THE SUN CAUSES WEATHER CHANGES

We see below where researchers use sun cycles to predict rainfall fluctuations. Rather a nasty blow to the legions of "scientists" who have attributed recent droughts to global warming

The sun's magnetic field may have a significant impact on weather and climatic parameters in Australia and other countries in the northern and southern hemispheres. According to a study in Geographical Research published by Wiley-Blackwell, the droughts in eastern Australia are related to the solar magnetic phases and not the greenhouse effect.

The study titled "Exploratory Analysis of Similarities in Solar Cycle Magnetic Phases with Southern Oscillation Index Fluctuation in Eastern Australia" uses data from 1876 to the present to examine the correlation between solar cycles and the extreme rainfall in Australia. It finds that the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) - the basic tool for forecasting variations in global and oceanic patterns - and rainfall fluctuations recorded over the last decade are similar to those in 1914 -1924.

Author Professor Robert G. V. Baker from the School of Environmental Studies, University of New England, Australia, says, "The interaction between the directionality in the Sun's and Earth's magnetic fields, the incidence of ultraviolet radiation over the tropical Pacific, and changes in sea surface temperatures with cloud cover, could contribute to an explanation of substantial changes in the SOI from solar cycle fluctuations. If solar cycles continue to show relational values to climate patterns, there is the potential for more accurate forecasting through to 2010 and possibly beyond."

The SOI-solar association has been investigated recently due to increasing interest in the relationship between the sun's cycles and the climate. The solar application offers the potential for the long-range prediction of SOI behavior and associated rainfall variations, since quasi-periodicity in solar activity results in an expected cycle of situations and phases that are not random events.

Professor Baker adds, "This discovery could substantially advance forecasting from months to decades. It should result in much better long-term management of agricultural production and water resources, in areas where rainfall is correlated to SOI and El Nino (ENSO) events."

This paper is published in the December 2008 issue of Geographical Research Vol. 46 Issue 4.

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Global cooling harasses the Brits

Road and rail travellers face misery as blizzard blows in

Blizzards and snowdrifts threaten to disrupt rail services and motorways today as heavy snow and high winds make milder winters seem a distant memory. From Scotland to the Midlands, snowfalls of up to 20 centimetres are expected to play havoc with travel arrangements, and even London can expect traces of snow among the rain.

Trains equipped with snowploughs have been placed on standby by rail operators to clear routes crossing the Pennines, where the heaviest conditions are expected. During the night, Network Rail was using special trains to spray warm deicer on mainline stretches of track on lines in the North West and North East. Drivers setting out overnight or early today were being advised to travel with warm clothing and an emergency pack including food and water, boots, windscreen deicer and a shovel.

Helen Chivers, at the Met Office, said: "We are expecting the heaviest fall to be over the Pennines, the North York Moors, and the Cumbrian Fells, which could get anywhere between 10cm and 20cm of snow. And it will be drifting, because it will be accompanied by higher winds, and higher roads could well be quite badly affected by blizzards well into the rush hour."

Severe weather warnings have been issued for parts of the country as far south as Birmingham, and authorities in London and across the South have been warned that heavy rain could turn into brief spells of snow and ice during today's rush hour. People who have become used to milder winters will be well advised to wrap up against temperatures that could fall as low as minus 10C (14F) in parts of Scotland, although the South Coast could reach 10C later in the day.

The cold weather, which has lasted two weeks, has felt unusually harsh after a series of mild Decembers.

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Electric shock as sales of green cars go into reverse in Britain

Sales of electric cars have fallen by more than half this year, according to figures released two days after the Government's climate change advisory body predicted a huge increase. Only 156 electric cars were sold from January to October, compared with 374 for the same period last year.

Nice Car Company, one of the two main British distributors of electric cars, went into administration yesterday. Set up in 2006, the company had been selling an all-electric version of the French-made Aixam Mega. It had also planned to bring a range of new models to market by the end of the year. However, sales dropped to fewer than one car a week.

Richard Bremner, editor of www.cleangreencars.co.uk, which specialises in green motoring, said: "While volumes are still tiny, any drop in electric car sales will come as a shock. Buyers could be holding off for cars from mainstream manufacturers, although they may still have years to wait."

The Committee on Climate Change said on Monday it expected electric and hybrid vehicles to form up to 40 per cent of cars on the road by 2020. There are about 1,100 all-electric cars currently on British roads - 0.004 per cent of the total. Most are owned by Londoners and are quadricycles, not fully type-approved cars.

Congestion-charge concessions for all-electric vehicles helped to create the market, but drivers have since opted for new small diesel cars with very low carbon emissions.

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How Science Actually Works

Here's a fascinating little story from the science section of the New York Times:

Scars on the surface of the Moon record a hail of impacts during what is called the Late Heavy Bombardment. The Earth would have received an even more intense bombardment, and the common thinking until recently was that life could not have emerged on Earth until the bombardment eased about 3.85 billion years ago.

Norman H. Sleep, a professor of geophysics at Stanford, recalled that in 1986 he submitted a paper that calculated the probability of life surviving one of the giant, early impacts. It was summarily rejected because a reviewer said that obviously nothing could have lived then.

That is no longer thought to be true. "We thought we knew something we didn't," said T. Mark Harrison, a professor of geochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. In hindsight the evidence was just not there. And new evidence has suggested a new view of the early Earth.

This, of course, is how science actually works. All scientific knowledge is tentative, subject to constant challenge by new hypotheses and new evidence. Keep this in mind every time a global warmist claims that the "scientific consensus" about "climate change" is unchallengeable.

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RISING ANGER: 10,000 EUROPEAN METAL WORKERS PROTEST AGAINST EU CLIMATE BILL

About 11,000 workers from the steel industry in European countries gathered on Tuesday in Brussels to protest the European Union's climate change policy which they fear might make them lose their jobs. The European Parliament and the French Presidency of the European Union agreed Monday on details of future targets on emissions from cars, setting the target for 2020 at 95 g CO2 per kilometer. "We don't want to lose our job," one protester said, adding that the new regulations will possibly kill the steel industry in Europe. Several protesters held a coffin to indicate that the European steel industry will die when EU's climate change plan is implemented.

Under the new regulations, from 2012 to 2018 manufacturers exceeding the carbon dioxide targets set by the regulation will have to pay fines 5 euros for the first gram of CO2, 15 euros for the second gram of CO2 and 95 euros from the fourth gram of CO2. From 2019, car manufacturers will have to pay 95 euro for each gram exceeding the target.

The protesters, most of who come from the car industry giant Germany, marched around the European Parliament building and other EU institutions. The protest was organized by the European Metalworkers' Federation (EMF). The federation criticized the EU's plan to cut CO2 emissions, saying it endangers production and jobs in the steel and non-ferrous metal sectors. In a statement, the EMF said that European producers "are confronted with increasing international competition from producers who do not meet European norms."

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COOLING DOWN

Climate Change: Policymakers and other busybodies trying to save the planet will one day learn that, despite all the hype about global warming, most people are focused on issues that for them are more meaningful. During economic boom times, developed and developing nations have the luxury to indulge in meaningless gestures, such as the trendy campaign to beat global warming. But when the economy slows and energy costs increase, the people in those nations become a bit more focused and find that environmental issues might not be as important as they thought.

This evolution of thought can be tracked by looking at how the public regards global warming now compared with last year. A recent survey of 12,000 people across 11 countries commissioned by financial institution HSBC and environmental groups clearly confirms the progression. The poll found that only 47% say they are willing to change their lives to cut emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, down from 58% last year. A mere 37% say they are willing to increase the time or effort they put into cutting carbon emissions. Last year, 45% said they would. When it comes to finances, people are even more restrained. One in five say this year that they would be willing to spend more money on the environment while 28% said the same when the poll was taken in April 2007. Just four in 10 say they are more worried about global warming than they are about the world economy.

Earthwatch, one of the environmental groups that commissioned the survey, claims the answers show that consumers would rather governments lead on the climate change issue. But given the weak support for the Kyoto global warming protocol - 27% want their countries to participate in international emissions-cutting agreements - and the fact that less than half (48%) actually say that governments should take the lead role on climate change, that seems like a shaky proposition.

A better interpretation of the results would be that a world that has been hammered incessantly by a global warming fear campaign, but which has yet to see any actual warming, has developed a healthy skepticism. That same world has also had a good look at the reality of current economic difficulties and found them more pressing than speculative disasters. No doubt some of those surveyed see the current slump as a forerunner of the environmentalists' economy, a state of affairs in which the steep cost of curbing global warming is an economy that is permanently sluggish, and decided that some misty climate threat is preferable to endless recession.

Consumers, particularly in the U.S., have also been traumatized by shockingly expensive gasoline. While prices have mercifully receded, the mark they left on wallets and the fear that they will be driven back up by a carbon tax is real and legitimate. Consumers also have been alarmed by Barack Obama's warnings that environmental policy under his administration would bankrupt any energy provider that tried to open a new coal-fired power plant, and his promise that under his greenhouse gas emissions cap-and-trade plan "electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."

Nor are consumers unaware of the costs that a crackdown on carbon dioxide emissions would have. They might not know the specifics - millions of jobs lost and a 1.5% to 4% GDP drop in the EU, 4.9 million jobs and a $400 billion hit on the economy each year in the U.S. to comply with the Kyoto pact. But they understand that attempts to fight global warming will hit them in the wallets.

The alarmists are busy this week at a United Nations climate conference in Poland, making absurd claims that humanity will suffer from increased war, hunger, disease, catastrophic weather and poverty if global warming is not brought under control. But it's clear the world, much like kids who eventually come to understand that bedtime stories are generally fantasies, has grown wise to the environmental propaganda.

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