Science! Settled!
“We now believe that [the solar cycle] accounts for 50 per cent of the variability from year to year,” says Scaife. With solar physicists predicting a long-term reduction in the intensity of the solar cycle – and possibly its complete disappearance for a few decades, as happened during the so-called Maunder Minimum from 1645 to 1715 – this could be an ominous signal for icy winters ahead, despite global warming.
Global temperatures have plummeted more than 0.5C this year, and are falling 2nd fastest in the satellite record pic.twitter.com/WD1lXjicaN
— Steve Goddard (@SteveSGoddard) July 7, 2016
The return of the Russian icebreakers.
The new ship is a 6,000 ton (deadweight), 85 meter (180 foot) long vessel that can handle ice up to a meter thick. Meanwhile Russia is building three Artika class nuclear powered icebreakers. These are much larger (173 meters long and 33,500 tons) vessels that can handle ice three meters thick. With a crew of 75, Artika class ships can stay at sea for up to six months at a time. Currently Russia has the largest icebreaker fleet (41 ships), followed by Finland (seven), Sweden and Canada (six each) and the United States (five).
Germany has abandoned plans to set out a timetable to exit coal-fired power production and scrapped C02 emissions reduction goals for individual sectors, according to the latest draft of an environment ministry document seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
The sun has gone completely blank.
They’re being disappeared before our eyes.
Dissent will not be tolerated.
The attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands is targeting dozens of conservative and libertarian organizations in a racketeering lawsuit against climate change skeptics that has been widely described as an effort to silence political opponents.
In a subpoena issued in March, the office of USVI attorney general Claude Walker demanded from Exxon Mobil copies of communications between the oil company and 90 different political and policy organizations “and any other organizations engaged in research or advocacy concerning Climate Change or policies.”
They’re just following orders: Big Green’s Dirty Power
h/t Adrian, Bob
Temperatures dipped below freezing in several of France’s prized central wine regions this week, striking both Burgundy and the Loire Valley. In the Côte d’Or, Chablis to the north and Côte Chalonnaise, frost arrived early on the morning of April 25 and again the next night and the morning of April 27, resulting in frost that damaged the newly formed buds. Farther west, central regions of the Loire Valley, including Chinon, Bourgueil and Vouvray, were similarly hit.
“We cannot estimate the damage at the moment,” said Alex Gambal, the Beaune-based négociant. “Everyone is calling everyone else and it will take a few days to see what results.”
]…]
Early reports from the Loire were not hopeful. “In the memory of vignerons, there are two major freezes: 1991 and 1994. This is on the level of 1994. It’s historic,” said Guillaume Lapaque, director of the federation of the Indre-Loire wines trade group and the Bourgueil wine syndicate. “It froze on three nights–April 18, April 25 and then April 27.”
An assessment of the Paris Agreement;
“The Paris Agreement will do little to reduce the rate of warming but will divert trillions of dollars into low-carbon technologies, thereby reducing innovation in other areas, slowing economic growth and hindering adaptation and resiliency,” Julian Morris, vice president of research at Reason Foundation, writes in a new policy brief examining the expected results and effectiveness of the Paris climate deal.
“Innovation and associated economic development will likely be the most effective means by which humans address climate change. But the commitments made under the Paris Agreement would divert trillions of dollars into low-carbon technologies and government-funded schemes for mitigation and adaptation, thereby undermining the bottom-up processes that drive more widespread innovation and, as a result, impeding the ability of people to adapt to climate change and other threats,” Morris says. “Given the potential for the Paris Agreement to result in harmful and even counterproductive restrictions on economic activity, it would appear that ratification is not in the interests of the majority of signatory nations.”
From some crackpot Big Oil funded denier website;
The scientists found that over the last 40 years, stream temperatures warmed at the average rate of 0.10 degrees Celsius (0.18 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade. This translates to thermal habitats shifting upstream at a rate of only 300-500 meters (0.18-0.31 miles) per decade in headwater mountain streams where many sensitive cold-water species currently live. The authors are quick to point out that climate change is still detrimentally affecting the habitats of those species, but at a much slower rate than dozens of previous studies forecast. The results of this study indicate that many populations of cold-water species will continue to persist this century and mountain landscapes will play an increasingly important role in that preservation.
Wait. There exist species capable of life in an environment with temperature deviations of .1 Celsius per decade? Charles Darwin, call your office.
Related: Climate model predictions on rain and drought wrong, says study
h/t Imethisguy
Rockefellers Admit Paying For #ExxonKnew Media Coverage
In a stunning admission, Lee Wasserman, Director of the Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF), today openly admitted that the Rockefellers are pouring millions of dollars into “media” organizations like InsideClimate News (ICN) and projects at Columbia University School of Journalism with a specific mission and outcome in mind.
[…]
Energy In Depth has worked to expose exactly this kind of shady “journalism” for many years, uncovering clear conflicts of interest when the mainstream media would not. In fact, EID was one of the first to expose the fact that RBF and RFF had funded the Columbia School of Journalism hit pieces, as that information initially wasn’t disclosed.
EID also called attention to the fact that these very same foundations also funded anti-ExxonMobil series published by ICN, which came out within days of the LA Times piece – and as the National Review pointed out after all this came to light, “The little that is known about InsideClimate News raises questions about conflicts of interest as well as about the publication’s ability, and proclivity, to report fairly and without bias.”
Only about a month later the RBF funded a study at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies suggesting that “corporate funding” to more than 160 so-called “climate counter movement” institutions was largely responsible for skepticism about climate science.
Germany Will Need 1,000 Wind Turbines To Replace This Workhorse Nuke Plant:
Replacing Grohnde will not likely come from gas generation since so much gas generation is being intentionally lost. Instead, it will likely come from building several thousand new wind turbines at a cost of at least $12 billion, not including back-up capacity which is likely to come from brown coal.
European utilities have been calling for capacity payments to avoid shutdown of too much thermal generation and causing an upheaval in grid reliability and energy security, but proposals for a capacity market were rejected just last year in 2015. According to Germany’s Bundesverband der Energie- und Wasserwirtschaft, more than half of Germany’s planned power plants are at risk because of government policies on renewables.
So even though Grohnde is the little reactor that could, its life will be cut short before it reaches its peak. And only for political reasons, not even the arbitrary economic pressure that is closing the new gas plants.
On the other hand, Germany has lots of brown coal, and is buying electricity from surrounding nations at elevated prices when it needs grid stability.
So not to worry.
If only Germany could do something to make their natural-gas plants more profitable.
Climate scientist Daniel Alongi has been indicted by the Australian government on charges of defrauding taxpayers out of $556,000 in false expenses since 2008.
Alongi has already admitted to creating false invoices, credit card statements, and e-mails to cover his misappropriation of funds.
Alongi’s indictment raises serious questions concerning the credibility of his research. During the period of Alongi’s alleged fraud, his research focusing on the impact of climate change on the Great Barrier Reef, coastal mangroves, and coastal ecosystems was published in numerous national and international journals.
Related: Time to Borrow a Page from Alinsky on Energy Policy
Great moments in naiveté: “Insufficient political will”.
A conservative estimate of Canada’s existing carbon-absorption capacity, based on land area and the global carbon-absorption average, indicates that Canada could already be absorbing 20 to 30 per cent more CO2 than we emit. Using the same calculation, the “Big Four” polluters of China, the U.S., the European Union, and India, which together are responsible for a whopping 60 per cent of global CO2 emissions, release 10 times more CO2 than their combined land area absorbs. Canada doesn’t seem very dirty now, do we?
So when was the last time you heard a Canadian political leader, let alone the media, talk about our carbon-absorption capacity? Probably never, because we are currently ignoring that side of the equation, for a couple reasons…
h/t Ottawa MJ
Take your Green Shift and shove it.
h/t TimR
When it happens in a Democrat-run state, that means it’s basically a local story.
h/t Adrian.
