EXCEPTIONAL SEPTEMBER WARMTH? NOT IN MOST OF THE UK

This article explains how distorted the Met Office has been over the very high temperatures (34C) in a few weather stations in Kent and London. However a true picture of the rest of the UK tells a different story. One of pleasant warmth in southern parts, but certainly not exceptional. Anyone would think they were trying to use their reports as propaganda to sell the idea of dangerous global warming.

AUTHORS OF NEW CLIMATE PAPER FORCED TO USE A PSEUDONYM TO GET PUBLISHED

Here is the lengthy saga which reveals just how difficult it is for a non-conformist scientist to get published. In fact his reputation was so bad in the eyes of the publishers that when their true identities were revealed they withdrew the paper. It seems that prejudice is alive and well in climate science. It has connotations to the Spanish Inquisition.

"PROVIDE THE EVIDENCE THAT GLOBAL WARMING IS A NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT", DEMAND REPUBLICANS

This article explains how the Republicans are demanding that President Obama provides the evidence that global warming is a national security threat. This stems from a recent executive memoranda by the president requiring federal officials to consider the impact of global warming on national security.

IS THE DECLINE IN ARCTIC SEA ICE SLOWING DOWN?

This article reveals the truth about the decline in Arctic sea ice. One interesting observation is that the decline seems to have slowed down in recent years, just as CO2 levels in the atmosphere have increased more rapidly. So where is the link you may ask?

ELECTRIC CAR SALES DROP AFTER UK GOVERNMENT CUTS SUBSIDIES

Biofuels International, 15 September 2016
 Sales of electric cars have fallen sharply after the UK government cut a grant scheme that encouraged drivers to switch from petrol.

According to Department for Transport statistics, between April and June 4,200 plug-in cars were sold – the lowest for two years.

The government announced last year that it would extend grants for electric cars for a further two years but halved the payments to £2,500. Around 17,500 cars were registered in the first three months of the year as motorists took advantage of the grants before they were cut.

The Department for Transport was criticised for its “lack of strategy” in encouraging green car sales in an environmental audit select committee report published earlier this month (September).

OIL COMPANIES NEED NOT WORRY ABOUT ELECTRIC CARS

Oil Price, 16 September 2016

Irina Slav
 It may be a little premature for the oil industry to panic over the influx of electric vehicles (EV). EVs would need to represent at least 50 percent of the global car market by 2035 if the Paris Agreement’s minimum target for reducing global warming rates by 1.5 degrees Celsius is to become a reality, according to a fresh report by the Climate Action Tracker. But Big Oil can sleep easy, nonetheless.

To put the EV target in perspective, let’s see some new EV registration figures for Q1 2015 by the top performers worldwide. The leader was Norway, with new EV registrations accounting for a third of the total. Second from the top globally was the Netherlands, where new EV buys were 5.7 percent of all new registrations, and the UK came third with EVs accounting for 1.2 percent of all new registration.
In the rest of the leading car markets, including the U.S., China, Germany, and Japan, new EV sales didn’t even make it to 1 percent of total new car sales. What’s more, these figures include not just purely electric vehicles, but also plug-in hybrids, which use fossil fuel.

According to an FT analysis from 2010, projections are for EVs to reach a market share of around 9 percent in Western Europe by 2020, almost 14 percent in the US, and less than 3 percent in China. These are projections for a ten-year period, it’s worth noting, made when the EV industry was in its childhood.

Since then, incentives for EV buyers have been ramped up, carmakers are striving to make their electric cars more affordable and their batteries more durable, and campaigners are campaigning for a “paradigm shift”, as CAT calls it, that would see more people realize the urgency of climate change action.

Hypothetically, this paradigm shift would mark the beginning of the end for the oil industry as we know it. Realistically, however, such paradigm shifts take time, and a lot of it, especially if we’re looking at the world as a whole, not just the developed part of it.

In February this year, Bloomberg New Energy Finance published a report forecasting that by 2040 electric vehicles will account for 35 percent of the global market, with long-range EVs selling for an average $22,000. This, according to the authors, would be made possible by the billions of dollars invested in better, more durable batteries, and more efficient EVs, which should see the annual growth rate in sales of such vehicles at 30 percent or more.

According to the Bloomberg analysts, if this happens, EVs will displace around 1 million barrels of crude in daily global consumption some time around 2026, and 2 million bpd in 2028. To compare, the current oil glut is somewhere between 1 and 2 million barrels a day. And the oil industry is still standing.

In its report, CAT, which is a group of four research organizations tracking the climate change fight efforts of 32 countries that account for 80 percent of harmful emissions, says that the last internal combustion engine-powered car must be sold in 2035, if the Paris Agreement targets are to be achieved. This basically gives carmakers less than 20 years to either switch to all-EV production or go under. It sounds unreal, and it is unreal.

Global new car sales so far this year in some of the biggest markets have reached 33.268 million as of end-August. At average new car sales of around 3 million vehicles a month, the annual this year could reach some 45 million vehicles. At the moment, the share of EVs in this total is 1 percent globally.

CHINA FUNDS AND BUILDS EUROPE'S NEW COAL PLANTS

Reuters, 20 September 2016

Maja Zuvela

The Balkan region’s first privately-funded power plant came online on Tuesday, increasing the region’s dependency on coal-fired power stations even as environmental concerns are driving them to the brink of the extinction elsewhere in Europe. 

The 300-megawatt plant, in the northern Bosnian town of Stanari, is a foreign investment in a chronically impoverished country that remains heavily dependent on foreign aid more than 20 years after it emerged from war.

Even though the Western Balkans has a power deficit, European investors are reluctant to finance more polluting coal which forms the backbone of supply in the region, attracting Chinese financiers and contractors.

Work on the investment, by Serbian-run but British-based Energy Financing Team (EFT), started in 2013. It was built by China’s Dongfang Electric Corp and financed with the help of a 350 million euro ($391.13 million) loan from the China Development Bank.

EFT, which focuses on power markets in central and southeast Europe, won a 30-year concession in 2008 to build the Stanari plant and expand an adjacent coal mine that will feed it at a total cost of 560 million euros ($625.63 million).

Lignite – the most polluting type of coal – is widely available in the Balkans, making it appealing to governments seeking ways of ensuring security of supply and keeping energy prices low while also placating influential mining lobbies.

The new plant, which will generate 2,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year, creating 1,000 jobs, will strengthen Bosnia’s position as a leading energy exporter to the region.

It generates more than 40 percent of its electricity from hydroelectric power, making it, along with Bulgaria and Romania, one of the few Balkan countries with a domestic power surplus.

Environmentalists fear that the region’s cash-strapped governments will be tempted to cut corners in this and other projects, exposing them to costly upgrade costs once they join the European Union.

Some 2,800 megawatts of extra coal-fired capacity is planned across the region in coming years at a total cost of 4.5 billion euros, most of it financed by China.

NEW PAPER SHOWS THAT CO2 DOES NOT CAUSE SIGNIFICANT GLOBAL WARMING

This report shows the evidence that CO2 is causing significant global warming is not valid. It is rather difficult to understand for those without a good knowledge of statistics, but the summary is clear.

Findings of the Research:
These analysis results would appear to leave very, very little doubt but that the USA Environmental Protection Agency's claim of a Tropical Hot Spot (THS), caused by rising atmospheric CO2 levels, simply does not exist in the real world. Also critically important, even on an all-other-things-equal basis, this analysis failed to find that the steadily rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations have had a statistically significant impact on any of the 13 critically important temperature time series data analysed.

INDOCTRINATION IN OUR CLASSROOMS GOES ON

This conference seems to be giving a very one-sided view of this controversial issue. Propaganda  should not play a part in a balanced education system, but when the government is trying to convince us all that it is right then it is not likely to make any effort to put forward arguments against itself. In other words politics trumps science.

THE AMAZING ARCTIC ICE MELT PREDICTION FLIP-FLOPS

This article looks at the recent history of wild claims of the imminent demise of Arctic sea ice in summer. It is very amusing to see how each claim is proved wrong, only to be followed by another, without any acknowledgment that the previous one was wrong.

RETURN OF THE BLOB

The title of this post is reminiscent of a horror movie and it relates to this article in which a discussion of the area of warm water in the northern Pacific (the blob) and its role in the recent upsurge in world temperatures is to be found. By December of 2015 many considered the blob had dissipated; By then the El Niño was intense. But the latest measurements indicate that the blob has not gone away and is currently resting several hundred metres below the ocean’s surface. The new data indicates that the region’s upper waters are being mixed by the wind again and coming back to normal temperatures, but the residual effect of the blob is still there at about 150 to 200 metres below the surface.

ENERGY INTENSIVE INDUSTRIES - CLIMATE POLICY CASUALTIES

This report explains how the UK's climate change policies are having a much greater effect on the energy intensive industries (EII's) than the government is willing to admit. Data from the Annual Business Survey conducted by the Office of National Statistics (ONS), shows that while companies engaged in the manufacture of iron, steel and ferro-alloys had a Gross Operating Surplus (GOS) of approximately £1.3 billion in 2008, their energy costs of £0.57 billion were equal to 44% of that sum. In 2014 the sector had an operating surplus of £169million, and energy costs were 330% of GOS.

Mistaken concentration on present policy impacts, ignoring much larger effects in the near future. Even EII's entitled to compensation are presently paying energy prices as much as18% higher than they would be without energy and climate policies, and for an EII without compensation they are 26% higher. However, by 2020 the figures will be 22% higher for a compensated business, and 76% higher for an uncompensated business.

BBC ON THICK ICE AGAIN

This article explains how lucky the recent expedition by David Hempleman-Adams, was by sailing right round the north of Europe and North America, guided by a legendary Russian yachtsman, Nikolai Litau. After several hairy weeks dodging huge lumps of ice in the Laptev Sea off Siberia they just made it. This September the Arctic has begun its annual refreeze earlier than at any time for 19 years.

ARCTIC ICE ON THE INCREASE

This article explains what is currently happening with Arctic Ice. It would appear that there has been an early onset of cold weather which is causing the sea ice to refreeze. It will be interesting to sea how it pans out over the winter months. 

SARKOZY THE CLIMATE SCEPTIC?

Sarkozy comes out of the closet as a climate skeptic

The Local · 15 Sep 2016, 09:00

Published: 15 Sep 2016 09:00 GMT+02:00

Presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy reckons that climate change is not caused by man and that the world has far bigger problems on its hands than global warming.

Nicolas Sarkozy, who is fighting to regain the presidency that he lost to François Hollande in 2012, has finally come out of the closet as a climate skeptic.
Speaking in front of business leaders Sarkozy, a candidate for Les Republicains party primary in November, told them that man alone was not to blame for climate change.
“Climate has been changing for four billion years,” the former president said according to AFP. “Sahara has become a desert, it isn’t because of industry. You need to be as arrogant as men are to believe we changed the climate.”
Sarkozy has minimized the climate change in the past, but up until now he has never openly suggested that man was not to blame.
It appears the ex-president has an all round grudge against climate change.
The former president believes the world should be concentrating on the rise in the population and movement of people rather than worrying so much about global warming.
“Never has the earth experienced such a demographic shock as it is about to, because in a few years there will be 11 billion of us. And man is directly responsible in this case but nobody talks about it,” Sarkozy said.
Sarkozy was also angry at the amount of global media coverage given to the COP21 climate change conference in Paris last year, that was hailed a success not just for the future of the earth but for the Socialist government who helped force through an historic deal.
Sarkozy believes the media should have been concentrating on the Paris terror attacks, that occurred just weeks before on November 13th.
The former president must have been too busy to notice the enormous amount of media coverage both in France and around the globe that was dedicated to the terror attacks.

"DEMAND MANAGEMENT" AND OTHER WEAZEL WORDS ON ENERGY SUPPLY

Yesterday I listened to the evidence to the Economic Affairs Committee of the UK House of Lords given by both Lord Adair Turner and Lord Nigel Lawson. You can hear the debate here. It is difficult to judge what effect, if any, this session might have. Lord Turner is a very polished performer and superficially gave a very persuasive case. Lawson is, by comparison, a little hesitant in his delivery at times, though he gave a very combative case and put some powerful arguments.  At one point Turner mentioned "demand management" as a means of reducing peak demand in electricity supply. I would have liked a more detailed scrutiny of this. What he really means by this is that the consumer (in other words, us!) will lose control of when he can use his appliances - or face huge extra costs if he does so. Once we have "smart meters" in our homes the control will pass from us to the generating companies. The public have no idea what is coming down the tracks.

PUBLIC BEING KEPT IN THE DARK ABOUT BIRD DEATHS DUE TO WINDFARMS

Hiding evidence of the massacre

News of bird and bat deaths at wind farms have reduced to a trickle. Does that mean that a solution has been found? Yes, it has, but it’s not what you think. Wind turbines are every year more numerous and the massacre they cause is ever increasing. What has changed is that the cover up is now effective at 100%, or just about.
Another excerpt:
… a report just surfaced in Edinburgh, reassuring the Scots on the fate of their beloved eagles. Wind turbines may be installed near eagle nests, it claims, provided ornithologists are paid, during the life of the wind farm, to feed the eagles and monitor their behavior. It’s pure rubbish, but it keeps ornithologists and bird societies happy. Officially, they are the ones who “know” about birds, and their opinion is taken into consideration by the authorities; so it’s important for the wind lobby to keep them cheery. In reality, we know that wind turbines attract (and kill) eagles, as they do other raptors, swallows and bats: read Biodiversity Alert (link). In short, the new report is just another one of many biased, misleading studies financed by wind interests. If you read the press article till the end, it actually claims that Beinn an Tuirc wind farm helps Scottish eagles survive. Yes indeed, the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.
And another:
More recently, another Australian wind farm discreetly announced (you have to search their newsletter thoroughly – page 2, paragraph 3) that it was killing many eagles: Bald Hills wind farm – 7 eagles killed in 4 months. Seven in four months is the official figure, so the reality could be even worse. It’s also a good indication that, as revealed by Save the Eagles International, raptors are attracted to wind turbines (and then killed). But don’t be surprised that, in spite of the evidence provided in STEI’s article, bird societies completely ignore this lethal attraction exerted by wind turbines: it would hurt the wind industry if they recognized it. Here you can, again, appreciate the hypocrisy surrounding the whole issue.
Read more here: Covering up mortality at wind farms

More on this subject here.

BEWARE THE TRILATERAL COMMISSION

As if the Bilderberg group and the Sierra Club were not enough shadowy organisations working to further the aims of multi-nationalism, here is a report of another one, the Trilateral Commission. The connection to global warming aka climate change is, of course, that this alleged problem provides an ideal reason to increase the role of organisations such as the UN, at the expense of national governments.

"ECOLOGICAL REVOLUTION" NEEDED SAYS FORMER EIRE PRESIDENT

This article looks at the BBC radio programme Something Understood in which Mary Robinson, the former President of Eire, states that "the industrial revolution must give way to an ecological revolution". As the linked article makes clear it is only through the industrial revolution, leading to plentiful, cheap power that the people of the developing world can hope to achieve what the developed world has achieved.  

DANGER! COASTAL WATERS ARE MORE DEADLY DUE TO GW, SAYS SCIENTIST

This article looks at spurious claims being made by a scientist that our coastal waters are becoming more dangerous due to global warming. It is a ridiculous claim which is completely debunked in the linked article. Some of these alarmists have no shame.

RECORD WHEAT CROP CONFOUNDS CLIMATE ALARMISTS PREDICTIONS

Climate Chicken Littles Choke On Record Wheat Crop The American Interest, 3 September 2016
 A generation after leading scientists and experts warned the world of an escalating series of horrendous famines, the crop gluts continue. The latest kick in the pants to the Malthusian doomsayers is a bumper global wheat harvest.
 

The FT reports:

Extensive planting and benign weather have forced analysts to repeatedly raise crop outlooks. The International Grains Council last week increased its global wheat production forecast to a record 743m tonnes, up 1 per cent from last year. […]

The recent US winter wheat harvest was 45m tonnes, up 21 per cent from 2015, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Merchants who have run out of room in silos are piling wheat outdoors.

Storage concerns are also growing in Russia, which is this year set to become the largest wheat exporter after hauling in more than 70m tonnes. In Canada, the government anticipates the second-largest wheat crop in 25 years, of 30.5m tonnes. Australia’s imminent wheat harvest is forecast at 26.5m tonnes, the most in five years.

Defying not only the Club of Rome doomsayers, but also the climate Chicken Littles who have been warning about damage from rising temperatures to world agriculture, food production is booming even as meteorologists call July 2016 the hottest month ever.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t problems and worries in the world, but the combination of human ingenuity and the complexity of natural systems means that science is never quite as settled as publicity seeking scare mongers want people to think.

Full post

see also Hottest Year? Record Breaking Grain & Corn Harvests In Russia And U.S.

WHAT'S HAPPENING TO OUR SUNS SPOTS?

This article puts the current sunspot position in context with the previous sunspot cycles and looks at the predictions for the future, as well as the possible links with our weather on Earth.

LECTURERS TELL STUDENTS "WE WON'T ALLOW DEBATE ON CLIMATE CHANGE"

This article gives the details of a college course where the lecturers have decreed that there shall be no debate on the issue of climate change. So much for enquiring minds. These lecturers give out the final say and the students simply regurgitate what they are told.

CHINA PRODUCES THE SAME EMISSIONS IN 18 DAYS AS AUSTRALIA (OR THE UK) PRODUCES IN ONE YEAR

This article reminds us just how futile our emission cuts are, even if you believe that CO2 emissions will cause serious problems. The Australian emissions are almost the same as the UK emissions, so all the points made in the article apply equally to the UK.

AN ICE FREE ARCTIC HAS HAPPENED BEFORE

This piece by Matt Ridley puts the current loss of Arctic Ice into perspective. Whilst there has been some melting in recent years, this is not the first time this has happened,  and before it did not lead to any cause for alarm.

IF SEA LEVEL IS RISING, WHY IS THE AMOUNT OF LAND INCREASING?

This report gives the details of this remarkable finding.  Yet another puzzle in the so-called "settled science" of our climate. It seems the more we find out, the less we know.

WHAT EXACTLY HAS CHINA AGREED TO BY RATIFYING THE PARIS AGREEMENT?

Here are the actual facts, which give a very different answer than the one being put out in the mainstream media. How can Western governments be so easily duped into sabotaging their own economies for nothing?

COST TO THE USA OF COMPLYING WITH PARIS CLIMATE TREATY IS BETWEEN $1.28 AND $5.28 TRILLION BY 2050

This piece looks at the cost to the USA of signing up to the Paris Climate Treaty. The cost seems so astronomical that I cannot believe any USA president would do it and yet it looks as though Obama is about to. With Hillary Clinton promising to continue with the same policy Donald Trump seems to be the only option 

MID 19th CENTURY WARMING LIKELY TO BE NATURAL

Mid-19th Century Warming Likely To Be Natural,
Not Human-Induced, Says Independent Climate Scientist

London, 1 September: A recent paper published in Nature has received international media attention because of its claim that human-induced CO2 emissions caused global temperatures to start increasing around the 1830s, much earlier than generally accepted.

This seems to me to be a very unlikely claim, as so little extra CO2 had been emitted that even a climate alarmist would find it difficult to make a case for it. Nick Lewis has shown that this is correct. 

In a critical analysis of the paper by Abram et al. (2016) and published today at the influential Climate Audit blog, Nicholas Lewis, an independent climate researcher, demonstrates that the evidence that supports the claimed anthropogenic origin of the early warming onset is inappropriate and does not substantiate that claim.

Lewis said: “The authors’ claim that the start of anthropogenic warming can be dated to the 1830s flies in the face of the best estimates of the evolution of radiative forcing; those given in the IPCC 5th Assessment Report (AR5) show that anthropogenic forcing was only 0.01 W/m2 in 1840, and was still under 0.1 W/m2 in 1870. It is not credible that a negligible 0.01 W/m2 increase in forcing would have had any measurable effect on ocean or land temperatures globally; it is doubtful that an increase of 0.1 W/m2 would do so. Most of the evidence given for the anthropogenic origin claim, which is entirely model-simulation based, ignores the industrial era increase in aerosol forcing, the dominant negative (cooling) anthropogenic forcing; the remaining evidence appears to be invalidated by a simulation discontinuity in 1850.”

He added: “Recovery from the heavy volcanism earlier in the century and an upswing in Atlantic multidecadal variability, superimposed on a slow trend of recovery in surface temperature from the LIA as the ocean interior warmed after the end of the particularly cold four hundred year period from AD 1400–1800, appears adequate to account for warming from the late 1830s to the final quarter of the 19th century.”

Lewis also pointed out that, ironically, should the study’s finding of anthropogenic warming starting as early as circa the 1830s be correct, it would imply that anthropogenic aerosol forcing is weaker than estimated in IPCC AR5, and therefore that observational estimates of climate sensitivity (both transient and equilibrium) based on AR5 forcing values need to be revised downwards.

Nicholas Lewis: Was early onset industrial-era warming anthropogenic, as Abram et al. claim?

Contact

Nicholas Lewis
nhlewis@btinternet.com

COSMIC RAY INTENSITY INCREASING, SAYS NEW STUDY

Cosmic Ray Intensity Increasing: New Study Suggests Sun More Important Than Thought On Earth’s Climate
Vencore Weather, 29 August 2016

Paul Dorian
 For the past year, neutron monitors around the Arctic Circle have sensed an increasing intensity of cosmic rays.
 

This colorized picture of the sun is a mosaic of ultraviolet images from the orbiting TRACE satellite sensitive to light emitted by highly charged iron atoms. Growing in number, the intricate structures visible are the Sun’s hot active regions with temperatures over a million degrees Fahrenheit and their associated magnetic loops (courtesy NASA)
 

Overview
It has long been widely accepted that the sun is absolutely critical to all weather and climate here on Earth and yet there are still some aspects of this connection that are not too well understood and even controversial.  For example, there has been the belief by many atmospheric scientists that cosmic rays which penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere from outer space can play a significant role in the formation of clouds which, in turn, has a direct impact on climate.  Solar activity has a direct impact on the ability of cosmic rays to actually reach the Earth’s atmosphere.  A just published study has confirmed the notion that cosmic rays can indeed be an important player in Earth’s weather and climate and the role of the sun is critical.

Cosmic rays and clouds
Cosmic rays are high-velocity particles of enormous energy that bombard the Earth from outside the solar system. The exact origin of cosmic rays has long been a mystery in the field of astronomy.  Cosmic rays may produce showers of secondary particles that penetrate and impact the Earth’s atmosphere and sometimes even reach the surface. The connection between cosmic rays and clouds has been under investigation in recent years and somewhat controversial.  Some researchers have held the belief that cosmic rays hitting Earth’s atmosphere create aerosols which, in turn, seed clouds and thereby help in the formation of clouds.  This would make cosmic rays an important player in weather and climate.  Other researchers, however, have been dubious.  The skeptics have maintained that although some laboratory experiments have supported the idea that cosmic rays help to seed clouds, the effect is likely too small to substantially affect the cloudiness of our planet and have an important impact on climate.

Findings from a just published study
A new study just published in the Aug. 19th issue of Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics comes down in favor of cosmic rays. According to spaceweather.com, a team of scientists from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has linked sudden decreases in cosmic rays to changes in Earth’s cloud cover. These rapid decreases in the observed galactic cosmic ray intensity are known as “Forbush Decreases” and tend to take place following coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in periods of high solar activity. When the sun is active (i.e., solar storms, CMEs), the magnetic field of the plasma solar wind sweeps some of the galactic cosmic rays away from Earth.  In periods of low solar activity, more cosmic rays bombard the earth.  The term “Forbush Decrease” was named after the American physicist Scott E. Forbush, who studied cosmic rays in the 1930s and 1940s.

The research team led by Jacob Svensmark of DTU identified the strongest 26 “Forbush Decreases” between 1987 and 2007, and looked at ground-based and satellite records of cloud cover to see what happened.  In a recent press release, their conclusions were summarized as follows: “[Strong “Forbush Decreases”] cause a reduction in cloud fraction of about 2 percent corresponding to roughly a billion tonnes of liquid water disappearing from the atmosphere.”

Current cosmic ray activity
We happen to be in a weak solar cycle (24) which is actually on pace to be the weakest cycle in more than one hundred years. Therefore, it would not be surprising to have relatively high cosmic ray penetration into the Earth’s atmosphere; especially, since we are now heading towards the next solar minimum phase when solar activity is generally even quieter.

In fact, for the past year, neutron monitors around the Arctic Circle have sensed an increasing intensity of cosmic rays. Polar latitudes are a good place to make such measurements, because Earth’s magnetic field funnels and concentrates cosmic radiation there. As it turns out, Earth’s poles aren’t the only place cosmic rays are intensifying. “Spaceweather.com” has led an effort in the launching of helium balloons to the stratosphere to measure radiation, and they find the same trend increasing intensity of cosmic rays over California [For more on this study click here]: