Climate Research News

‘Scientific’ American may regret taking their recent opinion poll on the state of Climate Science given the eye-opening results cast by their “scientifically literate” readership. With a total of 5190 respondents, a consensus of 81.3% think the IPCC is “a corrupt organization, prone to group-think, with a political agenda” and 75% think climate change is caused by solar variation or natural processes vs. 21% who think it is due to greenhouse gases from human activity. 65% think we should do nothing about climate change since “we are powerless to stop it,” and the same percentage think science should stay out of the political process. When asked “How much would you be willing to pay to forestall the risk of catastrophic climate change?” 76.7% said “nothing.”

Poll results here.

The Hockey Schtick: Scientific American Poll: 81% think the IPCC is Corrupt, with Group-think & Political Agenda

November 5th, 2010 | Tags: Surveys | Category: Opinion | Comments (1)

Economist Ross McKitrick has an interesting presentation which looks at the arguments used against coal-fired power stations – pollution, health, greenhouse gases etc:

The case against the case against conventional energy (pdf,29 pages)

The presentation is based on Canada, but many of the findings are universal. He makes the following points about the ‘green’ economy:

“The only people who want to push wind energy for its own sake are those who expect to profit from it.”

“It is not job creation, since even more jobs have to be destroyed to fund the subsidies.”

And concludes:

Expose ulterior motives by asking: what are you really interested in?

Air pollution? It has already been addressed through emission control technology; and building wind turbines in Ontario won’t reduce particulates coming from Ohio anyway

Health costs? Even using the OMA parameters, conventional energy from the retrofit units at Lambton&Nanticoke cost less than the alternatives. And those claims are almost certainly exaggerated.

Greenhouse gases? Then price them directly. But that won’t induce power companies to build wind turbines.

Jobs and the economy? Then subsidies and wind energy mandates are the last thing we want.

H/T Bishop Hill: McKitrick on coal and wind and Donna Laframboise: Wind and Solar in Fantasy Land

November 5th, 2010 | Tags: Climate Policy, Energy | Category: Opinion | Leave a comment

The Republican Party has taken control of the US House of Representatives and significantly diminished the Democratic majority in the Senate. As President Barack Obama enters the second half of his term, the BBC looks at how the shift in power will affect his agenda on some of the major issues facing America.

Energy

The Democrats’ signature energy legislation, the so-called cap and trade bill to limit carbon emissions, passed the House of Representatives but stalled in the Senate amid Republican opposition.

There is virtually no chance the bill will be enacted into law in the next two years, and the Republicans staunchly oppose energy policies that would increase regulation of industry or result in new costs.

Both Republicans and Mr Obama have called for expanded use of nuclear power and “clean coal” technology, so any forthcoming energy legislation is likely to focus on those areas.

On Wednesday, Mr Obama acknowledged there was no way forward for cap and trade but said he hoped to see co-operation between Republicans and Democrats on reducing carbon emissions and promoting clean energy.

“Cap and trade was just one way of skinning the cat,” he said. “It was a means, not an end, and I’m going to be looking for other means to solve this problem.”

BBC News website: US elections 2010: Democratic losses and Obama’s agenda

November 4th, 2010 | Tags: Climate Policy | Category: News | Leave a comment

From Roger Pielke Jr’s blog:

2010 Hurricane Factoids

Adam Lea, of University College London, shares these interesting hurricane factoids related the the remarkable dearth of US hurricane landfalls in recent years.  His comments are reproduced here with his permission:

As the 2010 hurricane season (with 10 hurricanes) starts to wind down I thought I would share a few statistics on how unusual this season has been historically for its lack of US hurricane landfalls:

1. Since 1900 there is no precedent of an Atlantic hurricane season with 10 or more hurricanes where none has struck the US as a hurricane. The five previous seasons with 10 or more hurricanes each had at least two hurricane strikes on the US.

2. The last precedent for a La Nina year of the magnitude of 2010 which had no US-landfalling hurricane is 1973.

3. Since hurricane Ike (2008) there have been 16 consecutive non US-landfalling hurricanes. Such a  sequence last happened between Irene (1999) and Lili (2002) with 22 consecutive non US-landfalling hurricanes, and between Allen (1980) and Alicia (1983) with 17 consecutive non US-landfalling hurricanes.

4. The period 2006-2010 is one of only three 5-year consecutive periods without a US major hurricane landfall (the other two such periods were 1901-1905 and 1936-1940). There has never been a six year period without a US major hurricane landfall.

5. Historically one in four Atlantic hurricanes strike the US as a hurricane. Thus the recent dearth in strikes should be ‘corrected’ in the next few years.

The 2006 – 2010 RMS Hurricane Damage Forecast

October 27th, 2010 | Tags: Hurricanes | Category: News | Leave a comment

Excerpt from Judith Curry’s blog Climate Etc. : Heresy and the creation of monsters

Let me preface my statement by saying that at this point,  I am pretty much immune to criticisms from my peers regarding my behavior and public outreach on this topic (I respond to any and all criticisms of my arguments that are specifically addressed to me.)   If you think that I am a big part of the cause of the problems you are facing, I suggest that you think about this more carefully.   I am doing my best to return some sanity to this situation and restore science to a higher position than the dogma of consensus.  You may not like it, and my actions may turn out to be ineffective, futile, or counterproductive in the short or long run, by whatever standards this whole episode ends up getting judged.  But this is my carefully considered choice on what it means to be a scientist and to behave with personal and professional integrity.

Let me ask you this.  So how are things going for you lately?  A year ago, the climate establishment was on top of the world, masters of the universe.   Now we have a situation where there have been major challenges to the reputations of a number of a number of scientists, the IPCC, professional societies, and other institutions of science.  The spillover has been a loss of public trust in climate science and some have argued, even more broadly in science.  The IPCC and the UNFCCC are regarded by many as impediments to sane and politically viable energy policies.  The enviro advocacy groups are abandoning the climate change issue for more promising narratives.  In the U.S., the prospect of the Republicans winning the House of Representatives raises the specter of hearings on the integrity of climate science and reductions in federal funding for climate research.

What happened?  Did the skeptics and the oil companies and the libertarian think tanks win?  No, you lost.  All in the name of supporting policies that I don’t think many of you fully understand.  What I want is for the climate science community to shift gears and get back to doing science, and return to an environment where debate over the science is the spice of academic life.  And because of the high relevance of our field, we need to figure out how to provide the best possible scientific information and assessment of uncertainties.  This means abandoning this religious adherence to consensus dogma.

October 27th, 2010 | Tags: Climate Policy, Climate Science | Category: Opinion | Leave a comment

2nd Anniversary of the UK Climate Change Bill signing

Climate Fools Day Rally
Wednesday Oct 27th 2PM at Parliament

“Politicians are more prepared to have people die of extreme weather events
than undermine their Climate Change scam…”

Look what was said in 2008…
Snow blankets London for Global Warming debate “Snow fell as the House of Commons debated Global Warming yesterday – the first October fall in the metropolis since 1922. The Mother of Parliaments was discussing the Mother of All Bills for the last time, in a marathon six hour session.” by Andrew Orlowski www.theregister.co.uk

Climate Change Bill makes chilling reading “As MPs droned on about the need to fight global warming, Peter Lilley drew the Speaker’s attention to the fact that, outside on the streets of Westminster, snow was falling. It was London’s first October snowfall for 70 years, and similarly unseasonal snow was carpeting a wide swathe of Britain. In all that six hours of debate, only two MPs questioned the need for such a Bill, which had swept through its second reading with only five opposed. The sole MP who tried to raise the matter of the cost of the Bill – which could run to trillions of pounds if all its measures were implemented – was Mr Lilley. He was ruled out of order by the Speaker. If the Bill’s intent is taken seriously, the cost of cutting our CO2 emissions by 80 per cent would cripple our economy, closing down much of what remains of our industry and rendering most motorised transport impossible.” by Christopher Booker Daily Telegraph.

Nigel Lawson’s speech before the House of Lords “Nevertheless, we have the amendments that come back from the Commons to us today. The Bill will go down in history, and future generations will see it, as the most absurd Bill that this House and Parliament as a whole as ever had to examine”….”I should like to address as briefly as I can—because I do not propose to speak on any subsequent occasion on this subject— why I think that the Bill is so absurd. Let us pretend that the planet is warming. We know, of course, that it is not. The figures published each year and, indeed, monthly, by the Met Office or the Hadley Centre, which is a department of the Met Office in association with the climate research unit of the University of East Anglia, show without any doubt that there has been no warming so far this century at all. Some people say that there has been a cooling but, although that has been the slight trend, I think that the margin for error is so great that I would not press that, but there has certainly been no warming.”

UK: Climate Change Bill 28th October – Laws should not be passed without evidence by Piers Corbyn As written to arrive on MPs Email at dawn on Oct 28th 2008. Piers says “The response then to the simple question for MPs to show evidence to support their Climate Change Bill measures was zero evidence. There were a small number who asked for further information from us and conversations revealed that most of those prepared to even talk about it went along with the Bill even it was nonsense because:
(i) they couldn’t afford (politically) to oppose it &/or
(ii) they wanted it to be used in another mission like taxing airlines because they believed such measures were right irrespective of justification. One notes ‘The means justifies the ends’ approach has led to at least one war recently.
There is one shining exception – Sammy Wilson DUP MP for East Antrim – who has spoken out in favour of evidence based legislation and we expect to hear from him at the Conference on Oct 28th.

Why are we STILL Waiting? There has still been no response to the letter to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon from ‘The gang of 13′ world scientists requesting evidence of CO2 driving Climate”: See Letter to UN Sec General 14 July 2008 or the letter 3 months earlier initiated by Hans Schreuder Analytic Chemist to Dr Rajenda Pachauri chair of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) (still carried on a UN site!)
Of all these or related letters sent to the UN Gen Sec, the IPCC chair, the UK House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee and the Prime Minister’s office only one has replied at all namely Gordon Brown’s office which took the form of the Met Office writing back on his behalf directing us to the UN IPCC.

http://climatefoolsday.com/

October 26th, 2010 | Tags: Climate Policy | Category: News | Leave a comment

After Hurricane Katrina and the amazing season of 2005, we were supposed to see year after year of terrible hurricanes. Where are they?

Where is all the death and destruction? We were told global warming was here, and would ignite a fire under the storms, making them bigger and more frequent. Massive hurricanes like Katrina would become much more common. The world’s oceans were warming, and this would stoke the fires of these tropical monsters. But they are not here — the hurricanes are missing in action, and have been ever since 2005. The truth: there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of hurricanes in the last five years. The total energy of all hurricanes around the world has plunged since 1993 — the opposite of what was predicted. How could that be, if global warming is real and is impacting our climate today?

Let’s go back to the middle of last decade, and see what took place.

Pajamas Media: What Happened to All the Hurricanes, Al?

Worldwide hurricane activity hasn’t just slowed since Katrina, it’s dropped off a cliff.

October 20th, 2010 | Tags: Hurricanes, Tropical Cyclones | Category: Observations, Opinion | Comments (4)

German Vilimelis heard about Spain’s solar gold rush from his brother-in-law in 2007.

Now Vilimelis and more than 50,000 other Spanish solar entrepreneurs face financial disaster as the policy makers contemplate cutting the price guarantees that attracted their investment in the first place.

“You feel cheated,” he says. “We put our money in on the basis of a law.”

Zapatero introduced the subsidies three years ago as part of an effort to cut his country’s dependence on fossil fuels. At the time, he promised that the investment in renewable energy would create manufacturing jobs and that Spain could sell its panels to nations seeking to reduce carbon emissions.

Yet by failing to control the program’s cost, Zapatero saddled Spain with at least 126 billion euros of obligations to renewable-energy investors. The spending didn’t achieve the government’s aim of creating green jobs, because Spanish investors imported most of their panels from overseas when domestic manufacturers couldn’t meet short-term demand.

Stark Lesson

Spain stands as a lesson to other aspiring green-energy nations, including China and the U.S., by showing how difficult it is to build an alternative energy industry even with billions of euros in subsidies, says Ramon de la Sota, a private investor in Spanish photovoltaic panels and a former General Electric Co. executive.

“The government totally overshot with the tariff,” de la Sota says. “Now they have a huge bill to pay — but where’s the technology, where’s the know-how, where’s the value?”

Read the full article here:

Bloomberg: Spain’s Solar Deals on Edge of Bankruptcy as Subsidies Founder

October 20th, 2010 | Tags: Climate Policy, Energy | Category: News | Comments (1)

Taxpayers face paying billions of pounds to help clean up nuclear power plants to encourage private firms to build the next generation of power stations.

Chris Huhne, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said nuclear power will be a key part of the energy mix over the next 40 years.

He announced eight sites around the country where nuclear power stations could be built.

However there are already concerns about the cost of cleaning up the radioactive waste.

The UK is already paying out up to £100 billion to decommission the nuclear power stations currently in use.

Mr Huhne said there will be no public subsidy for new nuclear reactors.

However, he said the Government will have to take on liability for both accidents and cleaning up the radioactive waste, so that power companies are confident of investing in the new technology.

Read more:

Telegraph.co.uk: Public to pay for new nuclear era

October 20th, 2010 | Tags: Climate Policy, Energy | Category: News | Leave a comment