Warmists don't even understand how a real greenhouse works

A real greenhouse works by preventing heat loss through convection

Stupid as it is, and despite long-winded denials, the atmospheric greenhouse model originated from a misconception about glass greenhouses, the belief that panes of IR-opaque glass reradiate heat back to the interior, thus making it hotter than it would be otherwise.

See a video by Professor David Archer, Professor of Geophysical sciences at the university of Chicago. The video is part of a "10-week course for non-science majors focused on a single problem: assessing the risk of human-caused climate change".



Whaddya know? He originally presents that ATMOSPHERIC greenhouse layer as a pane of glass (14:25)! Quote: "We're going to put a pane of glass to represent an atmosphere."

Then Archer erases `glass' in order to extend the layer for labeling purposes. Later on, in response to a student's confusion (20:40), he repeats that this layer that "hangs there magically above the ground" is indeed meant to represent the atmosphere, and scribbles "atm" beside the layer to remove any doubts.

I repeat: Stupid as it is, and despite long-winded denials, the atmospheric greenhouse model originated from a misconception about glass greenhouses. You can take that to the bank.

An email received from Alan Siddons




Message for teachers

On Climate, for rigour and thoroughness, look to the outsiders, not the ‘authorities’

Teaching materials, and guidance for teachers, can readily be found which defer to such authorities as the IPCC and the Royal Society and Met Offices and other government agencies around the world.  But, sad to say, none of these are to be trusted these days. 

They have all bitten the apple of political temptation, and the resulting lust for power has deflected them from paying adequate attention to details.  Such as how the hockey stick was constructed (see Montford’s masterpiece, 'The Hockey Stick Illusion', for how this was exposed by climate establishment outsiders as shoddy and indefensible).   The IPCC has also been exposed as an organisation careless of its own integrity (see Laframboise’s jaw-dropper 'The Delinquent Teenager' for chapter and verse).  And Montford has more recently described in a GWPF report the recent descent of the Royal Society from the high ground it might once have had a claim, indeed a responsibility, to occupy.  The UK Met Office has been saddled with an ex-WWF climate zealot as Chairman, and a deference to biased computer models which have made a mockery of its short-term climate predictions, both formal and informal. 

In New Zealand, amateurs exposed the official temperature records as being so unsatisfactory that no one ‘in authority; would subsequently take responsibility for them.  A recent summary was published on WUWT.

In the States, several commentators are challenging the temperature history adjustments being made by GISS and other agencies.

In Australia, a new report is out which exposes severe quality problems with the official temperature records there.

In each case, the ‘errors’ or the ‘adjustments’, just like the blunders of the IPCC, all happen to favour exaggeration of warming or its effects during the last 100 years or so.  And note that in each of these three cases, my links are to 'outsiders'.

So, teachers, the rug of authority is being pulled from under your feet.  You will fall too when that process speeds up, if you have been conscientiously urging your pupils to trust the IPCC, the Royal Society, the ‘97% of climate scientists’ (another deceptive statistic), and such like.  As Christopher Monckton has recently said in a related context, ‘Never do that again, even for the sake of appeasing authority. In science, whatever you may personally believe or wish to be so, it is the truth and only the truth that matters.'

Now it is clear that the truly conscientious teacher must hold the claims of such bodies within metaphorical tongs for his or her pupils to review and compare with other sources.   It is a sad thing that we have come to this

SOURCE






Number of people in fuel poverty will reach eight million by 2016 despite pledge by Britain's Labour government to eradicate the problem

In an alternative universe cheap power generated by East German brown coal would be warming much of Europe. The Australian State of Victoria has lots of brown coal too and has been using it in power stations for decades without ill effects. And, as in Germany, it is cheap to mine and thus enables cheap electricity for everyone

The number of people living in fuel poverty is set to hit 8.5million by 2016 - the year by which the previous government had pledged to eradicate the problem.

The legally binding target to end fuel poverty `as far as reasonably practicable' will not be met, according to a report commissioned by the Coalition.

Some 7.8million were struggling to pay their heating bills in England in 2009, the latest year for which figures are available.

A review led by Professor John Hills suggests this will have risen by 700,000 by 2016. Professor Hills said: `The outlook is profoundly disappointing.'

He warned that the Government's definition of fuel poverty - spending more than 10 per cent of income on energy bills - was flawed as it did not adequately address the problem of large fuel bills for low-income households.

He also claimed that the Energy Company Obligation, which would allow energy firms to charge a flat fee on bills to subsidise home insulation, could be `regressive' as poorer people would be forced to pay higher bills.

In addition, low-income families were found to spend £414 more a year on heating their homes because they could not benefit from discounts offered to other customers, such as those paying by direct debit.

Poor heating is linked to nearly 3,000 deaths a year.

SOURCE





United Tech on wind unit: "We all make mistakes"

"We all make mistakes." That was United Technologies Corp Chief Financial Officer Greg Hayes' assessment of Clipper Windpower. The diversified U.S. manufacturer, which bought the wind turbine maker in 2010, said on Thursday that it would try to sell it to raise money to fund its takeover of aerospace supplier Goodrich Corp.

"We bought into this business with a thought that there was going to be a renewable energy mandate in this country, and there has not been one," Hayes told an investor meeting in New York. "The market, as everyone knows, is stagnating."

Hartford, Connecticut-based United Tech bought a minority stake in Clipper in early 2010, intending to slowly explore its options in the wind turbine market.

But Clipper ran into a cash crunch later that year. United Tech wound up buying out the rest of the company that it did not already own, on the rationale that this was a safer move than lending money to a company that faced hefty competitors including General Electric Co, Siemens AG and Vestas.

United Tech concluded that it would have to make significant new capital investments in Clipper's manufacturing operations to make the large-scale turbines in demand today and that it would rather invest that money in its core businesses, which make aerospace equipment and systems for large commercial buildings, Hayes said.

SOURCE




Atlantic Hurricanes: The Long and the Short of It

Last May, we reviewed a paper on Atlantic basin tropical cyclone trends by Gabriele Villarini and colleagues that focused on a breed of storms called they called "shorties"-small tropical storms that lasted less than two days. The authors concluded that while the number of identified "shorties" has been increasing with time, the increase was primarily the result of changing (improving) observational practices not a changing climate. Now, we review a new paper that looks at the other end of the spectrum of Atlantic tropical cycles-"biggies" (our term)-intense Category 4 and 5 hurricanes. In a new paper, Andrew Hagen (University of Miami) and Chris Landsea (National Hurricane Center) conclude that changing observational practices have resulted in more Cat 4&5 hurricanes being identified in recent decades compared to past ones. Again, the increase is not due to a changing climate but changing detection technologies.

Whether talking about the total number of tropical cyclones (which is increasing because of detection technology) or their intensity (which is increasing because of detection technology) only a person unaware of this important research would say that there has been a climate-related trend.

There are other yet-to-be-determined repercussions of this work, but we would hypothesize that it is going to make work of computer modelers look like they simulated something that hasn't happened. Fancy that!

Big changes in observational capabilities occurred in the mid-1940s when aircraft reconnaissance became common practice and again in the mid-1960s with the launch of geostationary satellites. And all along, technological improvements have been occurring which have enhanced our ability to get an increasingly detailed look at evolving storm systems. As a consequence, we are continually able to observe much smaller scale features, which have led both to an increasing number of tropical systems being identified and also an increase in the apparent storm intensity.

In their paper, Hagen and Landsea set out to attempt to determine how the strongest hurricanes (Category 5 storms) which were identified during the period 1992 through 2007 would have been described using the observational network and technologies available in the period 1944-1953-the beginning of the period of aircraft reconnaissance.

To do so, they first excluded all the data on the 1992-2007 category 5 hurricanes that would not have been available during the 1944-53 period:

1) They excluded all satellite observations;

2) All data from buoys and weather stations installed after 1953 were excluded;

3) No aircraft observations of pressures lower than 950 millibars were included from 1944-49 and lower than 940 mb from 1950-53 (during the early years of aircraft reconnaissance, the planes would not penetrate the eyewall of major hurricanes because the winds speeds and turbulence were too great for the equipment);

4) No nighttime aircraft observations were included (during the early years of aircraft reconnaissance, low-level flights required the pilot to be able to see the ocean's surface when navigating);

5) No radar data were included.

Analyzing the data that still remained, Hagen and Landsea determined as best they could (i.e., using standard procedures) the track and intensity of the ten Cat 5 hurricanes that were observed in the Atlantic during the 1992-2007.

What they found was astounding-of the ten Cat 5 storms observed from 1992-2007 only 2 or 3 of them would have been categorized as Cat 5 storms had they occurred during the 1944-1953 time period.

Hagen and Landsea also identified three Category 4 storms in recent years (2003-2010) that would not have been classified as major hurricanes using the observational network and technology of the 1944-1953 period.

In summary, Haden and Landsea wrote:

"This research suggests that the counts of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes (at least through 1953 and likely beyond that year) are not nearly as reliable as they are today. Future studies that discuss frequency trends of Atlantic Basin Category 4 and 5 hurricanes must take into account the undercount biases that existed prior to the geostationary satellite era due to the inability to observe these extreme conditions."

The long and short of it is this- if you are doing studies investigating the changes in the number or intensity of tropical cyclones and you don't take into account those that are the result of improvements in observational practices over time, you will get the wrong answer. And most likely, the wrong answer will be that Atlantic tropical cyclones are increasing in numbers and growing in strength as the planet warms. You will also get on CNN, NPR, and NBC Nightly News, and anyone that says you are wrong will be accused by Michael Mann of being part of a vast fossil-fuel funded conspiracy to deceive the world.

More HERE (See the original for links, graphics)




Frivolous Greenie claims halt big mining venture in Australia

RIO Tinto's $4 billion plan to almost double shipping of bauxite through the inner Great Barrier Reef in two years has been thrown into disarray, threatening 3000 jobs in Gladstone.

Environment Minister Tony Burke said new evidence had come to light about the proposed shipping by the mining giant from its bauxite operation near Weipa to Gladstone, in a ruling likely to delay the project for a year.

Rio Tinto Alcan president Pat Fiore yesterday warned the 11th-hour decision to expand the environmental review was a threat to the entire resource sector.

Rio has demanded an urgent meeting with Mr Burke ahead of a joint state and federal strategic assessment of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage area and the findings of a UNESCO delegation.

"Rio Tinto is deeply concerned that the Federal Government has taken such a profound decision based on unsustained claims in a two-page submission by the Wilderness Society," Mr Fiore said.

He said they had been shipping bauxite on that inner reef route for 40 years without damage.

The South of Embley project will produce up to 50 million tonnes of bauxite a year by 2015 in a $1.4 billion expansion of existing site reserves between Weipa and Aurukun on western Cape York.

The plan is for it to feed the $2.5 billion Yarwun refinery at Gladstone due to be commissioned by the end of this year.

Rio last year loaded 176 ships with bauxite in Weipa headed for Gladstone with that number forecast to rise to 270 ships in the next two years alone.

Green groups claim the total shipping numbers transiting through the reef are likely to increase five-fold under the state's mining boom.

SOURCE

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