by Anthony Watts, July 8, 2018 in WUWT
With those hot weather records in Los Angeles being set, it’s important to remember where measurements are taken. I’ve done an investigation and found that every “all time high” reported by the LA Times is from a station compromised by heat sources and heat sinks. In my opinion, the data from these stations is worthless.
It’s been going on for some time, for example, back in 2010, because there’s been a questionable high reading reading at USC of 113°F.
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by K. Crowley et al., June 29 2018, in Bloomberg
To reduce emissions and provide affordable electricity, the world needs to burn more fossil fuels, not less.
That’s the message being delivered by the world’s biggest energy companies at the World Gas Conference in Washington this week, where they championed natural gas as the fuel of the future, rather than one that simply bridges the gap toward renewables. …
by Charlie Passut, June 28, 2018 in NGI’sShaleDaily
China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), the largest state-owned producer of oil and natural gas in the country, reportedly plans to nearly double natural gas production from shale sources this year and wants a five-fold increase in such production by 2020.
CNPC said it plans to produce 5.6 billion cubic meters (bcm) (197.8 Bcf) of natural gas from unconventional sources in southwestern Sichuan province in 2018, according to a report Tuesday by Caixin Media Co. Ltd., a Beijing-based news service. The company reportedly plans to drill more than 330 new wells targeting the Sichuan Basin in 2018, and wants to have more than 820 shale gas wells in operation by 2020, with total annual production of 15 bcm (529.7 Bcf). …
by Ernest Scheyder, June 27, 2018 in Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Natural gas production from U.S. shale fields can keep growing for decades, giving Washington a powerful diplomatic tool to counter the geopolitical influence of other energy exporters such as Russia, industry executives and government officials said at a conference here.
Already the world’s largest gas producer, the United States can expand shale gas output another 60 percent in the coming decades, according to at least one estimate. So far, liquefied natural gas (LNG) has been spared from retaliatory tariffs in U.S. President Donald Trump’s intensifying trade conflicts with China and other countries. …
by Andy May, July 7, 2018 in WUWT
The end of oil and gas has been predicted on a regular basis since 1885, yet today we use more of both than ever before and no end is in sight in the data available. Figure 1 shows worldwide energy consumption by fuel since 1965 and projected to 2035 by BP in billion tonnes of oil equivalent, it shows substantial growth in both oil and gas.
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Figure 1. Worldwide energy consumption by type of fuel. Source: BP Energy Outlook 2017.
by P. Gosselin, July , 2018 in NoTricksZone
German climate and weather analyst “Schneefan” (Snow Fan) here writes a summary of the first half of 2018 thus far. All data show that the surface temperature of the globe has been cooling strongly over the past months and polar ice mass growing.
He writes that in the first half of this year we have seen weak solar activity and La Nina conditions acting to cool the globe’s surface. Moreover Arctic and Antarctic ice mass have grown in comparison to the previous years. …
by David Archibald, July 6, 2018 in WUWT
We have only 300 years-odd of detailed solar observations with telescopes, half that of magnetic records, half again in the radio spectrum and less than that for most modern instrument records (and 12 years of Watts Up With That to interpret it). So as the months pass our knowledge of solar activity is still growing appreciably. The evidence points to a major transition of activity in 2006 which has returned us to the solar conditions of the 19thcentury. 19th century-type climate is expected to follow.
Figure 1: F10.7 Flux 1948 to 2018
by Prof. Chris D. Thomas, July 10, 2017 in TheConversation
Animals and plants are seemingly disappearing faster than at any time since the dinosaurs died out, 66m years ago. The death knell tolls for life on Earth. Rhinos will soon be gone unless we defend them, Mexico’s final few Vaquita porpoises are drowning in fishing nets, and in America, Franklin trees survive only in parks and gardens.
Yet the survivors are taking advantage of new opportunities created by humans. Many are spreading into new parts of the world, adapting to new conditions, and even evolving into new species … (…)
by Anthony Watts, July 6, 2018 in WUWT
From the “I scream, you scream, we all scream for higher temperatures” department. Yesterday, Paul Homewood and I went on a collaborative search to find the weather station at Strathclyde Park which had it’s all-time Scottish high temperature record denied by the Met Office, to no avail. It just wasn’t easily visible. One of Paul’s readers went to the scene and took photos, but it isnit just the photos, it’s what he found out. Photo credits to Duncan McNeil. Read on.
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by Javier, July 5, 2018 in WUWT
Two solar physicists, Robert Leamon from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and Scott McIntosh from the High Altitude Observatory at Boulder, CO, have made an interesting observation that links changes in solar activity with changes in the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
As they reported at the AGU 2017 Fall Meeting, the termination of the solar magnetic activity bands at the solar equator that mark the end of the Hale cycle coincides since the 1960’s with a shift from El Niño to La Niña conditions in the Pacific.
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See also here
by Donna Laframboise, July 2018, in BigPictureNews
SPOTLIGHT: Forget reporting facts. Journalists pick sides and spread false news.
BIG PICTURE: The Breakthrough Institute is known for its sensible approach to environmental questions. The current issue of its journal includes a tour de force titled “Welcome to the Narcisscene: Returning Humans to the Center of the Cosmos.”
Author Mark Sagoff spends 5,000 words discussing a topic that should appall anyone who worries about science being hijacked by politics. The short version is that there’s an international organization “responsible for naming and dating geologic periods, eras, and epochs.” Comprised of geologists, this organization has been under immense pressure to assert that planet Earth is no longer in the geological epoch known the Holocene.
For nearly 20 years, non-geologists such as Nobel-winning atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen, have been insisting that a new epoch should be officially declared – one that acknowledges humanity’s influence on the planet. They think it should be called the Anthropocene. (In ancient Greek, anthrop means ‘human’.)
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by AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES, February 2, 2017 in WUWT
A survey of 97 coastal ecosystem experts revealed impacts of climate disturbance but also instances of resilience in all ecosystem types evaluated and at multiple locations worldwide …
by P. Homewood, July 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
It has been wrongly reported that June was the driest on record in the UK..
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In reality, there have been eight years with drier Junes since 1910 alone
by Anthony Watts, July 3, 2018 in WUWT
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Notes on data released July 2, 2018
The global temperature anomaly for June 2018 changed only slightly from May. Indeed the first six months of 2018 have been steady, varying in a narrow range between +0.26 and +0.18 °C. As noted last month, NOAA’s indication that an El Niño is coming this winter appears on track as we see tropical temperatures continue to inch upward.….
see aslo here
by Ed Hoskins, July 3, 2018 in WUWT
Some initial points arising from the BP data:
Having been relatively stable for the last 7 years global CO2 emissions grew by ~1.3% in 2017. This growth was in spite of all the international “commitments” arising from the Paris Climate Agreement.
The contrast between the developed and developing worlds remains stark:
- developing world emissions overtook Developed world CO2 emissions in 2005 and they have been escalating since.
- in terms of their history and the likely prognosis of their CO2 emissions.
Since 1990 CO2 emissions from the developed world have decreased, whereas the developing world has shown a fourfold increase since 1980. CO2 emissions in the developing world are accelerating as the quality of the lives for people in the underdeveloped and developing world improves. At least 1.12 billion people in the developing world still have no access to reliable mains electricity.
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by P. Gosselin, July 3, 2018 in NoTricksZone
Researchers have published 4 new papers this year showing that both tropical cyclone activity and intensity have declined over the past decades. The findings mean atmospheric scientists and policymakers will need to reassess positions on climate change and tropical storms.
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by JoNova, July 4, 2018
Nine years ago the Australian Liberals were on the verge of splitting. Turnbull was about to give the Labor Party a free pass on the Emissions Trading Scheme and sell Australia out to the EU. Climategate broke (thank you FOIA) and the party rebelled and tossed out Turnbull. Now, after three elections where the people voted No to carbon taxes every time they could, we have an emissions trading scheme, a Renewable Energy Target, and one of the most crippling Paris targets of any nation. This is despite our rapidly growing population, huge distances and massive resources and the failure of almost every other nation to even achieve their Paris goals. We are The Global Patsy, obediently sacrificing competitive advantage, GDP, and lifestyle – all so Julie Bishop and Malcolm Turnbull get invited to the right parties. Economic carnage in a glorious quest to make the weather nicer.
by Dr Carlo Tesla, July 2, 2018 in A. Watts, WUWT
What if the worst is to come?” – Dr Carlo Testa.
2 July 2018 – “The Belgian department of solar physics research (SIDC) says we are about to touch 100; that is, a hundred days in which we do not see spots on our sun,” says Italian meteorologist Dr Carlo Testa.
During a time of few or no sunspots (a solar minimum) the Sun emits less energy than usual, says Dr Testa. “According to some scholars this situation could lead to climatic upheavals.”
Suffice it to recall, says Testa, that between 1645 and 1715 the most significant solar minimum of history, the Little Ice Age, occurred, bringing years and years marked by very strict winters that lasted until June. (…)
by JoNova, July 2, 2018
Coal is a dying industry, but luckily for the Australian economy, the rest of the world is not as smart as The Australian Greens and Labor Party and they are still buying it.
Coal is set to regain its spot as the nation’s biggest export earner amid higher prices and surging demand from Asia, sparking fresh calls from the Turnbull government for Labor to end its “war on coal”.
The Department of Industry, Innovation and Science figures show total coal exports are forecast to reach $58.1 billion in 2018-19, overtaking iron ore ($57.7bn) for the first time in almost a decade. (…)
by Tim Ball, July 1, 2018 in WUWT
Most of the loudest and most vociferous responses to my last article were predictable. Several topics trigger immediate, irrational, and emotional responses. The mention, or at least the questioning, of Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory, is one of them. All I got was arm-waving and references, but not one piece of empirical evidence to prove the theory. This is the same response you get when you ask for empirical evidence to prove the anthropogenic global warming theory (AGW).
There is another parallel between the two. Many call AGW a hoax, but it is not, partly because a hoax has a humorous component and there is nothing funny about the deception and its impact. A real and very effective scientific hoax involved the obsession with proving Darwin’s theory. It is called the Piltdown Man Hoax after the quarry in which the event occurred. As a traditional hoax, it was designed to prick pomposity, to underscore the weakness of unjustified and arrogant claims, to open eyes closed by obsession. The irony is the victim of the hoax, Charles Dawson, was determined to find the so-called ‘missing link. He sought the empirical fossil evidence that would provide the final link in the evolution of man from apes.
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by Jean-Pierre Schaeken, 2 juliet 2018 in ScienceClimatEnergie
Le gouvernement belge a adopté le 16 juillet 2002 l’arrêté royal relatif à l’établissement des mécanismes visant à la promotion de l’électricité produite à partir de sources d’énergie renouvelable. Ces dernières sont dominées, en Belgique par l’éolien et le photovoltaïque (l’éolien étant prédominant) c.à.d. des productions électriques intermittentes.
Ce reformatage de la génération électrique a été décidé dans la précipitation sans analyser l’impact sur le système électrique, sur la compétitivité des entreprises et sur le pouvoir d’achat des ménages, la priorité étant la réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre (GES). Un tel manque flagrant de préparation est également patent dans la mise en place du tournant énergétique allemand (Energie Wende), décision politique particulièrement désastreuse. (…)
by P. Homewood, July 1, 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
As we all know, Greenland is warming up rapidly, causing the ice sheet to melt faster and faster.
Well, according to the BBC and New York Times, at least.
Only one slight problem – the temperature record shows quite a different story.
Each year, the DMI publishes the Greenland – DMI Historical Climate Data Collection:
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by Ulli Kulke, June 29, 2018 in GWPF
Henrik Svensmark, head of solar research at Denmark’s Technical University in Copenhagen, is one of them. And he ventures far ahead in the climate debate, the research with perhaps the greatest significance of our time. His research is contested, of course. Nevertheless, Svensmark and his critics agree that the topic “sun” deserves more attention in climate research. The participants are particularly interested in the complex interplay between our central star and ionizing emissaries from the depths of the galaxy – “cosmic radiation”.
Svensmark says: “The climate is influenced more by changes in cosmic radiation than by carbon dioxide”. CO2 has an effect, of course, “but it is far less than most current climate models assume, and also less than the influence of cosmic radiation”. In his opinion, a doubling of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere would cause an increase in global temperature of at most one degree, and not two degrees, as is now generally accepted.
In other words, the “climate sensitivity” of carbon dioxide is only half as high as assumed (…)
by Clyde Spencer, June 30, 2018 in WUWT
There have been articles on WUWT recently, here and here, commemorating the 30 years since James Hansen gave Senate committee testimony about his view of the human influence on climate
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Hansen dramatically emphasized that “The most recent two seasons (Dec.-Jan.-Feb and Mar.-Apr.-May, 1988) are the warmest in the entire record.” This is really a non sequitur. It would be notable if the last point(s) in a long upward-trending series were not the warmest in the series. And, indeed, the 27 seasons preceding the two 1988 record temperatures were all lower than the 1981 seasonal high! (See the next graph, below) Basically, Hansen got lucky again that he had a couple of warm seasons that allowed him to make such a statement to impress the uncritical Senators. Otherwise, he would have had to truncate his graph at 1981 to make a similar claim. He also added an extra season of data to his ‘30-year’ time-series, probably to accentuate the claim. Two seasons sounds more impressive than one season.
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by Michael Lynch, June 30, 2018 in WUWT
Very few people realize that the entire concerns about peak oil were based on misinformation or junk science.
A decade ago, the media was filled with stories about peak oil, numerous books were published on the subject (such as Half Gone and $20 a Gallon!), and even the Simpsons mentioned it in an episode about doomsday preppers. Now, the topic is largely forgotten and the flavor of the month is peak oil demand. Anyone concerned about the quality of research that works its way into the public debate should be curious about how so many were so wrong for so long. (Buy my book for the full story.)
First and foremost, realize that in the 1970s, numerous analysts and institutions made similar arguments, arguing that geological scarcity was responsible for higher prices not the two disruptions of production in 1973 and 1979. Indeed, in the months before oil prices collapsed in 1986, the consensus was that prices were too low and had to rise to make upstream investment profitable, despite the fact that OPEC production was collapsing (down from 30 mb/d in 1980 to 15 in 1985). You would think that this would make people more skeptical about claims that geological scarcity was responsible when the shutdown of Venezuelan production and the second Gulf War cut off Iraqi supplies sent prices higher starting in 2003.
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