SOLAR CYCLE CHANGES CONTROL JET STREAM SAYS NEW HYPOTHESIS

When solar cycles are shorter than 11 years over several cycles the planet warms; when cycles are longer than 11 year for a few cycles, the planet cools. There has been a strong (95%) correlation between the solar cycle and cooling and warming of the northern hemisphere over the past 150 years.

Here is how it works. When sunspot peaks are far apart, the electromagnetic shield is down for a long period of time, cosmic radiation seeds the clouds, and there is more rain and snow (with its albedo reflectivity) and the planet cools (Svensmark, J. et al., 2016). The rainfall makes sense in this context because cooling results in condensation. When the sunspot peaks are frequent the minima have less effect and earth warms (Svensmark, H. and Friis-Christensen, 1997; Svensmark H., et al. 2007).

This pattern is completely consistent with the extremes, the thundery hot summers and cold winters of the Little Ice Age which coincided with the Maunder Minimum when sunspots were few or completely absent for 60 years. Zharkova’s research group is predicting another Little Ice Age beginning right now, today, or at the end of Cycle 24. So think many others who study the sun and think it trumps carbon dioxide (Shaviv, 1998).

How does that happen? Here’s how. NASA says, as we enter the solar minimum, our wispy atmosphere shrinks. NASA has learned to juggle satellites that drop into lower orbits during the solar cycle. Lower down in our atmosphere the sun drives our winds and the most important winds of all, that rule all the others, are the jet streams that power around the planet at well over 160 kilometres an hour.

When the atmosphere contracts, the jets start to meander. The meandering happens because there is a space problem; the same jet stream is jammed into less volume within a shrunken atmosphere; hence the jet streams kink. The cloud levels are slightly but measurably lower as well.

The whole article can be read here.

IS THIS THE SIGN OF A COOLING ATMOSPHERE?

NASA: The chill of solar minimum is being felt in our atmosphere – cooling trend seen

Anthony Watts / 1 day ago September 28, 2018

By Dr. Tony Phillips (Reprinted with permission of Spaceweather.com)

Sept. 27, 2018: The sun is entering one of the deepest Solar Minima of the Space Age. Sunspots have been absent for most of 2018, and the sun’s ultraviolet output has sharply dropped. New research shows that Earth’s upper atmosphere is responding.

“We see a cooling trend,” says Martin Mlynczak of NASA’s Langley Research Center. “High above Earth’s surface, near the edge of space, our atmosphere is losing heat energy. If current trends continue, it could soon set a Space Age record for cold.”

These results come from the SABER instrument onboard NASA’s TIMED satellite. SABER monitors infrared emissions from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), two substances that play a key role in the energy balance of air 100 to 300 kilometers above our planet’s surface. By measuring the infrared glow of these molecules, SABER can assess the thermal state of gas at the very top of the atmosphere–a layer researchers call “the thermosphere.”

“The thermosphere always cools off during Solar Minimum. It’s one of the most important ways the solar cycle affects our planet,” explains Mlynczak, who is the associate principal investigator for SABER.

When the thermosphere cools, it shrinks, literally decreasing the radius of Earth’s atmosphere.

natural decay of space junk, resulting in a more cluttered environment around Earth.

Above: Layers of the atmosphere. Credit: NASA

To help keep track of what’s happening in the thermosphere, Mlynczak and colleagues recently introduced the “Thermosphere Climate Index” (TCI)–a number expressed in Watts that tells how much heat NO molecules are dumping into space. During Solar Maximum, TCI is high (“Hot”); during Solar Minimum, it is low (“Cold”).

“Right now, it is very low indeed,” says Mlynczak. “SABER is currently measuring 33 billion Watts of infrared power from NO. That’s 10 times smaller than we see during more active phases of the solar cycle.”

Although SABER has been in orbit for only 17 years, Mlynczak and colleagues recently calculated TCI going all the way back to the 1940s. “SABER taught us to do this by revealing how TCI depends on other variables such as geomagnetic activity and the sun’s UV output–things that have been measured for decades,” he explains.

Above: An historical record of the Thermosphere Climate Index. Mlynczak and colleagues recently published a paper on the TCI showing that the state of the thermosphere can be discussed using a set of five plain language terms: Cold, Cool, Neutral, Warm, and Hot.

As 2018 comes to an end, the Thermosphere Climate Index is on the verge of setting a Space Age record for Cold. “We’re not there quite yet,” says Mlynczak, “but it could happen in a matter of months.”

“We are especially pleased that SABER is gathering information so important for tracking the effect of the Sun on our atmosphere,” says James Russell, SABER’s Principal Investigator at Hampton University. “A more than 16-year record of long-term changes in the thermal condition of the atmosphere more than 70 miles above the surface is something we did not expect for an instrument designed to last only 3-years in-orbit.”

Soon, the Thermosphere Climate Index will be added to Spaceweather.com as a regular data feed, so our readers can monitor the state of the upper atmosphere just as researchers do. Stay tuned for updates.

COAL BOUNCES BACK IN THE UK

This article gives the details of the latest situation here in the UK. Despite all the rhetoric we are importing coal because it makes economic sense.

CHINA'S BOOST FOR COAL FIRED POWER PLANTS REVEALED

Building work has restarted at hundreds of Chinese coal-fired power stations, according to an analysis of satellite imagery. The research, carried out by green campaigners CoalSwarm, suggests that 259 gigawatts of new capacity are under development in China. The authors say this is the same capacity to produce electricity as the entire US coal fleet. The study says government attempts to cancel many plants have failed. --Matt McGrath, BBC News, 26 September 2018



259 Gigawatts (GW) of new capacity are under development in China, comparable to the entire U.S. coal fleet (266 GW). This represents a 25% increase in China’s coal power fleet. The new capacity is the result of a permitting surge from late 2014 to early 2016, after a regulatory devolution from central to provincial authorities. Contrary to previous reporting and analysis, many of the restrictions only delayed new projects rather than stopping them. CoalSwarm, 20 September 2018



China will talk a good game at the UN Climate Conference in Paris but won’t make any binding commitments, concludes The Truth About China, an important new report published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation. “China’s Communist Party has as its highest priority its own self-preservation, and that self-preservation depends overwhelmingly on its ability to continue raising the standard of living of its citizens,” states economist Patricia Adams. “With China’s economic growth faltering, the last thing the Communist Party wants is to hobble its economy further by curtailing the use of the fossil fuels upon which its economy depends. A major cutback in fossil fuel use represents an existential threat to the Communist Party’s rule. It simply isn’t going to happen.” --Global Warming Policy Foundation, 2 December 2015

A LESSON FROM CANADA TO ALL GREEN POLITICIANS

The Green Energy Act Is Dead. Let That Be A Warning To Green Politicians
Rex Murphy, National Post, 21 September 2018

The Green Energy and Green Economy Act, which the Ford government announced Thursday it would officially cancel, was one of the most monumental government follies of our time.

It was a hydra-headed monster of regulations and fiat that bludgeoned Ontario’s rural communities, stripped Ontario’s municipalities of every right to the slightest participation in their own planning, placed a darkling pall over the manufacturing industry, and imposed the highest electricity costs in all North America on some of Ontario’s lowest-income citizens.

It is a challenge to give a comprehensive account of its many follies. A saga that started in 2009 under then Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty, received a full and smothering embrace by his successor, Kathleen Wynne, that subsidized at dizzying multiples the electricity provided by the most inefficient sources, put the small towns and outlying cities of the province under a green iron fist, stimulated both the construction of gas plants and their subsequent abrupt election-inspired cancellation, produced power it had to give away or pay other jurisdictions to take, castrated small businesses, burdened the most impoverished of the province with a choice between power and bread, and then precipitated the greatest slaughter of the Liberal Party of Ontario in modern-day history, cannot be encompassed in a column.

All in all, it was the most staggering story involving hallucinations about windmills since the great Cervantes inscribed — to give the full, elegant title — “El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de La Mancha,” which an obliging Google amanuensis translates as “The ingenious knight Don Quixote of La Mancha.”

It’s quite queasy being a green. The story of the McGuinty/Wynne crusade to impose, at any cost, full green moralism on Ontarians should serve as a drastic caution to politicians everywhere that “going green” isn’t the innocent, costless Boy-Scoutism it is always portrayed as. That it is never quite enough to keep telling your citizens in the condescending tones of the Sunday morning TV evangelists to “take your medicine, it’s for your own good.”

It is an amazing thing how often politicians elected to serve a particular jurisdiction — could be municipal or provincial — set themselves these grand glorious and green global agendas. “Sorry. Can’t fix the potholes, clear the drains before a storm, unlock the traffic snarling every street and expressway or get the streetcars here on time — but, hey, we’re banning plastic straws and grocery bags and we’re going solar on the billboards.” If you can’t run the city, leave the planet saving for another day. If you’ve got to send out government money to private citizens to allow them to pay their power bills because your policies are the very ones that drove power bills to a level they cannot pay, then reconsider the delusion that global warming is what you were elected to fix.

Full post

BBC CLIMATE SCEPTIC BAN REVEALED AS PURE PROPAGANDA

Harry Wilkinson: BBC’s Climate Change ‘Facts’ Are Fiction
The Conservative Woman, 22 September 2018  

In order to avoid giving ‘false balance’ to the climate alarmists at the BBC, I thought it would be a good idea to fact-check their new internal guidance on climate change.

This is their totalitarian memorandum aimed at stamping out free scientific discourse, on the basis that certain facts are established beyond dispute.

The problem is that these ones aren’t, and the BBC is guilty of repeatedly failing to describe accurately the nuances of climate science and the degree to which certain claims are disputed.

The crucial paragraph reads:

‘Most climate scientists regard a rise of 2C as the point when global warming could become irreversible and the effects dangerous. At current rates, we are on track for a rise of more than 3-4C by the end of the century.’

There are so many things wrong with this short statement.

That global warming can be somehow ‘irreversible’ is pure propaganda; the climate has always been changing and it always will. The briefing later describes the idea of catastrophic tipping points as a ‘common misconception’, so they have comically failed their own test right at the start.

A temperature rise of more than two degrees is not inherently dangerous either. The majority of economic impact studies put the cost of climate change by the end of the century at between 1.5% and 3% of world GDP, but these studies often make the inaccurate assumption that either no or little adaptation will take place.

In contrast, even the IPCC has admitted (p.15) that the cost of reducing emissions (‘mitigation’) to meet the 2C target may be up to 4% of world GDP in 2030, 6% in 2050 and 11% in 2100.

These numbers do not incorporate the benefits of reducing our emissions, which are primarily the avoided costs of climate change. But given that a certain amount of warming is already ‘baked in’, it looks almost certain that this ‘mitigation’ will actually be far more expensive than not doing anything. If warming actually turns out to have a positive effect, the gamble will have failed even more spectacularly. […]

Quite surreally, the document also describes the statement that ‘climate change has happened before’ as a ‘common misconception’. How much longer before the BBC renames itself The Ministry of Truth?

Estimating the current and future impacts of climate change is a complex and contested enterprise, but the BBC would rather you didn’t know. ‘The science is settled’ they say, so move on. This climate memorandum is nothing less than blatant propaganda presented as fact by controller Fran. There is a critical debate to be had, so inquisitive people had better look elsewhere.

Full post & comments

ARCTIC SEA ICE - A LOOK AT THE FACTS

Arctic Sea Ice Much More Stable Than Thought
Ron Clutz, Science Matters, 22 September 2018

People are overthinking and over-analyzing Arctic Ice extents, and getting wrapped around the axle (or should I say axis).  So let’s keep it simple and we can all readily understand what is happening up North.

I will use the ever popular NOAA dataset derived from satellite passive microwave sensors.  It sometimes understates the ice extents, but everyone refers to it and it is complete from 1979 to 2017.  Here’s what NOAA reports (in M km2):



If I were adding this to the Ice House of Mirrors, the name would be The X-Ray Ice Mirror, because it looks into the structure of the time series.   For even more clarity and simplicity, here is the table:

NOAA NH Annual Average Ice Extents (in M km2).  Sea Ice Index v2.1 (here)



The satellites involve rocket science, but this does not.  There was a small loss of ice extent over the first 15 years, then a dramatic downturn for 13 years, 6 times the rate as before. That was followed by the current plateau with virtually no further loss of ice extent.  All the fuss is over that middle period, and we know what caused it.  A lot of multi-year ice was flushed out through the Fram Strait, leaving behind more easily melted younger ice. The effects from that natural occurrence bottomed out in 2007.

Kwok et al. say this about the Variability of Fram Strait ice flux:

The average winter area flux over the 18-year record (1978–1996) is 670,000 km^2, 7% of the area of the Arctic Ocean. The winter area flux ranges from a minimum of 450,000 km^2 in 1984 to a maximum of 906,000 km^2 in 1995. . . The average winter volume flux over the winters of October 1990 through May 1995 is 1745 km^3 ranging from a low of 1375 km^3 in the 1990 flux to a high of 2791 km^3 in 1994.

TORY REBELS ATTEMPT TO FRUSTRATE FRACKING

The Times, 20 September 2018

Ben Webster

Conservative MPs are preparing to rebel against the government over its proposal to allow fracking companies to carry out exploratory drilling without [local] planning permission.

About 20 Conservative MPs are expected to vote against the proposal, which is subject to a public consultation, if ministers decide to try to push it through parliament next year. Labour has pledged to ban fracking and the government has a working majority of only 13.

Cuadrilla is preparing to start the first fracking in the UK since the process of forcing water, sand and chemicals down a well to fracture rock was temporarily banned in 2011 after the company caused minor earthquakes near Blackpool. The government has given Cuadrilla final approval for the fracking of two wells at Preston New Road in Lancashire. Ministers approved the process for the first in July and the second yesterday.

The threatened Tory rebellion will not prevent fracking taking place but might slow down the development of the industry, which has been hampered by local authorities taking more than a year to decide applications for test drilling to check if a site is suitable.

The government published proposals in July to treat test drilling as permitted development, meaning that the companies would no longer need to gain local authority approval. They would still have to seek planning permission for fracking but the government has said that this could be determined by ministers.

Conservative MPs including Lee Rowley, Greg Knight, Mark Menzies, Nick Herbert and Bob Seely raised concerns about the loss of local decision-making in a parliamentary debate on the government’s proposal. Mr Rowley, MP for North East Derbyshire, opposes Ineos’s plans to extract shale gas in his constituency and is helping to lead the Conservative rebellion as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on the impact of shale gas.

COAL POWERS INDIA'S ECONOMIC RISE

This article tells us the true picture of India's source of electrical power and it's not renewables. They know full well just, as we do, that they need cheap reliable energy. Renewables are neither of these 

WAR ON THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE (ICE) HOTS UP

In Wednesday's Daily Mail there was this article on the front page. Many people will only see the headline, but it will be enough to convince them that exhaust fumes are giving them dementia, even though the evidence presented in the article is very weak. Even the Head of Research at the Alzheimer's Society pointed out "that the research had only looked at the chance of developing dementia and had not actually proved that the pollution had caused the illness". 

Not only that, but to separate out one factor, such as exhaust gases, as a cause of a specific illness is impossible using statistical information because there are so many other factors which it is not even possible to know about which could also affect the outcome.

The article does not give the full details of the research, but they are available here. They extracted (from the GP record) information on ethnicity, smoking, body mass index (BMI) and alcohol consumption, but the patients had only been registered with their GP for one year. They had no idea where they had lived for the previous years of their life. no idea of their previous occupation, whether their partners were heavy smokers, to name but a few other relevant factors. 

The paper does not even attempt to look at the very obvious limitations of the research. They have one agenda - to make out a clear case that these gases are dangerous. The fact that the emissions are at record low levels (and falling) due to modern vehicle design is not mentioned. If these gases were responsible for dementia then levels should be much higher in the past and we should expect them to be falling as the levels have dropped over the recent decades. 

I expect to see more and more of this sort of article to get the public on board with raising the cost of running a car with an ICE. Will it work? We will have to wait and see. Much will depend on the experience of those who move to electric vehicle first and the way it is reported.