Now that the most absurd but potentially catastrophic junk science in human history is unraveling and we are preparing to declare victory over gorebull warbling we can devote more attention to neglected junk.
Taking Liberty -- How Private Property is being Abolished in America
Click here to jump straight to the global warming (a.k.a. "climate change", "global weirding", "people are icky, nasty, weather-breaking critters"... ) section if you so desire.Feel free to post your opinions over on the forum (self-register for your free account if you haven't already done so).
Cap-And-Trade Death Clock
The new U.S. Congress will be installed January 3, 2011, at which point U.S. Cap-And-Trade will die:
Oh What a Tangled Web Obamacare Weaves!
Want to see what Obamacare really looks like? Take a gander at this dazzlingly complex chart mapping out America’s new health care system (the chart was developed by the House Joint Economic Committee).
It’s no wonder that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in March said of Obamacare, “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy.” Well, the health care monstrosity passed and we’re left with a confusing fog of new government agencies, regulations and mandates. Continue reading... (The Foundry)
Health Care: A 2,000-page government takeover of the health system was just enacted, but now congressional Democrats want even more government. The "public
option" is rising from the grave.
When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid delighted the liberal Netroots Nation convention in Las Vegas on Saturday by telling them, "We're going to have a public
option. It's a question of when," most people assumed he was talking long-term.
But 128 House Democrats have co-sponsored a bill to establish a "robust" government-operated health insurance program. Their selling point is, surrealistically,
deficit reduction. (IBD)
America's New Health Care Zookeeper
American seniors take note: There's a new bureaucrat in charge of your health care. Perhaps zookeeper is a more appropriate title, as the newly appointed but
never-to-be confirmed head of Obama's Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) likes to refer to the U.S. health care payment system as a zoo.
If you haven't heard of Dr. Donald Berwick, that's because President Obama and his Capitol Hill Democratic colleagues don't want you to have this information. After
leaving the post vacant, Obama snuck him in on Independence Day weekend with a recess appointment. A Washington Post columnist admiringly called the move "positively
dictatorial." (Sally C. Pipes, IBD)
New York to spend big to kill bloodsucking guests
NEW YORK - In the city that never sleeps there is one increasingly busy nocturnal resident who New York wants to evict -- the bedbug.
The city announced plans on Wednesday to spend $500,000 raising awareness of the tiny bloodsucking mites in a bid to kill them off after bedbug complaints grew by 40
percent in the past three years.
"Everyone wants to come to New York, including bedbugs," said New York City Councilwoman Christine Quinn. "But we have a message for them ... drop
dead."
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has battled an outbreak at his Harlem office, along with lingerie outlet Victoria's Secret, teen clothing store Hollister and countless
hotels who have lost thousands of dollars in revenue fighting the bedbug.
New York has been hard hit by bedbugs -- who like to nestle in furniture and suck the blood of humans and animals -- in part because of the high density living and the
millions of tourists who visit the city each year, Quinn said.
Last year more than 33,000 people called the city's bedbug complaint line to ask for help in dealing with the mites.
Bedbugs don't carry disease, but they can be difficult and expensive to get rid of and cause "emotional, psychological and economic anguish," said Councilwoman
Gale Brewer. (Reuters)
They even throw in the "climate change" chestnut: Gender-bending fish on the rise in southern Alberta
University of Calgary researchers say cocktail of chemicals skew sex ratios in river populations
Chemicals present in two rivers in southern Alberta are likely the cause of the feminization of fish say researchers at the University of Calgary who have published
results of their study in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.
"What is unique about our study is the huge geographical area we covered. We found that chemicals – man-made and naturally occurring – that have the potential to
harm fish were present along approximately 600 km of river," says paper co-author Lee Jackson, executive director of Advancing Canadian Wastewater Assets, a research
facility that develops and tests new approaches for treating wastewater which will be located at the City of Calgary's new Pine Creek Wastewater Treatment Centre.
"The situation for native fish will likely get worse as the concentration of organic contaminants will become more concentrated as a response to climate change and
the increase in human and animal populations," adds Jackson. (University of Calgary)
At least they do mention that natural compounds also implicated. On the other hand we do agree that effluent treatment should constantly be upgraded and would prefer only water was discharged without all the therapeutic leftovers.
The Strange Case of Dr. Tyrone Hayes
Warning to reader: Some of the emails quoted below from Dr. Tyrone Hayes are obscene.
For years, the Natural Resources Defense Council and their trial lawyer allies have worked to persuade EPA to ignore 6,000 studies, as well as the agency’s recent
determinations, to re-investigate atrazine, the herbicide that corn growers and other farmers have safely used for more than fifty years.
Exhibit A in their case is Dr. Tyrone Hayes, a University of California at Berkeley biologist, who links atrazine to endocrine disruption in amphibians. Hayes
specifically asserts that atrazine interferes with the sexual development of frogs and is, therefore, a likely cause of abnormalities in humans.
The EPA, alarmed by these claims, designed and oversaw the execution of two multi-million dollars frog studies, one in Germany and one in Maryland. Neither test could
replicate the results Hayes claimed to have found. U.S. EPA officials have also informed state legislators in Minnesota and Illinois that Dr. Hayes refuses to make his
data available to them—although a willingness to share data is the sine qua non of any reputable scientist. A careful analysis of Dr. Hayes’s recent publication in
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found numerous weaknesses in his methodology and misrepresentations in his cites of other studies.
Now we have evidence that Dr. Hayes is not only biased but seriously unbalanced in his attitude toward atrazine and its manufacturer, Syngenta. (Alex Avery, CGFI)
Will Science-Phobia Kill the Green Revolution?
Wednesday, 28 July 2010 23:12
Huffington Post
Jon Entine
July 23, 2010
One only has to look to the hunger crisis in Haiti to see how the debate over innovation and technology in agriculture has degenerated into a cartoon discourse.
In early May, two shipments -- 135 tons -- of hybrid varieties of corn, cabbage, carrot, eggplant, melon, onion, spinach, tomato and watermelon seeds began arriving in
Haiti. It was the first installment of 60,000 seed sacks -- more than $4 million worth -- of high-yielding hybrid corn and vegetable seeds donated after months of careful
negotiations with government and international agricultural experts.
To say the donations are desperately needed is an understatement. According to the UN, every year 38,000 Haitian children, one out of three, die of malnutrition, and more
than half of the country's inhabitants survive on $1 per day. But to some advocacy groups in the United States and Europe, the charity was a nefarious capitalist plot.
Haitian peasant groups, with their headquarters in Brooklyn, New York and with deep ties to international NGOs, marched through Port-au-Prince, carrying "Down with
GMOs and hybrid seeds" banners and threatened to burn the donated seed. It was an odd display. Genetically modified seeds are controversial but none was provided,
asked for, or anticipated by the Haitian government. These were hybrid seeds, around since Gregor Mendel's time in the 1800s. There is no question that they increase
yields over pollinated seeds, whether fertilizer is applied or not. What could possibly be the downside for Haitians?
Unfortunately, the world's poor are often caught in the middle of a ferocious but under-the-radar war over the future of world agriculture and the fate of the
malnourished. According to the World Bank, about three-quarters of the 820 million people who live in extreme poverty depend on farming for a living. How should we as a
society respond to a crisis of such malignant proportions? (Truth About Trade & Technology)
Speculators Rediscover Agricultural Commodities
With the financial crisis fading into the past, speculation on agricultural commodities markets has returned in force. Food prices are climbing once again as hedge funds rediscover the immense profits that can be made -- led by a British chocolate baron. (Spiegel)
Scientists have for the first time regrown a joint inside a body, cultivating thigh joints that were fully functioning only one month after the experiment.
The research could give hope to the almost 72,000 Australians who have joint replacements each year, many of whom run the risk of their artificial joint wearing out
before the end of their life.
Researchers from the US implanted a joint-shaped scaffold into the thigh joint of 10 rabbits, and stimulated the rabbits' stem cells to regrow both the bone and cartilage
around it. They used a naturally occurring protein, called a growth hormone, to direct the stem cells to the site within the body, rather than harvesting them and
manipulating them outside.
The new joints had the potential to do away with metal joint replacements which had a limited lifespan and needed to be replaced within 15 years, said Patrick Warnke,
professor of surgery at Bond University on the Gold Coast.
Professor Warnke, whose commentary on the article was published alongside it in the journal The Lancet, said the future of joint replacements would involve figuring out
how best to grow them in the patient's own body.
"In essence, growing bodies is what all mammals are about," he said. "Human females have the capability to grow a whole new person".
He said scientists had only been able to grow very small parts of the body outside it, with the biggest being the size of a sugar cube.
Professor Warnke said it may be better for patients to grow the joints in parts of their body not needed for movement.
He said the technology could take 10 years to develop, barring any big breakthroughs. (SMH)
SPIEGEL Interview with Craig Venter: 'We Have Learned Nothing from the Genome'
In a SPIEGEL interview, genetic scientist Craig Venter discusses the 10 years he spent sequencing the human genome, why we have learned so little from it a decade on and the potential for mass production of artificial life forms that could be used to produce fuels and other resources. (Spiegel)
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
(The Unites States Constitution, Amendment 2 - Right to Bear Arms. Ratified 12/15/1791.)
The first ten Amendments collectively are commonly known as the Bill of Rights.
Senate Energy Debate is Still all About Cap-and-Trade
The American people broke the code. They know about cap-and-trade. They know it’s a huge tax hike and they don’t want it.
A headline on Thursday screamed: “Democrats pull plug on climate bill.” Don’t believe it. It’s a diversionary tactic.
The Obama administration and Democratic congressional leadership, seeing their window for shoving the country to the hard left closing quickly, are intent on making one
last major push for cap-and-trade. It starts with their “spill-response bill” or “energy bill,” but it’s really about cap-and-trade.
The irony is that the political genius of cap-and-trade was supposed to be that it hides a tax hike from the American people.
The concept was developed largely as a response to the political price suffered by Democrats for their advocacy of outright energy taxes. As Al Gore explained: “I
worked as vice-president to enact a carbon tax. Clinton indulged me against the advice of his economic team. That contributed to our losing Congress two years later to
Newt Gingrich.” (Phil Kerpen, FoxNews.com)
In Wreckage of Climate Bill, Some Clues for Moving Forward
Ample blame exists for the demise of climate legislation in the U.S. Senate, from President Obama’s lack of political courage, to the environmental community’s overly ambitious strategy, to Republican intransigence. A way forward exists, however, to build on the rubble of the Senate’s failure to cap carbon emissions. (Eric Pooley, e360)
The Death Of The Global Warming Movement
The Reid energy bill abandons cap-and-trade, dooming the cause.
Future historians will pinpoint Democratic Sen. Harry Reid's energy legislation, released Tuesday, as the moment that the political movement of global warming entered an
irreversible death spiral. It is kaput! Finito! Done!
This is not just my read of the situation; it is also that of Paul Krugman, the Nobel laureate-turned-Democratic-apparatchik. In his latest column for The New York Times,
Krugman laments that “all hope for action to limit climate change died” in 2010. Democrats had a brief window of opportunity before the politics of global warming
changed forever in November to ram something through Congress. But the Reid bill chose not to do so for the excellent reason that Democrats want to avoid an even bigger
beating than the one they already face at the polls. (Shikha Dalmia, Forbes)
EPA Denies Challenges To Greenhouse Gas Rule
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday rejected 10 petitions challenging EPA's 2009 finding that climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions endanger human
health and the environment.
The EPA received petitions questioning the scientific basis for the so-called endangerment finding -- which cleared the way for the EPA to curb carbon dioxide emissions
-- from Texas and Virginia and groups like the Ohio Coal Association.
With the U.S. Senate abandoning climate measures in the energy bill until at least September, the EPA has the authority to regulate emissions from such human activities
as coal-fired power plants and fossil-fueled factories and vehicles.
"The endangerment finding is based on years of science from the U.S. and around the world," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement. "These
petitions -- based as they are on selectively edited, out-of-context data and a manufactured controversy -- provide no evidence to undermine our determination."
(Reuters)
There is a news release titled July 29, 2010 EPA Rejects Claims of Flawed Climate Science.
It is based on
I am going to comment here on just one of the EPA findings in the rejection. In EPA Rejects Claims of Flawed Climate Science they write
“…the IPCC report… provided a comprehensive and balanced discussion of climate science.”
The EPA, however, in contrast to what they write, chose to ignore the conclusion of such reports, peer reviewed papers, and testimony as
National Research Council, 2005: Radiative forcing of climate change: Expanding the concept and addressing uncertainties. Committee on Radiative Forcing Effects on Climate Change, Climate Research Committee, Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Division on Earth and Life Studies, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 208 pp.
Pielke Sr., R., K. Beven, G. Brasseur, J. Calvert, M. Chahine, R. Dickerson, D. Entekhabi, E. Foufoula-Georgiou, H. Gupta, V. Gupta, W. Krajewski, E. Philip Krider, W. K.M. Lau, J. McDonnell, W. Rossow, J. Schaake, J. Smith, S. Sorooshian, and E. Wood, 2009: Climate change: The need to consider human forcings besides greenhouse gases. Eos, Vol. 90, No. 45, 10 November 2009, 413. Copyright (2009) American Geophysical Union
Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S. Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229.
Pielke, R.A. Sr., 2008: A Broader View of the Role of Humans in the Climate System is Required In the Assessment of Costs and Benefits of Effective Climate Policy. Written Testimony for the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality of the Committee on Energy and Commerce Hearing “Climate Change: Costs of Inaction” – Honorable Rick Boucher, Chairman. June 26, 2008, Washington, DC., 52 pp.
as well as documentation of the deliberate successful attempt to exclude viewpoints in the CCSP and IPCC reports which differ from the EPA findings; e.g.
Pielke, R.A. Sr., 2005: Public Comment on CCSP Report “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences”. 88 pp including appendices.
The EPA claim that
“After months of serious consideration of the petitions and of the state of climate change science EPA finds no evidence to support these claims”
is absurd.
It is almost trivial to show that the EPA is not properly considering peer reviewed research that differs from their findings.
As just one example, they write
“The global warming trend over the past 100 years is confirmed by three separate records of surface temperature, all of which are confirmed by satellite data.”
There are not three independent records of surface temperatures trends as we reported in our Pielke et al 2007, i.e.
“The raw surface temperature data from which all of the different global surface temperature trend analyses are derived are essentially the same. The best estimate that has been reported is that 90–95% of the raw data in each of the analyses is the same (P. Jones, personal communication, 2003).
They also ignored peer reviewed research that shows a discrepancy between the surface and lower tropospheric temperature trends; i.e.
Klotzbach, P.J., R.A. Pielke Sr., R.A. Pielke Jr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2009: An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere. J. Geophys. Res., 114, D21102, doi:10.1029/2009JD011841.
This EPA Denial is yet another perpetuation of the group think that was so evident in the released CRU e-mails. (Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science)
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association on Tuesday filed a lawsuit seeking to rewrite the ballot description of Proposition 23, a measure voters will consider in
November that would suspend California's global warming law.
Saying that state Attorney General Jerry Brown had deliberately written a misleading title and summary aimed at killing the measure, the taxpayers association asked a
Sacramento County Superior Court to nullify and change it.
"Whether intentional or not, it certainly looks as though the attorney general has crafted a description intended to sway voters to vote 'no' on Prop. 23," said
Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (Mercury News)
There is a really interesting article at the Times Higher Ed Supp, discussing the coalition of big business and big green - the baptists and the bootleggers - who have joined forces to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.
(Bishop Hill)BP has a representative at the top of the Earth Institute. The European Commission funds offices for Friends of the Earth and the WWF. The UK government supports climate-change research. Have the poachers turned gamekeepers? Yes - although it might be more precise to say that the bootleggers have become Baptists. Everywhere, the bootleggers can be seen walking around in black, spouting biblical prophecies of doom - and growing ever richer in the process
NOAA to Skeptics: We’re Right, You Can’t Deny It
by Richard Morrison
29 July 2010 @ 6:03 pm
A recent report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has received wide media attention, has come to the conclusion that evidence for anthropogenic global warming is “undeniable.” This has, of course, been seized on by alarmists as confirming that all of their proposed solutions to future warming must therefore be undeniably correct as well. The conclusions of the report are also being used in attempts to try to bury the Climategate scandal of recent months.
Fiona Harvey of the Financial Times reported on this story (reg. req’d.) for the front page of today’s print edition and has the good sense to quote our very own Myron Ebell for a rebuttal:
Sceptics remain unconvinced. Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said: “I think climategate is…
Read the full story (Cooler Heads)
Alarmist ‘State of the Climate’ Report Draws Fire
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its new “State of the Climate 2009” report on July 28, claiming that evidence for global warming is “unmistakable” and that it’s happening because of greenhouse gases. But critics are already poking holes in the alarmist arguments as the press jumps on the story. (Alex Newman, New American)
Global Temperature And Data Distortions Continue
Recent reports claim June was the warmest on record, but it seems to fly in the face of reports of record cold from around the world. (Tim Ball, CFP)
The Left and Its Talking Points
The Journolist story demonstrates active, covert collaboration among leftists to plant political themes in the media. Long-time listeners of conservative talk radio
are aware of audio montages where old-line media talking heads repeat verbatim a set of words that can't be anything other than shared talking points. A perfect example
was the 2000-era Dick Cheney "gravitas" showcased by Rush Limbaugh.
It's one thing to ask how proper reporting of Obama might have changed the outcome of the election. I'll ask a bigger question: Did old-line media journalists share
talking points to prop up the global warming issue? (Russell Cook, American Thinker)
Response to George Monbiot: Why 'Amazongate' matters
George Monbiot should be calling the IPCC to account for its unreferenced rainforest claims, rather than attacking its critics (Richard North, Guardian)
Is New Scientist making things up?
New Scientist has published a rather remarkable leader to go alongside its interview of Phil Jones:
For years, ruthless climate sceptics have harassed scientists, drowning them in freedom of information requests and subjecting them to vicious personal attacks. Climategate was merely the public face of this insurgent war. In that hostile climate, some scientists fired off personal emails that occasionally lacked decorum. The CRU accepts this. When will their opponents apologise for their own excesses?
It would be interesting to see whether the leader writer at New Scientist can explain from where they got the idea that CRU had drowned under FoI requests. This was not the finding of the inquiries. The Information Commissioner specifically told the Parliamentary Inquiry that the level of FoI requests was nothing out of the ordinary:
I am also bound to say that I think a figure of around 60 [requests] has been mentioned. That does not strike me as being an absolutely huge number...I do recall one example—I think it involved Birmingham City Council—where an individual made about 200 requests about a particular allotment site in Birmingham and how that was being developed.
I'd like to invite whoever it is that wrote this column to provide some backing for their claim - perhaps someone who is registered at the New Scientist website can pass the invitation on. (Bishop Hill)
Expert: Win climate change debate by easing off science
Panelist says issue must be reframed before time runs out
The battle to get Americans to accept the science behind climate change has been “lost,” an expert at the Aspen Environment Forum declared Wednesday, but there's
still a way to win the war to reduce carbon emissions.
Jonathan Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, said leaders on climate change need to concentrate on changing behavior in
ways that appeal to people — and also happen to reduce carbon emissions.
“Climate scientists — stop talking about climate science. We lost. It's over. Forget it,” Foley told a surprised audience during a featured panel discussion on the
last day of the three-day forum. (Scott Condon, Post Independent)
Is Prince Charles ill-advised, or merely idiotic?
I do wish the Prince of Wales weren’t such a terrible prat because then I wouldn’t have to say it in print and quite ruin my chances of a knighthood. But he is a
prat. A dangerous prat at that — as he reminded us yet again just the other day in a speech he gave to ‘business leaders’ at St James’s Palace about what he
thinks is happening with ‘climate change’.
He said: ‘It has been profoundly depressing to witness the way the so-called climate sceptics are apparently able to intimidate all sorts of people from adopting the
precautionary measures necessary to avert environmental collapse. For too long we have treated the planet like a perpetual cash machine which doles out money without
there ever being any need to check the bank balance. But now finally the money is running out.’
There are so many idiocies, false assumptions, inversions of the truth and malevolent yearnings in just that one paragraph that I’m not sure where to begin. The phrase
‘so-called climate sceptics’, for example. What exactly is the Prince suggesting that the rational, decent empiricists who oppose global climate change alarmism ought
to be called instead? Is ‘deniers’ perhaps the word he’s straining for? Or would he prefer something a little more robust? Untermenschen, maybe. (James Delingpole,
The Spectator)
Nice work if you can get it: $1.5m for climate chiefs
THE five climate change experts Julia Gillard hopes to inform public opinion on the issue will be paid an average of $300,000 a year.
Further detail on the government's heavily criticised attempt to build a community consensus on climate change have emerged in Labor's official request for costings from
the Treasury. It reveals the $6 million Climate Change Commission will have five commissioners, each earning an average of $300,000, in line with the mid-point of pay
guidelines set by the Remuneration Tribunal.
The commission, which the government expects to start in October and last four years, is intended to be an independent source of information and expert advice to explain
the science of climate change and report on international action. (The Age)
Our Climate: the ultimate AGW Apple app for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch
A
very large fraction of the respectable names of the climate science that you know - Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer, Fred Singer, Henrik Svensmark, Willie Soon, Will Happer,
Bob Carter, Craig Idso, Paul Reiter but also folks such as Lord Christopher Monckton, Joanne Nova, Anthony Watts, or your humble correspondent, among many and many others
- have helped Aeris Systems - a truly professional and well-educated firm - to build the state-of-the-art application that explains and studies the science of climate
change.
Click the tree logo at the very top to get to the Apple home page of the app or remember the ourclimate.info URL
(old). AppShopper has a page, too. To
actually buy the app, you need an Apple ID. When you have it, run your iTunes, search for Our Climate in the right upper corner, filter by apps, and you will see
the tree logo once again.
itunes.com/apps/ourclimateThe result is a fantastic application sold for USD 0.99 (or EUR 0.79) whose real value is hundreds of dollars.
... (click to open app page directly in iTunes)
» Don't Stop Reading » (The Reference Frame)
Global Warming Hoax Weekly Round-Up, July 29 2010
A game show host challenges Al Gore to live the green life, the Governator seems rudderless in defense of his climate bill and global warming causes Mexicans, or something. (Daily Bayonet)
This is on UHIE: More Frequent, More Intense Heat Waves in Store for New York
Heat waves like those that baked the Northeast in July are likely to be more frequent and more intense in the future, with their effects amplified in densely built urban environments like Manhattan, according to climate scientists at The City College of New York (CCNY).
Running this again because it seems to surprise a few: UI researcher finds black carbon implicated in global warming
Increasing the ratio of black carbon to sulfate in the atmosphere increases climate warming, suggests a study conducted by a University of Iowa professor and his colleagues and published in the July 25 issue of the journal Nature Geoscience. (University of Iowa News Release)
Funny thing is that AGW proponents still object to the idea of supporting cheap coal-fired electricity in southern Asia even though that will reduce the Asian Brown Cloud, "global warming" and Himalayan glacial melt allegedly of such concern. Go figure...
Signs of reversal of Arctic cooling in some areas
New data indicate rapid temperature rise in the coldest region of mainland Europe
Moscow/Stuttgart/ Halle(Saale). Parts of the Arctic have cooled clearly over the past century, but temperatures have been rising steeply since 1990 also there. This is
the finding of a summer temperature reconstruction for the past 400 years produced on the base of tree rings from regions beyond the Arctic Circle. German and Russian
researchers analysed tree growth using ring width of pine from Russia's Kola Peninsula and compared their findings with similar studies from other parts of the Arctic.
For the past 400 years since AD 1600, the reconstructed summer temperature on Kola in the months of July and August has varied between 10.4°C (1709) and 14.7°C (1957),
with a mean of 12.2°C. Afterwards, after a cooling phase, a ongoing warming can be observed from 1990 onwards. Researchers from the Institute of Geography in Moscow,
Hohenheim University and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) report in journal Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research: "The data indicate that solar
activity may have been one of the major driving factors of summer temperatures, but this has been overlaid by other factors since 1990". (Helmholtz Association of
German Research Centres)
We have featured Antarctica many times in our essay series, and despite a million claims that “the icecaps are melting,” we continue to find no end of articles in major journals building a case for the opposite. Here we examine some recent research, and find evidence for decreased melting and, at least local, mass gains. (WCR)
First Results from THE BOX: Investigating the Effects of Infrared Sky Radiation on Air Temperature
(UPDATED: 3:10 p.m. July 29, 2010 with temperature difference plot)
As promised, here are the first results from my little backyard experiment to investigate the role of downwelling infrared (IR) sky radiation on air temperature. (High school students looking for a science experiment, pay attention).
It’s a heavily insulated box that — theoretically — should chill air at night to a temperature below that of the outside air. The following is a conceptual
design of The Box before I built it, along with the key components:
This all came about because I got tired of being asked about the theory behind global warming, specifically, how can downwelling infrared sky radiation from greenhouse gases (mostly water vapor, to a lesser extent CO2) cause global warming of the Earth surface, when the emitting temperature of the sky is colder than the surface?
Some people are convinced that this cannot happen, since the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics says energy naturally flows from higher temperature to lower temperature. In contrast, the mainstream science community, while agreeing the NET energy flow is from warm to cold, you can still cause warming by adding more greenhouse gas to the colder atmosphere. This happens even though the IR emitting temperature of the sky “causing” that warming is 10’s of degrees colder than the surface.
[NOTE: the direct warming effect of more atmospheric CO2 is small; its the resulting indirect warming (positive feedbacks) from clouds and water vapor that has most scientists worried. But not me...I think the net feedbacks are negative.]
The Box
So, since I have two automated weather stations in my backyard, I decided to build a heavily insulated box that would contain a small amount of air, and try to reduce all the other kinds of energy exchange between that air sample and the environment to a minimum EXCEPT for the influence of the downwelling sky radiation.
The air sample and the sky would be allowed to exchange IR radiation, and the colder the infrared emitting temperature of the sky is, the colder the air in the box should become compared to the air outside of the box. More about that later.
While we might not put the debate to rest with such an experiment, we can build some intuition about the energy flows that cause day and night air temperatures to be what they are. Of course, one could simply buy a hand-held infrared radiometer and take the sky’s “temperature” directly. But since everyone (myself included) has at least some trouble conceptualizing the role of infrared radiation in weather and climate (after all, we can’t see IR radiation), I thought that letting the IR effect be measured through its influence on temperature would make a bigger impact.
So, here’s a picture of the real thing that I took this morning, after collecting data since about noon yesterday:
The wireless data processor for the cavity temperature data is the little unit on the top. It sends a new temperature measurement every 5 minutes to my desktop computer
in the house.
Here’s a close-up of the cavity. There is an insulating layer of air trapped between the two thin sheets of polyethylene, which are nearly transparent to infrared
energy. The temperature sensor itself can be seen below that, in the cavity, the walls of which are painted with high emissivity paint (Krylon 1502 Flat White, IR
emissivity = 0.99; Note that in the infrared, black is not necessarily more emissive than white…it depends on what the paint is made of, and whether the surface is
rough or smooth).
Meanwhile, my regular weather station is about 20 feet away, and it is collecting air temperature and dewpoint data on the same schedule as The Box cavity temperatures
are taken:
First Data from The Box
The first 17 hours of data, from midday yesterday until 8:05 a.m. this morning, are plotted below:
When I first closed up the box with the thermometer placed in the cavity, I was surprised how hot the cavity became. The maximum temperature recorded yesterday afternoon was 158 deg. F, and that must have been the limit for the sensor, because the temperature then flatlined for about an hour.
The reason for the high temperature was some direct sunlight reflecting off of one wall of the airspace, above the cavity. Even though the cavity was painted white, it still absorbed enough energy to make the air very hot. From what I have been able to gather, it is very difficult to get the solar reflectance of white paint above about 0.9.
It is interesting to calculate what rate of energy input would be required to cause this rapid rate of warming, which was about 3 deg. F per minute. If the cavity is initially in energy equilibrium, and we start reflecting 20 Watts per sq. meter more onto the cavity walls, about 10% of that (2 Watts per sq. meter) would be heating the paint, and so the air in the cavity.
According to my calculations, that would be more than enough to explain the initial rapid rise of temperature in the cavity on its way to 158+ deg. F. My calculations are only approximate, though, since I did not take into account the heat capacity of the cavity walls (painted aluminum foil), or the increased loss of IR as the cavity warmed, or conductive losses to the styrofoam and air space above the cavity.
But what we are really interested in is what happens when the overwhelming influence of solar radiation subsides. In the above plot, look at what happens as sunset
approaches. Despite diffuse solar radiation still entering The Box from the blue sky, the cavity air cools to a couple of degrees below the ambient air
temperature by sunset. Then, during the night, the cavity air averages about 4 deg. F colder than the outside air. This is easier to see in the next plot of the
temperature difference between the cavity and the outside air, which we see remains pretty constant during the night:
To see how even a little diffuse sunlight from the sky can cause warming of the cavity, note what happened just after sunrise this morning…even though our yard does not see direct sunlight till close to 11 a.m. (very tall trees in the way), the blue sky started warming the cavity almost immediately after sunrise.
Then, after a short while, I put a white cover from a plastic cooler over the cavity to minimize the daytime heating of the cavity. At the end of the data plot you can see this solar cover caused the cavity to cool back down to the same temperature as the ambient air.
So, we already can see the cooling effect of infrared radiation in the data…in the form of cavity temperatures colder than the air. This happens from just before sunset, until sunrise — the period when there is little or no sunlight, either direct, or diffuse from the sky. But what, exactly, is the reason for this chilling effect?
Why Was the Cavity Colder than the Outside Air Temperature?
The temperature of virtually anything is the result of a balance between (1) energy gained and (2) energy lost. As long as the energy gained exceeds that lost, the
temperature will rise. This was clearly seen when I closed up The Box, and the rate of sunlight absorption in the cavity exceeded the rate of energy lost by infrared
emission (and any — hopefully small — conductive losses). The temperature skyrocketed.
But once the rate of energy loss exceeds that gained, then the temperature will fall, as was seen when The Box entered the shade. Then, then rate of IR energy lost (which increases rapidly with temperature) exceeded that gained from diffuse solar radiation, and the cavity temperature fell.
So, at night when there is no solar energy available, what is to prevent the cavity from getting very cold? Outer space is supposed to emit near absolute zero, 3 K. The Box’s cavity enters the hours of darkness at something like 300 K temperature. At 300 K, and assuming an IR emissivity of 0.99, the cavity is emitting IR at a rate of just over 400 Watts per sq. meter. Assuming the box is very well insulated, and is not leaking air, what is to prevent the cavity temperature from dropping well below freezing (273 K)?
The answer is downwelling IR from the sky. During the day in the summer, the broadband infrared sky temperatures viewed from the ground generally runs about 10 – 20 deg. F cooler than the near-surface air temperatures. This source of energy must exist, because without it the temperature of a cavity in a well insulated box at night would plunge even faster than we saw it heat up when exposed to indirect sunlight. And that rapid rate of temperature rise was due to only about 2 Watts per sq. meter! Imagine what in imbalance of 400 Watts per sq. meter would do.
Instead, the sky emits at only a slightly lower temperature than the surface, so the cavity cools only a little at night: about 4 deg. F cooling out of a “potential cooling” of 15 deg. F, assuming the IR emissivity of the cavity is 1.0.
By the way, I calculate that, if the cavity emissivity was only 0.90 rather than the advertised 0.99 (we really don’t know), we could explain the entire 4 deg. F drop based upon the cavity coming to a radiating temperature equal to that of the sky.
Presumably, once drier air arrives here in Alabama in another couple months, I should see larger temperature falls in the cavity, since water vapor is the Earth’s main greenhouse gas. In the meantime, I’m open to suggestions regarding simple ways to make The Box more efficient at rejecting all sources of energy except downwelling infrared radiation from the sky.
…a radiation source which some say, does not exist. 
(Roy W. Spencer)
Exclude fuel from carbon scheme: Caltex
Oil refiner and marketer Caltex Australia Ltd says motorists should be excluded from any proposed carbon pollution reduction scheme because it would be ineffective at
reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Caltex chief executive Julian Segal said a price on carbon would have little effect on fuel consumption, with a long-term reduction of only two per cent.
"As a result, Caltex proposes motorists and light commercial vehicles should not be included in any emission trading scheme."
Mr Segal also called for greater support through tax concessions and grants to establish a first generation biofuels market in Australia. (AAP)
Here's a better idea: forget about carbon altogether.
Ed. note: This piece first appeared on Energy Outlook, Geoffrey Styles’ blog.
I've been going though BP's second-quarter earnings press release and results to get a better sense of the impact of the Gulf Coast oil spill on the company's finances. It's a measure of the scale of a "Supermajor" like BP and the robustness of its underlying cash flows that it could continue to invest more than $6 billion (B) in capital projects and acquisitions in the quarter and even pay down a bit of debt, while recording a charge of $32.2 B against earnings related to the Deepwater Horizon disaster and ensuing oil leak. To put that figure in perspective, it's more than the market capitalization of Exelon Corporation, the largest owner and operator of nuclear power plants in the US. Yet among all of the remarkable and morbidly-fascinating numbers presented here, the one that stood out for me was the net decrease of shareholder equity by $16 B since the end of 2009. Anyone seeking to explain the decision of BP's board to change CEOs should start there. (Geoffrey Styles, Energy Tribune)
Ethanol Opponents Launch Counterattack
For months, the corn ethanol industry has been pushing the Obama administration for permission to increase the amount of ethanol that can be blended into the US gasoline supply. [Read More] (Robert Bryce, Energy Tribune)
Energy Subsidies — Good and Bad
Congress must soon decide whether to extend federal tax subsidies for renewable energy that expire at the end of the year. The subsidies for wind, solar and geothermal energy are necessary to give these energy sources the help they need to compete with oil, coal and natural gas. While it renews those subsidies, Congress should end tax breaks for corn ethanol, which can stand on its own and is of dubious environmental benefit. (NYT)
At least we agree about ethanol. I'd junk the wind and solar subsidies for sure and I'm none to enthusiastic about any other taxpayer teats either.
New Mexico: Raising Rates for Bad Energy in a Poor State
by Marita Noon
July 29, 2010
New Mexico has enjoyed some of the lowest energy prices in the country—which is good as it is a poor state. However, the major supplier of electricity to the state, PNM, has just asked for a 21.2% rate increase on top of the 24% they’ve received over the last few years. Welcome to the new world of government-forced renewable energy–and one reason why Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) recently said he didn’t have the votes for a federal renewable portfolio standard (RPS).
The anticipated rate shock gets worse for New Mexicans: a nearly 50% rate hike in five years. While PNM claims New Mexico still has some of the lowest rates in the country, the citizens are not taking the preventable increase lying down. David King, chairman of the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (PRC), for example, calls the rate increase a “hot potato” saying that he’s received “a flood of calls from ratepayers.”
Public Outcry
During the month of July, PNM has been holding Public Forums through out their service area regarding their Integrated Resource Plan (IRP). The flyer promoting the event invited the “public” to join in on the discussion on topics such as “To what degree are consumers willing to pay more for a different combination of power sources?” The news about the proposed rate increase came out at the same time as the forums were scheduled. While PNM had a set program they’d planned to deliver, the attendees had little interest in the PNM’s dog-and-pony show. [Read more →] (MasterResource)
Analysis: BP Spill Seeps Into Norway's Arctic Drilling Debate
Norway's decades-old political consensus on offshore drilling is under attack in the wake of the BP oil spill, just as it covets new riches in the Arctic.
The powerful oil industry says it needs to tap resources off the Arctic archipelagoes of Lofoten and Vesteraalen and in a huge, recently demarcated Barents Sea border
region with Russia to continue Norway's oil boom amid dwindling North Sea output.
But, emboldened by the Gulf of Mexico well blowout, Norwegian environmentalists seek to grab the upper hand in a battle they feel they have long been loosing.
So far Oslo's energy policy has not been affected much by the spill, but the drilling lobby is nervous. (Reuters)
Engineers race to design world's biggest offshore wind turbines
British, American and Norwegian engineers are in a race to design and build the holy grail of wind turbines – giant, 10MW offshore machines twice the size and power of anything seen before – that could transform the global energy market because of their economies of scale. (ERW)
We need to talk about wind farms…
“Energy prices may rise by a third,” says our disastrous secretary of state of energy and climate change Chris Huhne. Rubbish. They’re going to rise by a hell of a lot more than that before he is finished. Alternative energy, let us never forget, is just that: an alternative to energy. Wind power and solar power are so risibly inefficient that the only way they can ever be economically viable is with lashings and lashings of taxpayer subsidy. Nuclear power would be much more effective but Huhne has effectively ruled it out. Why? Because in Huhne’s bizarre Weltanschauung, it’s OK for the taxpayer to subsidise low-carbon energy that doesn’t work (wind, solar) but not low-carbon energy that does work (nuclear). (James Delingpole)
