A different way of looking at the Australian temperatures, and does the apparent change of coverage / potential bias issues generalize? Continue reading →
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Saturday, February 9, 2019
An Intriguing Look At Temperatures In Australia
Harrison Ford delivers apocalyptic climate change warning – ‘Fresh water shortages, higher greenhouse gas emissions, unprecedented fires, worldwide destruction. Is this the world we want?’
http://bit.ly/2E1g6oh Excerpt: He said that climate change presents "the greatest moral challenge of our time". Ahead of the three-day event, Ford recorded a video message in which he urged viewers to join him at the summit, which is now in its sixth year and will be attended by ministers, government officials and business leaders from [...]
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Russian Arctic Islands Sound Emergency Over ‘Invasion’ By Polar Bears
http://bit.ly/2WSURwd MOSCOW: A Russian Arctic archipelago on Saturday declared an emergency situation over an "invasion" of dozens of aggressive polar bears that have entered homes and public buildings. Russia's northeastern Novaya Zemlya archipelago, which has a population of around 3,000 people, has appealed for help to tackle "a mass invasion of polar bears into inhabited [...]
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The mysterious case of AOC’s scrubbed ‘Green New Deal’ details – By the afternoon of Feb. 7, Ocasio-Cortez removed the document from her website
https://washex.am/2SIe0BS by Susan Ferrechio On Feb. 5, the congressional office of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted a new blog entry under "energy issues" detailing her "Green New Deal" proposal and answering "frequently asked questions." The page, announcing an 8:30 a.m. launch on Feb. 7, is now gone, and a top adviser suggested Friday it was actually [...]
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Sea level rise whiplash
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Newly Discovered Trans-Neptunian Comet Zooms By Earth in 3 Days
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The effect of high UV radiation exposure environment on the novel PVC polymers
Abstract
Although plastic induces environmental damages, almost the consumption of poly(vinyl chloride) never stops increasing. Therefore, this work abstracted by two parts, first, synthesis of Schiff bases 1–4 compounds through the reaction of amino group with appropriate aromatic aldehyde, reaction of PVC with Schiff bases compounds 1–4 in THF to form a new modified PVC-1, PVC-2, PVC-3, and PVC-4. The structures of Schiff bases 1–4 and the modified PVC-1, PVC-2, PVC-3, and PVC-4 have been characterized by different spectroscopic analyses. Second, the influence of introducing 4-amino-1,2,4-triazole as a pendent groups into PVC chain investigated on photostability rules of tests. The modified polymers photostability investigated by observing indices (ICO, Ipo, and IOH), weight loss, UV and morphological studies, and all results obtained indicated that PVC-1, PVC-2, PVC-3 and PVC-4 gave lower growth rate of ICO, IPO, and IOH through UV exposure time. The photostability are given as PVC-4 < PVC-3 < PVC-2 < PVC-1 from different mechanisms which suggested building on existence of 4-amino-1,2,4-triazole moieties in the polymer chain.
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Booker On Gummer Scandal
By Paul Homewood
Booker's column in the Telegraph today follows up David Rose's revelations about Gummer's undeclared income from his renewable cronies:
Awkward questions for climate change supremo
Last Sunday it was revealed that a small family company run by the chairman of the Climate Change Committee, Lord Deben (John Selwyn Gummer), had received payments of more than £600,000, mainly from firms involved in renewable energy and electric cars.
To grasp the full significance of this story we must appreciate just how astonishingly influential is the Climate Change Committee (CCC) in driving Britain's energy policy. It was set up under the Climate Change Act to advise the Government on how to meet its target of reducing Britain's CO2 emissions by 80 per cent.
Although the CCC likes to be called "independent" and its website boasts that its members are obliged to "act impartially and objectively", and must "avoid conflicts of interest", their record shows why they are all united in pressing the Government to go ever faster and further by every conceivable means, from promoting electric cars and "biomass" to offshore windfarms.
One CCC member is a director of an offshore energy firm. Another works for Drax, which receives annual subsidies of £700 million for converting its power station from coal to biomass. Deben himself, on becoming chairman of the committee in 2012, had to resign as chairman of the company building the world's largest offshore windfarm.
Yet, of all the payments reportedly made to the Gummer family's funds, the largest came from a firm heavily involved in electric cars, while others came from firms involved in biofuels and biomass (including Drax), as well as investors in offshore wind.
Deben insists that these payments were for work that didn't involve climate change issues. According to his lawyer 'allegations of conflict of interest and other improprieties are wholly false and misconceived"; and he "has, at all times, made disclosures in accordance with the advice he has been given by the House of Lords and the CCC.'
Make of this what you will. But now all this has been brought to light I know I am far from being alone in suspecting that we have not yet heard the end of this astonishing tale.
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Smart Meters To Spy On Dementia Patients
By Paul Homewood
Call me paranoid – BUT!
The NHS is to use energy smart meters to monitor dementia patients in their homes.
The devices will track patients' daily routines, such as when they boil the kettle, cook dinner or turn the washing machine on.
They will flag up any sudden change in behaviour which could indicate an illness, a fall or a decline in their mental state. The meters will be able to send alerts to family members or carers, who can pop round to check if the patient is all right.
Experts say the devices will enable patients to live independently for longer without going into care, and prevent avoidable admissions to A&E…..
Researchers at Liverpool John Moores University and the Mersey Care NHS Trust plan to carry out the initial dementia trial on 50 patients, beginning in October.
This will test the ability of the meters to monitor patients' health and the general progression of their disease. If successful, the trial will be extended to involve 1,000 patients across four NHS trusts.
The smart meters involved in the dementia study can monitor patients' energy use every ten seconds. They will be connected to a central computer system which will learn patients' daily routines, such as when they normally use certain electrical appliances.
Any sudden changes – such as not boiling the kettle at the same time each morning or turning lights on in the middle of the night – will trigger an alert.
It has often been claimed that smart meters will enable big brother to spy on us, and it has long been denied by govt that this is even possible.
Personally, I always try to steer away from such conspiracy theories.
However, this latest report reveals that the technology is there to do just that.
Monitoring of dementia sufferers may, or may not, be a good thing (though I would have thought a few simple CCTV cameras, linked to relatives' smart phones, would be far simpler and more effective.
But how long will it be before the same technology is used to check not only how much power we are using at peak times of the day, but what devices it is being used on?
And how long will it be before the grid police cut off our power during times of shortage, simply because we dare to use it for frivolous activities, such as cooking our dinner or turning up the central heating?
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‘Our Planet Is In Peril’: Cory Booker Compares Green New Deal To Fighting Nazi Germany
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Skeptical climate book surges to Amazon #1 in ‘Climatology
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Polar bears have been terrorizing a Russian town on the Barents Sea since December
Since early December, a group of 52 polar bears have terrorized the Russian village of Belushaya Guba on southern Novaya Zemlya. The aggressiveness of some of the bears, their boldness in entering local buildings and fearlessness in the face of the usual deterrents has caused the local government to call a state of emergency to help the town residents. Global warming is blamed for the problem but as is so often the case, that claim does not stand up to scrutiny.
A young bears tries to break into a building in coastal Alaska. USFWS photo.
Belushaya Guba is located on the southwest coast of Novaya Zemlya in the eastern Barents Sea. It is a town of mostly military personnel and their families:
The predictable claims that this situation is due to global warming are confounded by the fact that the region has not had abundant sea ice by December in more than 30 years, yet this is the first time the town has had such a problem with polar bears. Polar bears in winter can be very dangerous, as they are often lean and desperately hungry.
The Barents Observer (9 February 2019) had the most detailed report on the so-called 'invasion' (which seems to have come without photos of the bears involved):
"From December 2018 to February 2019 a large group of polar bears have stayed around the settlement. There are 52 polar bears inside the territory of the village," says Deputy Head of the municipal administration of Belushaya Guba, Aleksandr Minaev, in a statement posted by the press-service of Arkhangelsk Oblast.
Minaev says some of the bears are aggressive and have entered residential- and office buildings.
"People are scared, afraid to leave their houses. Their daily activities are disrupted, parents are afraid to let the children go to school and kindergarten," Aleksandr Minaev, explains.
So far, Russia's Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources has refused to permit shooting the most aggressive polar bears that have attacked people. Polar bears are on the Red List and have been protected in the Russian Arctic since 1956."
….
Ice-map provided for the area by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute's Ice Service from Friday shows how the Kara Sea off the east coast of Novaya Zemlya are packed with very close drift ice, while there are mostly very open drift ice and open water along the west coast where Belushaya Guba is located.
The experts now on their way to Belushaya Guba hope to find ways to scare away the bears from the settlement. However, if nothing else works to resolve the situation, shooting animals may become the only and necessary measure to ensure safety, the statement from Arkhangelsk authorities reads.
Zhigansha Musin is head of the municipal administration on Novaya Zemlya. He has been in town since 1983 and says he has never before seen such massive invasion of polar bears."
Read the rest here. A BBC account here leaves out many pertinent details. The Straits Times report out of Moscow (9 February 2019, Aggressive bears 'invading' Russian Arctic archipelago) adds this detail not included in the report in the Barents Observer, which suggests the problem is more wide-spread than just this one town:
"In January, a defence ministry official said that hundreds of disused military buildings had been demolished on Novaya Zemlya because polar bears were settling inside them."
Note that the report does not mention the body condition of the bears involved. They are not reported as starving or skinny but I think we can presume that they are definitely hungry, as are all bears at this time of year.
Sea ice conditions for southwest Novaya Zemlya
According to Wikipedia:
"Belushya Guba is located in a deep bay with the same name, within a geographical area that is influenced by warm ocean currents. The natural conditions allow year-round sailing of all types and classes of vessels with minimal cost for icebreaking support. The bay is well protected from high surf and drifting ice."
Therefore, Belushya Guba on southwest Novaya Zemlya is influenced by the same warm currents that have kept western Svalbard free from winter ice since the early 1980s. The ice chart below is for 7 December 2005 (the earliest year available from the Norwegian Ice Service):
The last year that I could find an ice chart showing ice on the west coast of Novaya Zemlya as early as the first week of December was the average November chart for 1982 (NSIDC), when there would also have been ice on the west coast of Svalbard:
Not coincidentally, the fellow quoted in the Barents Observer story who said he had been in the town of Belushaya Guba since 1983 (the year after the conditions shown above), claimed he had "never before seen such massive invasion of polar bears."
So, this winter in Belushaya Guba was different from the many ice-free winters that went before.
Here is the current ice chart for the region, from the NIS, for 8 February (2019):
Last year (2018), there was even less ice at this point in the month (9 February):
However, February ice charts that tell us little about why this year, bears ended up on the west coast in winter, when they should be out on the sea ice hunting for seals. Since the problems in Belushaya Guba started in early December 2018, let's look at the ice conditions around that time:
By late November, there was actually enough ice for any bears that had spent the summer on southeastern Novaya Zemlya to return to the ice and resume hunting. However, it also would have allowed any bears who had been on the sea ice to come ashore, if they so desired. However, by mid-December (see below), the mobile pack ice temporarily contracted, which would have stranded any bears left onshore:
By late January (see below), the ice was back on the southeast coast (close enough for determined bears to walk there) but by then, it is likely the bears in Belushaya Guba were entrenched. They knew there was some food around and no one was shooting at them. Don't forget that January through early March are lean times for polar bears: seals are very hard to catch during the winter throughout the Arctic and most bears are at their lowest weight of the year by the time seal pups are born (Crockford 2017).
Barents Sea bears are thriving
According to recent research results, despite low ice cover since 2016, the population of polar bears around Svalbard and presumably in the Barents Sea as a whole are still increasing, as they recover from decades of over-hunting in the 19th and 20th centuries (Aars 2018; Aars et al. 2009, 2017; Crockford 2017).
This incident of winter problems with polar bears and others like it reported from the Russian Arctic, almost certainly reflect the confluence of a growing human presence in the Arctic and thriving polar bear populations, not lack of sea ice due to global warming.
Recall that explorer William Barents and his crew, who became stranded on the shore of northeast Novaya Zemlya over the winter of 1596-1597, had endless problems with polar bears (back when polar bears and sea ice were really abundant). That story provides an important perspective on this year's troubles.
References
Aars, J. 2018. Population changes in polar bears: protected, but quickly losing habitat. Fram Forum Newsletter 2018. Fram Centre, Tromso. Download pdf here (32 mb).
Aars, J., Marques, T.A., Buckland, S.T., Andersen, M., Belikov, S., Boltunov, A., et al. 2009. Estimating the Barents Sea polar bear subpopulation. Marine Mammal Science 25: 35-52.
Aars, J., Marques,T.A, Lone, K., Anderson, M., Wiig, Ø., Fløystad, I.M.B., Hagen, S.B. and Buckland, S.T. 2017. The number and distribution of polar bears in the western Barents Sea. Polar Research 36:1. 1374125. doi:10.1080/17518369.2017.1374125
Crockford, S. 2017. Testing the hypothesis that routine sea ice coverage of 3-5 mkm2 results in a greater than 30% decline in population size of polar bears (Ursus maritimus). PeerJ Preprints 2 March 2017. https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v3
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Influence of phytase enzyme on ruminal biogas production and fermentative digestion towards reducing environmental contamination
Abstract
Environmental impact of livestock production has received a considerable public scrutiny because of the adverse effects of nutrient run-offs, primarily N and P, from agricultural land harboring intensive energy livestock operations. Hence, this study was designed to determine the efficacy of dietary phytase supplementation on fermentation of a sorghum grain–based total mixed ration (TMR) using a ruminal in vitro digestion approach. Phytase was supplemented at three doses: 0 (control), 540 (P540), and 720 (P720) g/t dry matter, equivalent to 0, 2.7 × 106, and 3.6 × 106 CFU/t DM, respectively. Compared to P720 and the control, gas production was higher for P540 after 12 h (P = 0.02) and 24 h (P = 0.03) of fermentation suggesting a higher microbial activity in response to phytase supplementation at lower phytase levels. Correspondingly, dry matter degradability was found to have improved in P540 and P720 compared to the control by 13 and 11% after 24 h of incubation (P = 0.05). For ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N), a tendency towards lower values was only observed for P540 at 24 h of fermentation (P = 0.07), while minimal treatment effects were observed at other fermentation times. The concentrations of total volatile fatty acids (VFA) were higher (P < 0.05) after 48 h of fermentation for P540 and P720 compared to the control (P = 0.03) by 10% and 14%, respectively. Ruminal acetate tended towards higher values in the presence of phytase after 12 h of fermentation (P = 0.10), but towards lower values after 24 h of fermentation (P = 0.02), irrespective of the phytase dose applied. A trend towards lower ruminal propionate levels was observed in the presence of phytase after 6 h (P = 0.10) and 12 h (P = 0.06) of fermentation, while no effects were found at other fermentation times. In conclusion, phytase supplementation has the potential to improve metabolic energy activity of rumen microorganisms and the use of feed constituents. Thus, phytase supplementation could help to reduce environmental contamination in areas of ruminant production.
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Ameliorative effect of zinc oxide nanoparticles against potassium bromate-mediated toxicity in Swiss albino rats
Abstract
Potassium bromate (PB) is a commonly used food additive, a prominent water disinfection by-product, and a class IIB carcinogen. It exerts a various degree of toxicity depending on its dose and exposure duration consumed with food and water in the living organisms. The present investigation aims to demonstrate the protective efficacy of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) derived from Ochradenus arabicus (OA) leaf extract by green technology in PB-challenged Swiss albino rats. The rodents were randomly distributed, under the lab-standardized treatment strategy, into the following six treatment groups: control (group I), PB alone (group II), ZnO alone (group III), ZnO NP alone (group IV), PB + ZnO (group V), and PB + ZnO NPs (group VI). The rats were sacrificed after completion of the treatment, and their blood and liver samples were collected for further analysis. Group II showed extensive toxic effects with altered liver function markers (alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase, lactate dehydrogenase, gamma-glutamyl transferase, glutathione-S-transferase, and thioredoxin reductase) and compromised redox status (SOD, CAT, GR, GPx, GSH, MDA, and total carbonyl content). The histopathological analysis and comet assay further supported the biochemical results of the same group. Besides, group III also showed moderate toxicity evidenced by an alteration in most of the studied parameters while group IV demonstrated mild toxicity after biochemical analysis indicating the excellent biocompatibility of the NPs. However, group VI exhibited attenuation of the PB-induced toxic insults to a significant level as compared to group II, whereas group V failed to show similar improvement in the studied parameters. All these findings entail that the ZnO NPs prepared by green synthesis have significant ameliorative property against PB-induced toxicity in vivo. Moreover, administration of the NPs improved the overall health of the treated animals profoundly. Hence, these NPs have significant therapeutic potential against the toxic effects of PB and similar compounds in vivo, and they are suitable to be used at the clinical and industrial levels.
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Researchers find evidence for a new fundamental constant of the Sun
Active solar regions
[image credit: NASA/Goddard]
Very interesting, bearing in mind that magnetism is caused by moving electric charges. The corona has frequencies.
New research undertaken at Northumbria University, Newcastle shows that the sun's magnetic waves behave differently than currently believed, reports Phys.org.
Their findings have been reported in Nature Astronomy.
After examining data gathered over a 10-year period, the team from Northumbria's Department of Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering found that magnetic waves in the sun's corona – its outermost layer of atmosphere – react to sound waves escaping from the inside of the sun.
These magnetic waves, known as Alfvénic waves, play a crucial role in transporting energy around the sun and the solar system. The waves were previously thought to originate at the sun's surface, where boiling hydrogen reaches temperatures of 6,000 degrees and churns the sun's magnetic field.
However, the researchers have found evidence that the magnetic waves also react – or are excited – higher in the atmosphere by sound waves leaking out from the inside of the sun.
The team discovered that the sound waves leave a distinctive marker on the magnetic waves. The presence of this marker means that the sun's entire corona is shaking in a collective manner in response to the sound waves. This is causing it to vibrate over a very clear range of frequencies.
This newly-discovered marker is found throughout the corona and was consistently present over the 10-year time-span examined. This suggests that it is a fundamental constant of the sun – and could potentially be a fundamental constant of other stars.
The findings could therefore have significant implications for our current ideas about how magnetic energy is transferred and used in stellar atmospheres.
Continued here.
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‘Little Ice Age’ which froze the River Thames caused by Americas genocide, study finds
By Paul Homewood
Competition will be fierce, but we have an early contender for the Junk Science of the Year Award:
Colonisation of the Americas at the end of the 15th Century killed so many people, it disturbed Earth's climate.
That's the conclusion of scientists from University College London, UK.
The team says the disruption that followed European settlement led to a huge swathe of abandoned agricultural land being reclaimed by fast-growing trees and other vegetation.
This pulled down enough carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere to eventually chill the planet.
It's a cooling period often referred to in the history books as the "Little Ice Age" – a time when winters in Europe would see the Thames in London regularly freeze over.
"The Great Dying of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas led to the abandonment of enough cleared land that the resulting terrestrial carbon uptake had a detectable impact on both atmospheric CO₂ and global surface air temperatures," Alexander Koch and colleagues write in their paper published in Quaternary Science Reviews.
What does the study show?
The team reviewed all the population data it could find on how many people were living in the Americas prior to first contact with Europeans in 1492.
It then assessed how the numbers changed in following decades as the continents were ravaged by introduced disease (smallpox, measles, etc), warfare, slavery and societal collapse.
It's the UCL group's estimate that 60 million people were living across the Americas at the end of the 15th Century (about 10% of the world's total population), and that this was reduced to just five or six million within a hundred years.
The scientists calculated how much land previously cultivated by indigenous civilisations would have fallen into disuse, and what the impact would be if this ground was then repossessed by forest and savannah.
The area is in the order of 56 million hectares, close in size to a country like modern France.
This scale of regrowth is figured to have drawn down sufficient CO₂ that the concentration of the gas in the atmosphere eventually fell by 7-10ppm (that is 7-10 molecules of CO₂ in every one million molecules in the air).
"To put that in the modern context – we basically burn (fossil fuels) and produce about 3ppm per year. So, we're talking a large amount of carbon that's being sucked out of the atmosphere," explained co-author Prof Mark Maslin.
"There is a marked cooling around that time (1500s/1600s) which is called the Little Ice Age, and what's interesting is that we can see natural processes giving a little bit of cooling, but actually to get the full cooling – double the natural processes – you have to have this genocide-generated drop in CO₂."
Where's the support for the connection?
The drop in CO₂ at the time of the Great Dying is evident in the ice core records from Antarctica.
Air bubbles trapped in these frozen samples show a fall in their concentration of carbon dioxide.
The atomic composition of the gas also suggests strongly that the decline is being driven by land processes somewhere on Earth.
In addition, the UCL team says the story fits with the records of charcoal and pollen deposits in the Americas.
These show the sort of perturbation expected from a decline in the use of fire to manage land, and a big grow-back of natural vegetation.
Ed Hawkins, professor of climate science at Reading University, was not involved in the study. He commented: "Scientists understand that the so-called Little Ice Age was caused by several factors – a drop in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, a series of large volcanic eruptions, changes in land use and a temporary decline in solar activity.
"This new study demonstrates that the drop in CO₂ is itself partly due the settlement of the Americas and resulting collapse of the indigenous population, allowing regrowth of natural vegetation. It demonstrates that human activities affected the climate well before the industrial revolution began."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47063973
For a start, the Little Ice Age did not start in the late 16thC, as the paper implies.
HH Lamb, along with many other climate historians, is quite clear that temperatures began to decline from the High Middle Ages as early as the 13thC. This cooling trend began in the Arctic, but soon spread elsewhere in the 14thC.
Where you demarcate the end of the MWP and the beginning of the LIA is of course academic. But the decline in global temperatures was an ongoing process from the 13thC to the late 17thC, when temperatures appear to have bottomed out. (Following a small amount of warming, temperatures again dropped to low levels in the mid 19thC).
Whatever caused this long term trend of declining temperatures, it certainly was not colonisation that started 300 years later!
This global cooling would be enough to explain the drop in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, without the need for any man-made involvement.
In any event, the authors reckon that this great dying reduced CO2 by a tiny 7 to 10 ppm. This, even by IPCC standards, would be fat too small to have a measurable effect on global temperatures.
According to the paper, their theory only accounts for a cooling of 0.03 to 0.08C during the 1500s and early 1600s, which would not be enough to account for the climatic changes observed during that time.
Lamb reckoned that English temperatures were 1.5C less than the early 20thC during the coldest phase in the 1690s. And the abundant evidence of massive glacial expansion throughout the world indicates that this was not just a local phenomenon.
One particular problem for their theory, which the authors don't seem to address, is what brought about the gradual warming after 1700. Lamb identified that there was a sharp change to warmer conditions between 1700 and the 1730s, in places as varied as England, Greenland, central and northern Europe, China, California and New Zealand.
The authors fail to show how their theory explains this, and there is certainly no evidence that the forest regrowth, which they surmise took place in the 16thC, was somehow magically and suddenly reversed a century later.
The Little Ice Age, of course, poses huge problems for AGW obsessed climate scientists. Until they can explain its causes, and indeed earlier cycles of warming and cooling, they cannot explain 20thC warming.
This latest exercise looks to be just another attempt to marginalise it as a minor, man-made anomaly. This, as we know, is sheer nonsense.
We know, for instance, that ice cores in Greenland indicate that the 19thC was the coldest time since the Ice Age itself. And we also know that glaciers expanded hugely around the world during this era.
This was no mere blip, as the authors imply.
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The GWPF 2019 Temperature Prediction Competition
Benny Peiser writes: It would be great if you would encourage your readers to participate in our 2019 Global Temperature Prediction Competition. Here the the description from The GWPF website Date: 08/02/19 Global Warming Policy Forum With GWPF readers having trounced the Met Office at predicting temperatures for 2018, it will very interesting to see…
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Uptake and distribution of phenanthrene and pyrene in roots and shoots of maize ( Zea mays L.)
Abstract
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as byproducts of carbon-based fuel combustion are an important group of pollutants with wide distribution in the environment. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are known as toxic compounds for almost all organisms. Different plant species can uptake polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by roots and translocate them to various aerial parts. The aim of this study is to investigate the uptake, translocation, and accumulation of pyrene and phenanthrene in maize under controlled conditions. Seeds were cultivated in perlite containing 25, 50, 75, and 100 ppm of phenanthrene and pyrene, and their concentrations in the roots and shoots of the plants were measured using high-performance liquid chromatography technique after 7, 14, and 21 days. The results revealed that phenanthrene naturally existed in maize and its concentration showed a time-dependent decrease in shoots and roots. In contrast, the concentration of pyrene was increased in the roots and reduced in the shoots. Although pyrene had higher uptake than phenanthrene in roots of maize, the translocation factor value for pyrene was lower than for phenanthrene. According to these findings, phenanthrene could be metabolized in maize in the shoot and root tissues, but pyrene had more tendency to be accumulated in roots.
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Weekend Unthreaded
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NOAA and NCAR partner on new, state-of-the-art U.S. modeling framework
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Coal [Non]Exit Debacle…Germany’s Coal Burning Could Rise Around 16% By 2030!
Some critics have slammed Germany's decision to exit coal power by the year 20138. For example the Wall Street Journal here called Germany's energy policy "the world's dumbest" (it is).
Yet, we need to remind ourselves that many in Germany had been calling for an exit within 10 years, or even sooner. For political leaders, however, shutting down what today is still Germany's backbone of power supply so quickly would mean economic and political suicide. So the decision to push everything off to 2038 was yet again the German government punting the ball down the field, and leaving the messy issue to the next generation of leaders.
The government is not taking action; it's avoiding it.
Keep in mind that a lot can happen between now and 2038. It's entirely reasonable to expect that other forms of cleaner energy sources will be developed – 20 years is a long time. And climate can change rapidly, as a number of scientists are warning of cooling ahead.
Under the bottom line, it's comforting that the Germans have given themselves the extra time, especially amid so many claiming that green technology is already available. Obviously it really isn't.
World Future Council sees more coal burning
Even hardcore green energy groups are realizing they've been had and are beginning to voice their dissatisfaction with the new government-set 2038 coal exit target, for example the Hamburg-based, planet-rescuing World Future Council, Because of the deal, it expects coal CO2 emissions to climb by 16%!
What follows is their recent press release (my emphasis added):
===============================================
Despite capacity reductions, coal-fired power generation and CO2 emissions can increase by up to 16 percent
Hamburg, February 7, 2019 – Dr. Matthias Kroll, Chief Economist of the Hamburg-based World Future Council, has recalculated the effects of the so-called "coal compromise" on the climate, with the result that coal-fired power generation could even increase by 2030 despite capacity reductions. The reason for this is the increase in the base load on the remaining coal-fired power plants due to the nuclear phase-out.
"The improvements suggested in the coal compromise for climate protection on the way to the 1.5°C target are a deceptive package," says Kroll. The main criticism of the coal compromise to date has been the very late phase-out date of 2038.
However, the current compromise conceals yet another problem that has been lost in the debate so far: "For climate protection, it is not decisive how much power plant capacity is shut down, but how much electricity generation with coal actually decreases," Kroll continues. "In the current model, I see a bottom line increase in electricity production from coal of around 16 percent. The situation is similar with CO2 emissions. Germany must take its foot off the brake and significantly push ahead with the expansion of renewable energies, the associated storage systems ('power to gas') and the construction of new natural gas power plants. Otherwise CO2 emissions will increase and not decrease."
Although about 12 GW of the currently existing 42 GW coal-fired power plant are to be shut down by the end of 2022, it has to be expected that the planned remaining 15 GW of lignite and stone coal each will produce more electricity and CO2 emissions than today. The reason for this is the significantly increasing utilisation of the remaining coal-fired power plants, as it must be assumed that they will take over the last 9.5 GW of nuclear base load that will be eliminated.
While coal-fired power plants today are only used very irregularly because they are increasingly being forced out of the grid by wind and photovoltaic power, they can largely run at their maximum load. In terms of figures, this will amount to an increase of up to 16 percent in coal-fired electricity and the associated CO2 emissions compared with 2018. To ensure that the essential phase-out of nuclear power does not lead to a permanent increase in coal-fired power generation, the remaining 30 GW of coal-fired power from 2022 must be further reduced rapidly.
"It is questionable how Germany intends to achieve the 1.5°C target it has contractually agreed to in the Paris Agreement if CO2 emissions from coal-fired power generation are even higher than current levels for another decade, even though the reduction to zero is necessary," criticises Kroll.
from Climate Change Skeptic Blogs via hj on Inoreader http://bit.ly/2I0oatu
January Arctic Sea Update
By Paul Homewood
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover_30y.uk.php
Arctic sea ice extent in January has recovered sharply since last year, and stands at the highest level since 2013, and higher than even 2005.
Much of it is 2m or more thick:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/thk.uk.php
And ice volume is also up this year:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/txt/IceVol.txt
There was certainly a decline in sea ice extent and volume probably beginning in the 1990s, and it culminated in the large losses in 2007 and 2008.
But it is clear that, looking at both summer and winter data, sea ice has been stable since then, despite the occasional up and down.
from Climate Change Skeptic Blogs via hj on Inoreader http://bit.ly/2TFvP1V
Drax Capture Carbon!
By Paul Homewood
h/t Robin Guenier
Harrabin is getting excited about the latest Mickey Mouse carbon capture project!
The giant Drax power station, near Selby in North Yorkshire, has become the first in Europe to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from wood-burning.
Drax burns seven million tonnes of wood chips each year to drive generators to make electricity.
The firm has now begun a pilot project to capture one tonne a day of CO2 from its wood combustion.
The technology effectively turns climate change into reverse on a tiny scale, but it's controversial.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47163840
Given that Drax burns 7m tonnes of wood chips every year, I don't think one tonne a day will make much of a dent.
According to Drax's press release, they have invested £400,000 in the project, but who ultimately has paid this bill remains unclear.
What we do know however is that Drax's partner in this project, C-Capture, a spin off from the University of Leeds, is backed by £2m of government funding. It seems pretty likely that this project is directly funded by government in one way or other.
Electricity from biomass at Drax costs £111.29/MWh, double the market price, under Contract for Difference. Any attempt to capture and store carbon will greatly add to this already exorbitant cost.
And as yet Drax have not even managed to work out what to do with the tiny amount of CO2 they have captured.
In a speech last year, Claire Perry claimed that the UK is already a world-leader in carbon capture. Has it not occurred to her that this is because the rest of the world sees no point in wasting money on a pointless exercise?
I'll leave the final word to Almuth Ernsting from the pressure group Biofuelwatch, as reported by the BBC:
"Burning biomass is absolutely the wrong option for so many reasons. Forests are vital for the health of the climate so we need to keep them not burn them.
"The Drax experiment is so ridiculously tiny it's hard to believe it's not 'greenwash'."
from Climate Change Skeptic Blogs via hj on Inoreader http://bit.ly/2SmKIJy
The Week In Doom — Diversity Statement Edition
Item More Colleges Are Asking Scholars for Diversity Statements. Here's What You Need to Know (emphasis mine)
The statements tend to be one page, maybe two. In them, scholars are supposed to explain how their experience can bolster institutional efforts to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion. Colleges are under increasing pressure to increase access and completion rates for students from underrepresented backgrounds, the thinking goes, so they should hire faculty members who understand their role in improving those outcomes…
Rodrigues…[is] concerned about how search committees will evaluate the statements. She also worries about backlash. Committee members who are skeptical of intentional efforts to promote equity in the academy might even penalize her.
She's worried there will be a backlash for being too devoted to Diversity!
By requiring them in the hiring process, colleges can signal to scholars of color elsewhere that they are trying to diversify their mostly white faculties. And requiring them for tenure portfolios can prompt faculty members already at a campus, particularly white academics, to think about how they might help create a more welcoming culture.
Diverse means, as we all know, non-white-male. But it also means more, as we'll see below.
Think: if these oaths are not to enforce ideology, why have them at all?
Recall too my prediction that requiring Diversity oaths will move beyond universities and (publicly) into the corporate world this year.
Now this was from the Chronicle of Higher Education, and it's behind a paywall. Searching for it on the standard SJW search engine led to a series of boxes of common questions, which the search engine was kind enough to list.
For instance, the first question was "How long is a diversity statement?" Answer (and these might be subject to change and search engine quirks):
2. Length: Schools vary in their length requirements for both the personal statement and the diversity statement, but in general a personal statement should be two to three double-spaced pages, while a diversity statement is usually significantly shorter. It's often just one double-spaced page — sometimes a bit longer.
Diversity statements are now so routine the answer is banal, and like that for "How long should I leave an apple pie in the oven?"
If you click on the search engine's question, it provides several more questions.
Like "What is a diversity response statement?" Answer:
The goal of the diversity statement is to show how your past experiences have made you a diverse candidate, and how you'll apply that diverse perspective at your target institution in your future research and teaching pursuits. You can achieve this goal by showing how you've overcome a struggle in life.
From this we learn Diversity means struggle.
"What are some examples of diversity?" Answer (ellipsis original):
Diversity consists of all the different factors that make up an individual, including age, gender, culture, religion, personality, social status and sexual orientation. … Usually, cultural diversity takes into account language, religion, race, sexual orientation, gender, age and ethnicity.
From this we learn that which you lust after is Diversity.
"Why is it good to have diversity in the workplace?" Answer:
Diversity in the workplace is important for employees because it manifests itself in building a great reputation for the company, leading to increased profitability and opportunities for workers. Workplace diversity is important within the organization as well as outside.
From this we learn Diversity is pure politics. It is pure politics because the only good it does is "manifesting" a "great reputation". And, they imply, the great reputation leads to "increased profitability and opportunities".
"What is an inclusion statement?" Answer (ellipsis original):
The goal for each program, chapter or league should be to become an organization where diversity and inclusion are a fundamental part of the values and culture of the program. … Nearly all successful organizations have an inclusion statement or philosophy that establishes the platform for their values and identity.
From this we learn nothing new: Diversity and Inclusion are pure politics.
"What does commitment to diversity mean?" Answer (ellipsis original):
A real commitment to diversity means having diverse leadership. … Minorities who have the same level and quality of schooling as their non-minority peers are falling out of the leadership pipeline.
From this we learn that minorities at the same level and quality of schooling are not, presumably, as good at getting into the pipeline as non-minorities. So they must be crammed in regardless.
"What is statement of contributions to diversity?" Answer:
The purpose of the statement is to identify candidates who have the professional skills, experience, and/or willingness to engage in activities that will advance institutional diversity and equity goals.
From this we learn that those who are unwilling to play along with the politics of Diversity will find themselves unidentified. And therefore without jobs.
Item Prison slave labor: hey, if it's woke, it's fine.
"We go where the finest local materials meet the highest rate of poverty related crime."
Danes exploiting 3rd world female prison labor. I am still not sure if this is incredibly Based
or incredibly Woke
— Woke Capital (@WokeCapital) February 8, 2019
Item "Compared to 2016, significantly fewer Americans feel that political violence is 'not at all' justified–with the largest decreases observed among liberals, democrats, moderates (wtf), and independents."
Compared to 2016, significantly fewer Americans feel that political violence is 'not at all' justified–with the largest decreases observed among liberals, democrats, moderates (wtf), and independents. pic.twitter.com/YtyTQlUDxz
— Zach Goldberg (@ZachG932) February 9, 2019
Won't it be a surprise when the blows begin. Here's one fun example.
Item We are officially the stupidest civilization in all of human history
Adidas has pulled a sneaker it was selling in honor of Black History Month after the all-white running shoe was slammed on Twitter.
Has nobody noticed the February snows yet? And from the Update at the bottom:
So, should white boys still be allowed to share their "opinions"? Should we be forced to listen? In honor of Black History Month, I'm gonna go with a hell no.
Black privilege is not being put to good use. Look for it coming to an office near you.
from Climate Change Skeptic Blogs via hj on Inoreader http://bit.ly/2THo23E
Why the Green New Deal is a Bad Deal for America
from Climate Change Skeptic Blogs via hj on Inoreader http://bit.ly/2MYHxBT
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