Archives mensuelles : avril 2019

climate and geology

If CO2 Caused Mid-Pliocene Warming, What Caused late-Pliocene Cooling? You Guessed!

by P. Homewood, April 7, 2019 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

ABSTRACT

It is thought that the Northern Hemisphere experienced only ephemeral glaciations from the Late Eocene to the Early Pliocene epochs (about 38 to 4 million years ago), and that the onset of extensive glaciations did not occur until about 3 million years ago. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain this increase in Northern Hemisphere glaciation during the Late Pliocene. Here we use a fully coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model and an ice-sheet model to assess the impact of the proposed driving mechanisms for glaciation and the influence of orbital variations on the development of the Greenland ice sheet in particular. We find that Greenland glaciation is mainly controlled by a decrease in atmospheric carbon dioxide during the Late Pliocene. By contrast, our model results suggest that climatic shifts associated with the tectonically driven closure of the Panama seaway, with the termination of a permanent El Niño state or with tectonic uplift are not large enough to contribute significantly to the growth of the Greenland ice sheet; moreover, we find that none of these processes acted as a priming mechanism for glacial inception triggered by variations in the Earth’s orbit.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23222627_Late_Pliocene_Greenland_glaciation_controlled_by_a_decline_in_atmospheric_CO2_levels

 

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better to know...?, climate-debate

CO2 Emissions Up As Europeans Switch From Diesel To Gasoline Cars

by K. Oroschakoff, April 6, 2019 in WUWT

The aftermath of the Dieselgate scandal is pushing drivers to switch from diesel to gasoline cars, undermining efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions from road transport.

Average CO2 emissions from new cars rose in 2017 for the first time since 2010 — largely due to the fuel change, according to final data released by the European Environment Agency (EEA) on Thursday.

That’s bad news for the EU’s efforts to cut emissions by at least 40 percent by 2030. Cars are responsible for around 12 percent of total EU CO2 emissions, according to the European Commission.

The EEA said that average CO2 emissions from new cars sold in 2017 increased by 0.4 grams of CO2 per kilometer to 118.5 grams, up from 118.1 grams in 2016. Under EU rules, carmakers need to meet a fleet-wide target of 95 grams by 2021.

Since 2010, emissions from new cars have fallen by 15.5 percent, or almost 22 grams of CO2 per kilometer; but emission reductions slowed between 2015 and 2016.

The rise in car pollution in 2017 is “stark confirmation that car makers need to achieve further and faster improvements in manufacturing and promoting more efficient cars,” the EEA said.

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better to know...?, energy and fields

What would life be like without fossil fuels such as gas and oil?

by Anthony Watts, April 6, 2019 in WUWT

Leftists like Bill McKibben of 350.org suffer from irrational fantasies that lead them to believe that we can move society forward without all the benefits that petroleum brings to our modern society.

They’re dead wrong of course, and this short humorous video illustrates just what life might be like without the many products and energy sources that are derived from petroleum. My favorite is ink, which if we didn’t get from petroleum, we wouldn’t have to see print editions of NYT, WaPo, and the Lost Angeles Times, to name a few.

You also wouldn’t be able to read this article, because the very keyboard I am typing this on is made from plastic, which you guessed it, is derived from petroleum.

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According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), this is a list of petroleum products and their share of total US petroleum consumption in 2013.

  • Gasoline 46%

  • Heating Oil / Diesel Fuel 20%

  • Jet Fuel ( kerosene) 8%

  • Propane / Propylene 7%

  • NGL / LRG 6%

  • Still Gas 4%

  • Petrochemical Feedstocks 2%

  • Petroleum Coke 2%

  • Residual / Heavy Fuel Oil 2%

  • Asphalt / Road Oil 2%

  • Lubricants 1%

  • Miscellaneous Products / Special Naphthas 0.4%

  • Other Liquids 1%

  • Aviation Gasoline 0.1%

  • Waxes 0.04%

  • Kerosene 0.02%

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better to know...?, energy and fields, renewable energy

Nuclear power excluded from EU’s green investment label

by C. Stam & A. Prager, April 3, 2019 in EurActiv

The text voted in Parliament also excludes fossil fuels and gas infrastructure from the EU’s proposed green finance taxonomy, which aims to divert investments away from polluting industries into clean technologies.

In a bid to prevent “green-washing”, the Parliament text also requires investors to disclose whether their financial products have sustainability objectives, and if they do, whether the product is consistent with the EU’s green assets classification, or taxonomy.

While activists applauded the move, they said the classification voted by the European Parliament was too narrow and applies only to a limited set of recognisable green assets, such as wind and solar power companies.

“Brown list” rejected

An amendment to publish a “brown list” to name and shame investments seen as damaging for the environment was rejected by Parliament.

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energy and fields

‘L’impossible équation des écologistes’

by Prof. Ch. Leclercq-Willain, 5 avril 2019 in ScienceClimatEnergie

Depuis plusieurs années un des combats mené par les écologistes dans différents pays européens (Allemagne, France, Belgique, ..) fut et reste celui du nucléaire mené actuellement en parallèle avec celui de la réduction des gaz à effet de serre (GES). Les « verts » allemands ont obtenu la fermeture de presque toutes les centrales nucléaires et l’Allemagne a toujours une exploitation importante de centrales gaz-charbon. L’Allemagne est ainsi le plus grand émetteur de CO2 en Europe. Il en est de même des pays de l’Est et de la Russie qui exploitent essentiellement des centrales gaz-charbon. En Belgique, la fermeture définitive des centrales nucléaires est prévue pour 2025.

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climate-debate

What’s the worst case? Climate sensitivity

by Judith Curry, April 1, 2019 in WUWT

Are values of equilibrium climate sensitivity > 4.5 C plausible?

For background, see these previous posts on climate sensitivity [link]

Here are some possibilistic arguments related to climate sensitivity.  I don’t think the ECS example is the best one to illustrate these ideas [see previous post], and I probably won’t include this example in anything I try to publish on this topic (my draft paper is getting too long anyways).  But possibilistic thinking does point you in some different directions when pondering the upper bound of plausible ECS values.

5. Climate sensitivity

Equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) is defined as the amount of temperature change in response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations, after the climate system has reached equilibrium. The issue with regards to ECS is not scenario discovery; rather, the challenge is to clarify the upper bounds of possible and plausible worst cases.

The IPCC assessments of ECS have focused on a ‘likely’ (> 66% probability) range, which has mostly been unchanged since Charney et al. (1979), to be between 1.5 and 4.5 oC. The IPCC AR4 (2007) did not provide any insight into a worst-case value of ECS, stating that values substantially higher than 4.5 oC cannot be excluded, with tail values in Figure 9.20 exceeding 10 oC. The IPCC AR5 (2013) more clearly defined the upper range, with a 10% probability of exceeding 6 oC.

Since the IPCC AR5, there has been considerable debate as to whether ECS is on the lower end of the likely range (e.g., < 3 oC) or the higher end of the likely range (for a summary, see Lewis and Curry, 2018). The analysis here bypasses that particular debate and focuses on the upper extreme values of ECS.

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climate-debate

The Little Ice Age – Back to the Future

by Jim Steele, April 4, 2019 in WUWT

Extreme scientists and politicians warn we will suffer catastrophic climate change if the earth’s average temperature rises 2.7°F above the Little Ice Age average. They claim we are in a climate crisis because average temperature has already warmed by 1.5°F since 1850 AD. Guided by climate fear, politicians fund whacky engineering schemes to shade the earth with mirrors or aerosols to lower temperatures. But the cooler Little Ice Age endured a much more disastrous climate.

The Little Ice Age coincides with the pre-industrial period. The Little Ice Age spanned a period from 1300 AD to 1850 AD, but the exact timing varies. It was a time of great droughts, retreating tree lines, and agricultural failures leading to massive global famines and rampant epidemics. Meanwhile advancing glaciers demolished European villages and farms and extensive sea ice blocked harbors and prevented trade.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

2019 Hurricane season forecast: below average

by Anthony Watts, April 4, 2019 in WUWT

Dr. Philip Klotzbach of Colorado State University writes on Twitter:

Seasonal #hurricane forecast from @ColoradoStateU predicts slightly below-average season: 13 named storms, 5 hurricanes & 2 major (Cat 3+, >=111 mph) hurricanes. Primary reason for slightly below-avg forecast is anticipated continuation of weak #ElNino.

We anticipate that the 2019 Atlantic basin hurricane season will have slightly belownormal activity. The current weak El Niño event appears likely to persist and perhaps even strengthen this summer/fall. Sea surface temperatures averaged across the tropical Atlantic are slightly below normal, and the far North Atlantic is anomalously cool.

Our Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation index is below its long-term average. We anticipate a slightly below-average probability for major hurricanes making landfall along the continental United States coastline and in the Caribbean. As is the case with all hurricane seasons, coastal residents are reminded that it only takes one hurricane making landfall to make it an active season for them. They should prepare the same for every season, regardless of how much activity is predicted.

PROBABILITIES FOR AT LEAST ONE MAJOR (CATEGORY 3-4-5) HURRICANE LANDFALL ON EACH OF THE FOLLOWING COASTAL AREAS:

1) Entire continental U.S. coastline – 48% (average for last century is 52%)

2) U.S. East Coast Including Peninsula Florida – 28% (average for last century is 31%)

3) Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle westward to Brownsville – 28% (average for last century is 30%)

PROBABILITY FOR AT LEAST ONE MAJOR (CATEGORY 3-4-5) HURRICANE TRACKING INTO THE CARIBBEAN

(10-20°N, 88-60°W) 1) 39% (average for last century is 42%)

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energy and fields

U.S. Arctic Oil & Gas Exploration: A Sense of Urgency

by D. Middleton, April 3, 2019 in WUWT

I ran across a very lucid and informative article on Real Clear Energy today. The author is Robert Dillon, “a senior adviser on energy security at the American Council for Capital Formation and the former communications director of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.” The article includes numerous links to supporting information, particularly the National Petroleum Council’s (NPC) 2015 report on U.S. Arctic oil & gas resource potential.

The key findings of the 2015 NPC report were:

  1. Arctic oil and gas resources are large and can contribute significantly to meeting future U.S. and global energy needs.
  2. The arctic environment poses some different challenges relative to other oil and gas production areas, but is generally well understood.
  3. The oil and gas industry has a long history of successful operations in arctic conditions enabled by continuing technology and operational advances.
  4. Most of the U.S. Arctic offshore conventional oil and gas potential can be developed using existing field-proven technology.
  5. The economic viability of U.S. Arctic development is challenged by operating conditions and the need for updated regulations that reflect arctic conditions.
  6. Realizing the promise of Arctic oil and gas requires securing public confidence.
  7. There have been substantial recent technology and regulatory advancements to reduce the potential for and consequences of a spill.

Figure 1-1. Arctic exploration wells by country and time period. (NPC)

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climate-debate

CBC Claims Canada Warming Twice As Fast As Globe, Yet Data Tell A Different Story: No Warming In 25 Years!

by P. Gosselin, April 3, 2019 in NoTricksZone

Canada’s CBC here recently cited “a leaked report” which claimed Canada is “warming at twice the global rate.”

According to the “leaked report”, Canada’s annual average temperature over land has warmed 1.7 C when looking at the data since 1948. But that claim is misleading when recent data is considered.

Over the past 25 years, since scientists began to warn that the planet was warming in earnest, there has not been any warming when one looks at the untampered data provided by the Japan meteorology Agency (JMA) that were measured by 9 different stations across Canada. These 9 stations have the data dating back to around 1983 or 1986, so I used their datasats.

Looking at the JMA database and plotting the stations with longer term recording, we have the following chart:

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climate-debate

Another New Study Supports Early 21st Century Warming Hiatus Was Real

by P. Gosselin, April 2, 2019 in NoTricksZone

A number of scientists from the alarmist camp like to insist that there had never been such a hiatus. The latest paper contradicts that claim.

The new study states that many published analyses show that lightning activity is responsive to temperature on time scales ranging from the diurnal to the decadal and that the hiatus in global warming earlier this century can be seen in several global datasets.

Scientists found that the statistically flat behavior of the global lightning record from the NASA Lightning Imaging Sensor over the same decadal period is consistent with this hiatus in global warming.

What follows is the paper’s abstract:

Multiple records of global temperature contain periods of decadal length with flat or declining temperature trend, often termed a ‘hiatus’. Towards assessing the physical reality of two such periods (1940–1972 and 1998–2014), lightning data are examined. Lightning activity is of particular interest because on many different time scales it has been shown to be non-linearly dependent on temperature. During the earlier hiatus, declining trends in regional thunder days have been documented. During the more recent hiatus, lightning observations from the Lightning Imaging Sensor in space show no trend in flash rate. Surface-based, radiosonde-based and satellite-based estimates of global temperature have all been examined to support the veracity of the hiatus in global warming over the time interval of the satellite-based lightning record. Future measurements are needed to capture the total global lightning activity on a continuous basis.”

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climate-debate

Sizzling March?

by P. Homewood, April 3, 2019 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

According to CET, March 2019 was the 17th warmest on record since 1659, 1.2C higher than the 1981-2010 average.

Sound impressed? No, thought not!

The month as a whole actually seemed to be pretty unremarkable. There was some mild weather at the start of the month, accompanied by very wet weather. The last few days were also pleasant and sunny.

But unusually warm?

The graph at the top gives a bit of perspective.

First of all it is obvious that last month was pretty typical of Marchs during the last 30 years or so.

The fact that it is 1.2C above the 30-year average means little, as natural variability means some years are warmer and others cooler, such as last year. That’s what an average is.

Indeed, in the last 30 years, eleven had March anomalies of 1C or more. Six of these years were warmer than this March.

By far the warmest Marchs were in 1957 and 1938, again suggesting that there was nothing unusual about last month.

 

The other thing which stands out is that most Marchs used to be much colder than normal until the 1980s.

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https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cetmaxdly1878on_urbadj4.dat

see also here (WUWT)

climate-debate

State of the Climate 2018

by Prof. Ole Humlum, April 2 , 2019 in GWPF

That’s according to Norwegian Professor Ole Humlum whose annual review of the world’s climate is published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
 
Last week, the WMO issued its own review of the climate, which insinuated that global warming was worsening. However, Professor Humlum points out that the data tells a very different story:
 
“Reading the WMO report, you would think that global warming was getting worse. But in fact it is carefully worded to give a false impression. The data are far more suggestive of an improvement than a deterioration.”
 
And the lack of anything to be alarmed about is clear across a range of measures, says Professor Humlum:
 
“After the warm year of 2016, temperatures last year continued to fall back to levels of the so-called warming “pause” of 2000-2015. There is no sign of any acceleration in global temperature, hurricanes or sea-level rise. These empirical observations show no sign of acceleration whatsoever.”

 

Professor Humlum’s key findings:
 

  • In 2018, the average global surface temperature continued a gradual descent towards the level characterising the years before the strong 2015–16 El Niño episode. 
  • Since 2004, when the Argo floats came into operation, the global oceans above 1900m depth have on average warmed somewhat. The maximum warming (between the surface and 120 m depth) mainly affects oceans near the equator, where the incoming solar radiation is at a maximum. In contrast, net cooling has been pronounced for the North Atlantic since 2004.
  • Data from tide gauges all over the world suggest an average global sea-level rise of 1– 1.5 mm/year, while the satellite record suggests a rise of about 3.2 mm/year. The large difference between the two data sets still has no broadly accepted explanation.
  • The Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent has undergone important local and regional variations from year to year. The overall global tendency since 1972, however, is for overall stable snow extent.
  • Tropical storm and hurricane accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) values since 1970 have displayed large variations from year to year, but no overall trend towards either lower or higher activity. The same applies for the number of hurricane landfalls in the continental United States, for which the record begins in 1851.

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see also here

biology+acidification

More Evidence for Rapid Coral Adaptation

by Jim Steele, April 2, 2019 in WUWT

Good news continues to accumulate regards corals’ ability to rapidly adjust to changing climates. The view of coral resilience has been dominated by the narrative of a few scientists. In the 1990s they advocated devastating consequences for coral reefs due to global warming, arguing coral cannot adapt quickly enough. Since the Little Ice Age ended, they believed rising ocean temperatures had brought coral closer to a “bleaching threshold”, a more or less fixed upper temperature limit above which corals cannot survive. Their model predicted the speed of recent global warming “spells catastrophe for tropical marine ecosystems everywhere”. Their assertions that “as much as 95% of the world’s coral may be in danger of being lost by mid-century” was guaranteed to capture headlines and instill public fear. However, a growing body of scientific research increasingly casts doubts on such alarming predictions. Unfortunately, that good news gets much less attention.

A recent peer-reviewed paper titled A Global Analysis of Coral Bleaching Over the Past Two Decades (Sully 2019) compared 20 years of ocean temperatures at which coral bleaching was initiated. From 1998 to 2006, the average sea surface temperature that initiated bleaching was 82.6 °F. But that temperature limit proves not to be “fixed” as earlier researchers incorrectly believed. From 2007 to 2017 the average temperature limit that initiated bleaching was higher, 83.7 °F. This indicates coral have been rapidly adapting to warmer regional climates much faster than once believed.

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energy and fields

China-built nuclear reactors may enjoy home advantage as delays and costs stymie foreign competitors

by Bloomberg, April 2, 2019 in SouthChinaMorningPost

China’s home-grown nuclear technology is gaining favour in the battle for the nation’s next generation of reactors, according to a state-owned developer, as it sought to recover from delays and cost blowouts from imported designs.

China’s reactor, known as the Hualong One, will be faster and easier to repair and maintain than competing foreign designs because it will be made at home, according to Chen Hua, chief executive officer of China National Nuclear Power company (CNNP), which builds and operates nuclear power projects.

“We prefer the Hualong One,” Chen said on Monday at a nuclear energy conference in Beijing.

The global nuclear industry has been awaiting a revival in China after cost overruns and stricter regulation after the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan stalled the approval and construction of more units.

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better to know...?, press and newspapers, renewable energy

La voiture à hydrogène est un miroir aux alouettes de la transition énergétique

by Olivier Daniélo, 2 avril 2019 in Reporterre

Il y a urgence à agir pour réduire les émissions de CO2. La marche et le vélo sont certes préférables à la voiture particulière. Mais parmi les différents types de voitures, quelle est la solution la plus efficace pour réduire les émissions de CO2 ?

Il existe un indicateur particulièrement intéressant pour tenter d’y répondre : la quantité d’énergie consommée pour réaliser par exemple 200.000 kilomètres. Energie non seulement pour propulser la voiture, mais aussi pour fabriquer la voiture elle-même et extraire dans les mines les matières premières nécessaires. Le bilan carbone est bien entendu corrélé au bilan énergétique. Les experts du groupe Volkswagen (VW) ont fait le calcul et ont présenté les résultats le 12 mars 2019 à l’occasion de la conférence de presse annuelle de ce mastodonte dont les décisions influencent l’industrie automobile mondiale.

 

 

 

Verdict : la voiture aux carburants synthétiques (eFuel et eCNG) consomme trois fois plus d’énergie primaire que la voiture électrique. Et celle à l’hydrogène, 1,7 fois plus. Ces 70 % supplémentaires représentent un impact à la fois économique et carbonique. La fabrication de la pile à combustible et du réservoir capable de résister à une pression de 700 atmosphères est énergivore. La voiture à hydrogène la plus vendue au monde (quelques milliers d’exemplaires) pèse 1.850 kg, soit 3 kilos de plus que la Tesla Model 3 Long Range (100 % batterie), qui a la même autonomie. Mais, c’est surtout le mauvais rendement de la chaîne hydrogène qui plombe le bilan global.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Fabricating A Warming: NASA Now Altering ‘Unadjusted” Data To Create New, Warmer ‘Unadjusted’ Data

by P. Gosselin, March 31, 2019 in NoTricksZone

By Kirye

and Pierre Gosselin

One fellow climate blogger recently wrote on how he’s been been looking at GHCN ‘unadjusted’ data and noticed that scientists at NASA appear to have been altering them: “This is a fairly disturbing development,” he wrote.

Heating up Reykjavik and Nuuk

Cited as an example is Reykyavik, Iceland. According to Tony Heller here, “The current version V4 has massively cooled the past, to make it look like Iceland is warming.”

Heller then posted a chart showing the difference between v2 unadjusted and the new v4 ‘unadjusted’ for the Reykjavik station.

 

Spreadsheet

Heller also found here that the same appears to be the case for Nuuk, Greenland as well.

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climate-debate

Scientists: The CO2 Greenhouse Effect Was Cancelled Out By Clouds During 1992-2014

by K. Richard, March 28, 2019 in NoTricksZone

An unheralded but significant 2016 scientific paper – “A Hiatus of the Greenhouse Effect” – is now publicly available.

Scientists have found the greenhouse effect’s (GHE) influence on planetary temperatures went on “hiatus” during 1992-2014.

The estimated GHE radiative influence for these 22 years was a slightly negative -0.04 Wm-2 per year.

The reason why the GHE influence went on hiatus in recent decades is that (a) decadal-scale changes in cloud cover exert dominant radiative control in longwave forcing (GHE) efficacy, and (b) the shortwave effects of cloud cover changes override the radiative longwave effects, meaning that a decrease in cloud cover will allow more direct shortwave radiation to be absorbed by the Earth system, eliciting a net positive imbalance in the energy budget.

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climate-debate

New paper: Urbanization has increased minimum temperatures 1.7K in the UK

by Ian L.M. Goddard & S. Bett, Marcy 21, 2019 in WUWT

Abstract

This study aims to estimate the affect of urbanisation on daily maximum and minimum temperatures in the United Kingdom. Urban fractions were calculated for 10 km × 10 km areas surrounding meteorological weather stations. Using robust regression a linear relationship between urban fraction and temperature difference between station measurements and ERA‐Interim reanalysis temperatures was estimated.

For an urban fraction of 1.0, the daily minimum 2‐m temperature was estimated to increase by 1.90 ± 0.88 K while the daily maximum temperature was not significantly affected by urbanisation. This result was then applied to the whole United Kingdom with a maximum T min urban heat island intensity (UHII) of about 1.7K in London and with many UK cities having T min UHIIs above one degree.

This paper finds through the method of observation minus reanalysis that urbanisation has significantly increased the daily minimum 2‐m temperature in the United Kingdom by up to 1.70 K.

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Figure 5 Map showing the change in T min due to the urbanisation at the 10 km × 10 km scale over the United Kingdom and Ireland. The colour bar shows the magnitude of the temperature change in K