘Dry Cycles’, that will last until 2020. These ‘Dry Cycles’ are a result of Solar Particles emanating from the Sunspot latitudes of the Sun – and impacting on the moisture content of Earth’s upper atmosphere. This ‘Dry Period’ will be especially severe from 2016, when the Lunar Metonic Cycle will become an exacerbating factor.
There are, however, mitigating circumstances – caused by certain explosive volcanic activity – (in Australia and New Zealand’s case, mainly from the Indonesian Archipelago.)
Note: Over the last week, the South Eastern Seaboard of Australia experienced wet weather, amidst continuing Indonesian volcanic eruptions – even though Australia has been under the influence of the current orbital ‘Dry Period’ since January 2015. (Note the five ‘late’ cyclones experienced to Australia’s North circa April 2015, also amidst Indonesian volcanic activity.)
Among numerous examples of the effect of volcanic activity affecting weather – there was also the ‘snowing in’ of Heath Row Airport (Dec 18 2010,) after the eruption of Eyjallajokull Volcano in Iceland, (April/May 2010.)
These Solar-induced Orbital ‘Dry Cycles’ have a longitudinal terrestrial ‘footprint’ that encroaches from East to West,(with the Solar Orbit of the Earth’s Magnetic Field.) The mitigating explosive volcanic effects, move from West to East, (axial spin.)
So, yes, it may seem paradoxical that the planet can be both universally drought affected and yet in some areas (at the same time,) the ‘Dry’ can be mitigated by factors such as explosive volcanic activity.
For those wishing to investigate further the ‘mechanisms’ of these phenomena, an updated version of ‘Tomorrow’s Weather’ Alex S. Gaddes (1990) (including ‘Dry Cycle’ forecasts to 2055,)is available as a free pdf from [email protected]
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