better to know...?, energy and fields

The Belgian electricity industry in chaos

by Prof. Samuel Furfari, January 7, 2019 in EuropeanScientist

Belgium’s electricity supply has become a serious problem. Without investment in new generation capacity, the security of electricity supply will deteriorate in the next few years. However, the country’s situation does not lend itself to optimism on this topic. Belgium is not a straightforward country. Its institutional structure can only be described as one of […] The post The Belgian electricity industry in chaos (https://www.europeanscientist.com/en/features/the-belgian-electricity-industry-in-chaos/) appeared first on European Scientist (https://www.europeanscientist.com/en)

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better to know...?, energy and fields

4 oil price predictions for 2019

by Steve Austin, January 7, 2019 in Oil-Price.Net

Last year, we gave out five blazing predictions as we stepped into a brand new 2018. And, how did we fare? Well, the year isn’t new anymore but we did get 5 out of 5 of our predictions right! Self-congratulations are in order reaffirming why you read us. For 2019, really it’s more of the same, but with some caveats. Investors, listen. Readers, pay heed, we are about to deconstruct the next year. As audacious as it sounds, here are our 4 oil price predictions for 2019:

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climate-debate

Forget El Nino, StormFest is about to Hit the West Coast

by Charles the moderator, January 6, 2019 in WUWT

Things often calm down after January 1 during El Nino years….but not this year…with the U.S. West Coast from central California to Washington State about to be pummeled by a series of storms.   Rain, snow, wind?  Plenty for everyone.

A view of the latest infrared satellite imagery shows an amazing line-up of one storm after another stretching way into the Pacific.  A traffic jam of storms.

 

Let’s examine our stormy future, using a series of sea level pressure forecasts from the UW WRF weather forecast models (solid lines are sea level pressure, shading in lower atmosphere temperature).

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Kerala Floods “Likely Due To Climate Variability, Not AGW”–New Study

by P. Homewood, January 5, 2019 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

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Since there is no increase in mean and extreme precipitation in Kerala over the last six decades, the extreme event during August 2018 is likely to be driven by anomalous atmospheric conditions due to climate variability rather anthropogenic climate warming. The severity of the Kerala flood of 2018 and the damage caused might be affected by several factors including land use/ land cover change, antecedent hydrologic conditions, reservoir storage and operations, encroachment of flood plains, and other natural factors. The impacts of key drivers (anthropogenic and natural) on flood severity need to be established to improve our understanding of floods and associated damage.

http://www.geosocindia.org/index.php/jgsi/article/view/137443

climate-debate

Storage wars

by Charles the moderator, January 5, 2019 in WUWT

UC Santa Barbara researcher conducts first-ever global-scale evaluation of the role of soil minerals in carbon storage

University of California – Santa Barbara

One answer to our greenhouse gas challenges may be right under our feet: Soil scientists Oliver Chadwick of UC Santa Barbara and Marc Kramer of Washington State University have found that minerals in soil can hold on to a significant amount of carbon pulled from the atmosphere. It’s a mechanism that could potentially be exploited as the world tries to shift its carbon economy.

“We’ve known for quite a long time that the carbon stored on minerals is the carbon that sticks around for a long time,” said Chadwick, co-author of the paper, “Climate-driven thresholds in reactive mineral retention of soil carbon at the global scale,” published in the journal Nature Climate Change. How much carbon the soil can take and how much it can keep, he said, are dependent on factors including temperature and moisture.

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climate-debate

“Terrifying Sea-Level Prediction Now Looks Far Less Likely”… But “marine ice-cliff instability” is “just common sense”

by David Middleton, January 5, 2019 in WUWT

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Marine ice cliff instability (MICI) “has not been observed, not at such a scale,” “might simply be a product of running a computer model of ice physics at a too-low resolution,” ignores post glacial rebound, couldn’t occur before ” until 2250 or 2300″… Yet “the idea is cinematic,” “it’s just common sense that Antarctic glaciers will develop problematic ice cliffs” and something we should plan for…

“Our results support growing evidence that calving glaciers are particularly sensitive to climate change.”  Greenland’s climate is always changing… Always has and always will change… And the climate changes observed over the last few decades are not unprecedented. The Greenland ice sheet is no more disappearing this year than it was last year and it is physically impossible for the ice sheet to “collapse” into the ocean.

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Figure 6. Jakobshavn Isbrae. (Wikipedia and Google Earth)

climate-debate

Consensus? 500+ Scientific Papers Published In 2018 Support A Skeptical Position On Climate Alarm

by K. Richard, January 3, 2019 in NoTricksZone

In 2018,  over 500 scientific papers were published that cast doubt on the position that anthropogenic CO2 emissions function as the climate’s fundamental control knob…or that otherwise serve to question the efficacy of climate models or the related “consensus” positions commonly endorsed by policymakers and mainstream media sources.

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climate-debate

UK Climate Trends – 2018

by P. Homewood, January 4, 2019 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

The Met Office has now published its data for 2018. We can expect plenty of claims about last year being the 7th warmest in the UK since records began (in 1910). Or that all of the ten warmest years have occurred this century.

The real significance of these latest numbers, however, is that they continue to confirm that UK temperatures stopped rising more than a decade ago, after a step up during the 1990s.

 

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/actualmonthly…

 

climate-debate

Sea level oscillations in Japan and China since the start of the 20th century and consequences for coastal management – Part 1: Japan Author links open overlay panel

by Albert Parker, March 1, 2019 in Ocean&CoastalManagement

Highlights
• Japan has strong quasi-20 and quasi-60 years low frequencies sea level fluctuations.
• These periodicities translate in specific length requirements of tide gauge records.
• 1894/1906 to present, there is no sea level acceleration in the 5 long-term stations.
• Those not affected by crustal movement (4 of 5) do not even show a rising trend.
•Proper consideration of the natural oscillations should inform coastal planning.

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See also here

climate and geology, climate-debate

Global-scale evaluation of role of soil minerals in carbon storage

by U. of California – Santa Barbara, January 2, 2019 in ScienceDaily

“We’ve known for quite a long time that the carbon stored on minerals is the carbon that sticks around for a long time,” said Chadwick, co-author of the paper, “Climate-driven thresholds in reactive mineral retention of soil carbon at the global scale,” published in the journal Nature Climate Change. How much carbon the soil can take and how much it can keep, he said, are dependent on factors including temperature and moisture.

“When plants photosynthesize, they draw carbon out of the atmosphere, then they die and their organic matter is incorporated in the soil,” Chadwick explained. “Bacteria decompose that organic matter, releasing carbon that can either go right back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide or it can get held on the surface of soil minerals.”

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Heads up Newfoundland & Labrador: polar bear season has begun

by Susan Crockford, January 2, 2019 in PolarBearScience

There is now enough sea ice off southern Labrador and the northern tip of Newfoundland for Davis Strait polar bears to come ashore looking for food. Baby seals won’t be available for months yet. And since winter is the lean season for these bears, some may seek food sources onshore. The bears come down from the area of Hudson Strait and southern Baffin Island: as the sea ice expands south, so do the bears.

 

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climate-debate, renewable energy

Can wind and solar replace fossil fuels?

by Richard Patton, January 1, 2019 in WUWT

Statements implying that wind and solar can provide 50% of the power to the grid are not difficult to find on the internet. For example, Andrew Cuomo announced that

“The Clean Energy Standard will require 50 percent of New York’s electricity to come from renewable energy sources like wind and solar by 2030…”

Considering that the wind is erratic, and the solar cells only put out full power 6 hours per day, it seems a remarkable statement. Can intermittent energy actually supply that much power?

For some answers, we turn to Germany, which has some of the highest electric bills in the world as well as a high proportion of its electric power produced by wind and solar (19%). Let’s take a look at German consumption and generation.

 

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better to know...?, climate-debate, energy and fields

Global Warming Win: Venezuelan Socialists On Track to Eliminate Their Nation’s Oil Industry

by Eric Worrall, December 31, 2018 in WUWT

Despite oil accounting for a whopping 90% of Venezuela’s export earnings, President Maduro, a fervent supporter of the Paris Agreement, has courageously put principle before profits by implementing his version of a new green deal. Maduro has eliminated the capitalist exploiters from his nation’s oil industry, and replaced them with loyal army officers who are rapidly dismantling the infrastructure left behind by the capitalists.

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Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/r-special-report-oil-output-goes-awol-in-venezuela-as-soldiers-run-pdvsa-2018-12/

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better to know...?, climate-debate

TOP 12 DEBUNKED CLIMATE SCARES OF 2018

by GWPF, December 31, 2018

January 2018:  Worst-case global warming scenarios not credible: Study

PARIS (AFP) – Earth’s surface will almost certainly not warm up four or five degrees Celsius by 2100, according to a study released Wednesday (Jan 17) which, if correct, voids worst-case UN climate change predictions.

A revised calculation of how greenhouse gases drive up the planet’s temperature reduces the range of possible end-of-century outcomes by more than half, researchers said in the report, published in the journal Nature.

February:  ‘Sinking’ Pacific nation Tuvalu is actually getting bigger, new research reveals

The Pacific nation of Tuvalu — long seen as a prime candidate to disappear as climate change forces up sea levels — is actually growing in size, new research shows.

A University of Auckland study examined changes in the geography of Tuvalu’s nine atolls and 101 reef islands between 1971 and 2014, using aerial photographs and satellite imagery.

It found eight of the atolls and almost three-quarters of the islands grew during the study period, lifting Tuvalu’s total land area by 2.9 percent, even though sea levels in the country rose at twice the global average.

 March …. April… etc.

better to know...?, climate-debate

China Ignores Paris Climate Accord As CO2 Emissions Rapidly Rise

by Chriss Street, December 31, 2018 in ClimateChange Dispatch

Despite being lauded by President Obama for signing the Paris UN Climate Change Accords, China is still rapidly expanding greenhouse gas emissions.

President Obama and China’s President Xi Jinping issued a ‘U.S.-China Joint Presidential Statement on Climate Change’on March 31, 2016 stating that both nations were signing the Paris Accords and would take further “concrete steps” to “use public resources to finance and encourage the transition toward low carbon technologies as a priority.”

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climate-debate

Arctic Ice Volume Shames Climate Experts …Antarctic Stations Show Cooling, Not Warming

by P. Gosselin, December 28, 2018 in NoTricksZone

By Kirye in Tokyo

We constantly hear from the untrustworthy media how polar ice is melting rapidly – due to human-induced global warming.

But when we look at the real data, we understand why audiences worldwide increasing distrust the mainstream media and their constant stream of doomsday reports, which they uncritically produce.

Recently I looked at some island stations near Antarctic, a continent where we are told melting ice will lead to many meters of sea level rise if we continue emitting CO2 into the atmosphere business as usual. These stations I examined are:

– Base Arturo P
– Bellingshause
– Centro Met.An, Marsh
– Base Orcadas
– Great Wall
– Jubany

hese six stations in the South Shetland Islands or the South Orkney Islands (located in the Antarctic Ocean) have even seen a slight cooling trend for decades.

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better to know...?, press and newspapers

Why all you’ve been told about these polar bears could be WRONG

by David Rose, December 30, 2018 in DailyMail

Animals driven to the edge of their natural habitat by shrinking ice have become one of the defining images of climate change, but Inuits who know the predators have a very different story
  • Aaron Gibbons, 31, was mauled to death by a polar bear earlier this year 
  • Inuit leaders want to be allowed to increase the amount of bears they kill
  • Climate change activists say bears are in decline, due to global warming
  • But locals say polar bears are adapting and are perfectly able to breed
  • …
climate-debate, press and newspapers

Going Nowhere Fast on Climate, Year After Year

by Paul Bledsoe, December 2018 in TheNewYorkTimes

Three decades after a top climate scientist warned Congress of the dangers of global warming, greenhouse gas emissions keep rising and so do global temperatures.

Thirty years ago, a NASA scientist, James Hansen, told lawmakers at a Senate hearing that “global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause-and-effect relationship with the greenhouse effect.” He added that there “is only 1 percent chance of accidental warming of this magnitude.”

By that, he meant that humans were responsible.

His testimony made headlines around the United States and the world. But in the time since, greenhouse gas emissions, the global temperature average and cost of climate-related heat, wildfires, droughts, flooding and hurricanes have continued to rise.

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climate-debate

Recently Dropping Global Temperatures Demonstrate IPCC Claims are Impossible

by Tim Ball, December 29, 2018 in WUWT

When you put the claims of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in perspective, you get a very different picture that defies logic. I decided to do this because of their recent hysterical claims in Special Report 15 (SR-15) designed to frighten and bully the world into completely unnecessary and enormously expensive environmental and energy policies. Charles Steele summarized their claims and proposed policies in his article, “Climate Doom Ahead? Think Twice,”

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climate-debate

Current Solar Cycle The Third Quietest In More Than 250 Years Of Observation

by F. Bosse & Prof. F. Vahrenholt, December 27, 2018 in ClimateChangeDispatch

The sun was much less active in November than normal, comparing all solar cycles 1-23 up to month no. 120 since the beginning of the systematic survey in 1755, the first year of solar cycle 1.

The latest observed SSN (sunspot number) was a meager 5.9 for the monthly average.

On 16 days the sun was completely “spotless.” The maximum number over the days of November was 15, which does not mean that there were 15 spots – no, the number indicates that 5 spots were observed in a maximum of 1 spot group.

So there was very low spot activity, only 20% of the average value.

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climate-debate

92 New Papers (2018) Link Solar Forcing To Climate . . . Some Predict Solar-Induced Global Cooling By 2030!

by K. Richard, December 27, 2018 in NoTricksZone

When it comes to the Sun’s influence on climate, one conclusion is certain: there is no widespread scientific agreement as to how and to what extent solar activity and its related parameters (i.e., galactic cosmic rays, geomagnetic activity, solar wind flux) impact changes in the Earth’s temperature and precipitation.

The disagreement is so chasmic and the mechanisms are so poorly understood that scientists’ estimates of the influence of direct solar irradiance forcing between the 17th century and today can range between a negligible +0.1 W m-2 to a very robust +6 W m-2 (Egorova et al., 2018; Mazzarella and Scafetta, 2018).

“There is no consensus on the amplitude of the historical solar forcing. The estimated magnitude of the total solar irradiance difference between Maunder minimum and present time ranges from 0.1 to 6 W/m2 making uncertain the simulation of the past and future climate.”  (Egorova et al., 2018)

 

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La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse