Trying to meet our EU renewable energy target would cost more than we currently spend on our entire electricity production, says Christopher Booker.
Sunday Telegraph: Renewables will add £880 a year to bills
‘Over the period of 1965–2008, the global Tropical Cyclone (TC) activity, as measured by storm days, shows a large amplitude fluctuation regulated by ENSO and PDO, but has no trend, suggesting that rising temperature so far has not yet an impact on global total number of storm days.’
Wang, B., Y. Yang, Q.‐H. Ding, H. Murakami, and F. Huang, 2010. Climate control of the global tropical storm days (1965–2008). Geophysical Research Letters, 37, L07704, doi:10.1029/2010GL042487.
Abstract:
The tropical storm days have a consistent global record over the past 44 years (1965–2008), which provides an alternative metric for integrated information about genesis, track, and lifespan. Seasonal-reliant singular value decomposition is performed on the fields of the global storm days and sea surface temperature by using the “best track” data. The leading mode, which dominates the variability of the global total number of storm days, displays an east-west contrast between enhanced activity in the North Pacific and reduced activity in the North Atlantic and a north-south contrast in the Southern Hemisphere oceans between active tropics and inactive subtropics, which are coupled with the El Niño and a positive phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). The second mode reveals a compensating trend pattern coupled with global warming: upward trends over the North Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific warm pool (17.5°S–10°N, 70–140°E) and downward trends over the Pacific, especially the South Pacific. However, the global total number of storm days shows no trend and only an unexpected large amplitude fluctuation driven by El Niño-Southern Oscillation and PDO. The rising temperature of about 0.5°C in the tropics so far has not yet affected the global tropical storm days.
World Climate Report: No Trend in Global Hurricane Activity
A household is defined as being fuel poor if it has to spend 10 per cent or more of its income on paying to keep the home adequately warm.
In 2003 the number of households hit a low of two million, but it climbed to four million in 2007 and then 4.5 million in 2008, the figures for which were published today by the Department of Energy & Climate Change.
This figure suggests that one in six households were fuel poor during 2008, a year which saw energy bills shoot up by 45 per cent.
DECC pointed out that since then the figure was likely to have fallen to 4.1 million, thanks to energy companies trimming their bills. However, this is still twice the level it was in 2003.
The figures were released just a day after the Treasury laid out plans to cut the emergency cold weather payments from £25 to £8.50.
The article contains the bare faced cheek of a quote from a watermelon:
Dave Timms, Friends of the Earth’s climate campaigner, said: “It’s a national disgrace that over four million people are still living in fuel poverty in the 21st century, as a result huge numbers of vulnerable families, pensioners and children are suffering from ill health and high energy bills.”
Telegraph.co.uk: Fuel poverty doubles in five years
H/T: The GWPF
Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications
Nicola Scafetta,
Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor (ACRIM) Lab, Coronado, CA 92118, USA
Department of Physics, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics
Volume 72, Issue 13, August 2010, Pages 951-970
doi:10.1016/j.jastp.2010.04.015
Abstract:
We investigate whether or not the decadal and multi-decadal climate oscillations have an astronomical origin. Several global surface temperature records since 1850 and records deduced from the orbits of the planets present very similar power spectra. Eleven frequencies with period between 5 and 100 years closely correspond in the two records. Among them, large climate oscillations with peak-to-trough amplitude of about 0.1 and 0.25°C, and periods of about 20 and 60 years, respectively, are synchronized to the orbital periods of Jupiter and Saturn. Schwabe and Hale solar cycles are also visible in the temperature records. A 9.1-year cycle is synchronized to the Moon’s orbital cycles. A phenomenological model based on these astronomical cycles can be used to well reconstruct the temperature oscillations since 1850 and to make partial forecasts for the 21st century. It is found that at least 60% of the global warming observed since 1970 has been induced by the combined effect of the above natural climate oscillations. The partial forecast indicates that climate may stabilize or cool until 2030–2040. Possible physical mechanisms are qualitatively discussed with an emphasis on the phenomenon of collective synchronization of coupled oscillators.
From the conclusions:
A detailed reconstruction of the climate oscillations suggests that a model based on celestial oscillations, as shown in Fig. 12, would largely outperform current general circulation climate models, such as the GISS ModelE, in reconstructing the climate oscillations. The planetary model would also be more accurate in forecasting climate changes during the next few decades. Over this time, the global surface temperature will likely remain approximately steady, or actually cool.
In conclusion, data analysis indicates that current general circulation climate models are missing fundamental mechanisms that have their physical origin and ultimate justification in astronomical phenomena, and in interplanetary and solar-planetary interaction physics.
H/T Watts Up With That: Scafetta on 60 year climate oscillations
As readers know, Raymond Bradley’s allegation that “text was just lifted verbatim from my book and placed in the Wegman Report” has been widely publicized following Bradley’s interview with USA today. The allegation pertains to Wegman’s boilerplate section (2.1) describing proxies, a section in which neither MBH98-99 nor MM2003, 2005abcd are mentioned, and on which no Wegman conclusions depend. Nor does it affect the under oath endorsement of Wegman conclusions given at the House Committee hearings by Gerald North and Peter Bloomfield – see here.
There seem to be several related issues. Although Wegman cites Bradley no fewer than six times in the approximately 1640 words of section 2.1, there are some suggestions that this was insufficient homage. The more problematic issue pertains to the lifting of text with very slight paraphrasing. This issue is not unique to the Wegman Report. As shown below, substantially similar situations arise with the Oxford Companion to Global Change, the Climate Change Study Guide, Enviropedia and Luterbacher et al 2010, and, under a zero-tolerance policy, with Bradley 1999 itself.
Plagiarism is not a topic that has been discussed much at Climate Audit. Nonetheless, given the lengths to which the Team has gone from time to time to avoid the slightest acknowledgment of Climate Audit, I welcome this new zeal on the part of climate scientists against plagiarism, which, by definition, also includes using the “ideas” of “another person without giving appropriate credit”
Read the rest over at Climate Audit
H/T Climate Depot
Previous CRN post: Warmista Takes an Interest in Wegman Report Four Years On
Here is the 25 minute version of ‘Europe’s Ill Wind.’
In “Short-lived uncertainty?” Joyce E. Penner et al. note that several short-lived atmospheric pollutants—such as methane, tropospheric ozone precursors and black-carbon aerosols—contribute to atmospheric warming while others, particularly scattering aerosols, cool the climate. Figuring out exactly how great the impacts of these other forcings are can radically change the way historical climate change is interpreted. So great is the uncertainty that the IPCC’s future climate predictions, which are all based on biased assumptions about climate sensitivity, are most certainly untrustworthy. As stated in the article:
It is at present impossible to accurately determine climate sensitivity (defined as the equilibrium warming in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations) from past records, partly because carbon dioxide and short-lived species have increased together over the industrial era. Warming over the past 100 years is consistent with high climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide combined with a large cooling effect from short-lived aerosol pollutants, but it could equally be attributed to a low climate sensitivity coupled with a small effect from aerosols. These two possibilities lead to very different projections for future climate change.
Read more: The Resilient Earth: Estimated CO2 Warming Cut By 65%
The Global Warming Policy Foundation is delighted and honoured to announce that Professor Harold (Hal) Lewis, one of America’s most distinguished physicists, has agreed to join our Academic Advisory Council.
Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a former member of the Defense Science Board and former chairman of its Technology panel. He was co-founder and former Chairman of JASON and a former member of the USAF Scientific Advisory Board. On 6 October 2010, he resigned from the American Physical Society, 67 years after he had joined the APS, in protest over the politicalisation of climate research and the stifling of scientific debate.
The GWPF Academic Advisory Council is composed of researchers, scientists, economists and science authors who provide the GWPF with timely scientific, economic and policy advice. It evaluates new studies and reports, explores future research projects and makes recommendations on issues related to climate research and policy.
For the full list of the GWPF’s Academic Advisory Council click here.
Professor Harold Lewis Resigns Form The American Physical Society After Nearly 70 Years
Daily Express, 12 October 2010: GLOBAL WARMING IS ‘THE GREATEST FRAUD IN 60 YEARS’
Apparently Edward Wegman, author of the 2006 Wegman Report (pdf) on the failings of the ‘hockey stick’ graph, is being investigated by George Mason University for plagiarising Paleoclimatology: Reconstructing Climates of the Quaternary by Raymond Bradley even though the Wegman Report references Bradley’s book.
Apparently this is a very exciting development for the warmista, even though it dosn’t affect the main conclusions of the Wegman Report, which were confirmed by the NAS panel report. Here is a quote from Gerald North of the NAS panel under oath:
CHAIRMAN BARTON Dr. North, do you dispute the conclusions or the methodology of Dr. Wegman’s report?
DR. NORTH No, we don’t. We don’t disagree with their criticism. In fact, pretty much the same thing is said in our report.
In fact, the NAS Panel Report turned out to be schizophrenic by relying on proxies that were ‘not recommended’ due to failing to meet criteria set out elsewhere in the report in order to support the hockey stick graph as being ‘plausible.’
As Bishop Hill points out in Some thoughts on Wegman:
I haven’t had time to read John Mashey’s report, but from what I can gather about today’s excitements over the GMU investigation of Edward Wegman, there are two possibilities in play:
(1) Wegman et al are guilty of plagiarism; short-centred principal components analysis is biased and can produce hockey sticks from red noise
(2) Wegman et al are not guilty of plagiarism; short-centred principal components analysis is biased and can produce hockey sticks from red noise.
Is this right? Nobody is suggesting that the principal findings of the Wegman report – on the incorrect centring used by Mann – are incorrect, are they? They were, after all confirmed by the NAS panel and apparently also by David Hand during the Oxburgh panel’s (brief) deliberations.
So I guess we are looking at quite an interesting investigation about how the norms of academic citation apply in expert reports (no doubt Donna LaF will be checking the IPCC reports over very thoroughly in coming days), but not much else.
Has it struck anyone else as amusing that Nature is straight into the groove of reporting the Copygate story (as I’m told we must call the allegations against Wegman)? I mean, they didn’t think the original Wegman report was worth mentioning.
Just saying…
And here in the post Media coverage of Wegman
Dr. Ryan N. Maue’s 2010 Global Tropical Cyclone Activity Update
Update: Current Year-to-Date analysis of Northern Hemisphere and Global Tropical Cyclone Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) AND Power Dissipation Index (PDI) has fallen even further than during the previous 3-years. The global activity is at 33-year lows and at a historical record low where Typhoons form in the Western Pacific. Also see additional blog posting with recognition given to Rush Limbaugh’s tropical cyclone knowledge…
While the North Atlantic has seen 15 tropical storms / hurricanes of various intensity, the Pacific basin as a whole is at historical lows! In the Western North Pacific stretching from Guam to Japan and the Philippines and China, the current ACE value of 48 is the lowest seen since reliable records became available (1945) and is 78% below normal*. The next lowest was an ACE of 78 in 1998. See figure below for visual evidence of the past 40-years of tropical cyclone activity.
CRN comment: Didn’t Al Gore show hurricanes coming out of chimney stacks in his quackumentary AIT? Perhaps there is a 33-year low for chimney stacks. 
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Dec | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |||
New Booker Book: The Real Global Warming Disaster
Christopher Booker has a new book out entitled: The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is The Obsession With `Climate Change` Turning Out To Be The Most Costly Scientific Blunder In History?
Available from Amazon UK here:
More from Booker himself here. (1)
Why the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets are Not Collapsing
Read the AIG News paper here. (1)
Global Warming Ate My Data
We’ve lost the numbers: CRU responds to FOIA requests.
The Register (3)
Climate Depot's Arctic Fact Sheet
Climate Depot Arctic Fact Sheet (for additional updates on the Arctic see new articles tagged Arctic) (0)
Comments