Tuesday, March 28, 2017


Analysis finds NOAA satellite data is incompatible with theory of man-made global warming

Previous posts by Dr. Noor van Andel have demonstrated that the theory of anthropogenic global warming [AGW] is falsified by observations over the past 62 years which show outgoing radiation from greenhouse gases has significantly increased, rather than decreased as predicted by the AGW theory. The observations instead show the 'greenhouse effect' has decreased over the past 62 years instead of increased due to an exponential rise in greenhouse gases.

In a new post at Australian biologist Jennifer Marohasy's site, spectroscopist and engineer Michael Hammer comes to the same conclusion finding the last 30 years of NOAA satellite data is incompatible with AGW theory:

ANTHROPOGENIC Global Warming (AGW) theory claims the earth is warming because rising CO2 is like a blanket, reducing Earth’s energy loss to space. However, data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows that at least for the last 30 years, Earth’s energy loss to space has been rising.

The last 30 years of NOAA data is not compatible with the theory of AGW. It would appear that either 30 years of NOAA data is wrong or the theory of AGW is flawed. This is Michael Hammer’s conclusion following analysis of the official outgoing long wave radiation

The research uncovers some interesting trends and most importantly highlights that:

1. Earth can only warm if the rate of energy input exceeds the rate of energy loss;
2. Thus earth would warm if energy absorbed from the sun increased or energy loss to space (outgoing longwave radiation or OLR for short) decreased – or of course both;
3. The theory of AGW claims that Earth is warming because rising CO2 is reducing the energy loss to space i.e. is causing OLR to decrease;
4. Thirty years of experimental data published by NOAA (one of the prime AGW reference sites) shows OLR has been rising progressively between 1980 and 2010 and is now 2.5 watt/sqM higher than in 1980; and
5. The period between 1980 and 2010 is when almost all the CO2 induced warming is supposed to have taken place.

“If the corner stone of AGW theory says earth is warming because outgoing long wave radiation is decreasing yet 30 years of experimental data shows OLR is rising (remember 30 years is the time AGW proponents claim is the interval necessary to separate climate from weather) it would seem the theory of AGW is as a minimum extremely seriously compromised.”

SOURCE




‘BIGGEST OIL DISCOVERY IN UK WATERS THIS CENTURY’

Wot?  No Hubbert's peak?

Hurricane Energy has made a further oil discovery west of the Shetland Islands days after Royal Dutch Shell and BP won exploration licences in an area the UK is counting on to breathe new life into its struggling oil and gas industry.

The latest find adds to a series of successful wells drilled by Hurricane in a geological formation that analysts say looks likely to be the biggest new oil discovery beneath UK waters this century.

Shell and BP were last week awarded licenses to drill in nearby exploration blocks in a sign of renewed interest among large oil and gas groups in the west of Shetland region even as they withdraw from more mature parts of the North Sea.

Hurricane is expected to announce that initial data from its Halifax well indicates the presence of a 1km-deep oil column and that, crucially, it appears to be part of “a single large hydrocarbon accumulation” connected to the company’s adjacent Lancaster field.

This would increase confidence behind the London-listed explorer’s claim to be sitting on the largest undeveloped discovery on the UK continental shelf and aid efforts to attract investment in the field from international oil majors.

SOURCE




Are the Climate Change People Right?

The Environmental Community is apoplectic over Scott Pruitt becoming the head of the EPA and the proposed Trump budget cuts. They tell us 97 percent of all scientists believe that climate change is real. And the point is? A few years back I read a rather long list of these scientists and most of them had no tie to climate science. This was one of the major issues of the Women’s March the day after President Trump’s Inauguration.

Let’s look at some of the facts and ask some questions:

1. Climate Change Deniers – That is one of the statements I love to hear from supporters. It is itself an ad hominem attack since there really are not any of consequence. As previously discussed, the climate is always changing so the name in itself is quite silly. When discussing this with supporters I always ask why they keep using that term. The Climatologists that I have read or interviewed have been consistent. They state the climate is changing and add that man has some portion of that effect, but we just cannot prove the models that are used by climate change supporters to back up their claims of projecting out decades from now and man’s effect on the climate.

One would think if legitimate climate scientists come forth and state they cannot verify the models then others would question the models. But that is a no.

2. Global Warming vs. Climate Change – When all this attention started to happen, it was referred to as “global warming.” Now it is “climate change.” Why the change in nomenclature? Try to get a coherent answer from supporters. That is not possible. I think it was because they were being brutalized because there had been a cooling trend from 1940 through the mid-70s.

3. Discrediting Opponents – One of the things that brings into question the creditability of the supporters of this movement is their need to denigrate the people who express a non-conforming opinion. It starts with point one above, but there are multiple cases of scientists who varied from the orthodoxy who were attacked and belittled:

Lennart Bengtsson, a Swedish Meteorologist, came out and questioned Global Warming in 2014. Fifteen days after he joined the Global Warming Policy Foundation he quit because he was being harassed. Bengtsson stated he had come under "an enormous group pressure. I see no limit and end to what will happen. It is a situation that reminds me about the time of McCarthy. I would never have expecting anything similar in such an original peaceful community as meteorology. Apparently it has been transformed in recent years. I had not expecting such an enormous world-wide pressure put at me from a community that I have been close to all my active life."

Judith Curry is an American climatologist and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She recently quit her position fed up with the tribal nature of the climate-science community and the stonewalling over the release of data and its analysis for independent review.

This is just two examples, but if the strength of your case is there then why would you need to take actions against people like these to suppress legitimate questioning or peer review.

4. Settled Science – Yes, gravity is settled science; this is not. The Theory of Relativity was something we lived with all our lives. Who does not know Einstein’s theory? We accepted it as is, but it was just recently proven. The entire idea of using this term questions the scientific basis of the arguments being made and is just another way to browbeat the opponents.

5. Funding Sources – The supporters frequently question the veracity of the opponents because of their funding sources. The implication is that the scientists supporting the climate change orthodoxy are pure of heart and wallet. That could not be any further from the truth. They do their own back flips to receive funding and the creditability of their sources are just as questionable as the ones who don’t support the orthodoxy.

6. Hottest Years on Record – I am sure you recently heard that 2016 was the hottest year on record. They will cite 16 of the 17 warmest years have been in this century. But did you know that the survey they cite goes back a total of 136 years. And the earth is 4.5 billion years old. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t trust the temperature measurements done in the 19th century. In fact, I trust them very little until after 1950. Stating these are the hottest years on record means exactly what? And did you know that the increase last year, which was affected by El Nino, was .04 degrees Celsius. That means if everything continued on with similar increases it would take 25 years to increase one degree.

7. The Climate Models – The scientists who question the orthodoxy of climate change often cite they cannot prove the models that are used by the supporters. But you don’t even need to be a famous climatologist to question this. Do you believe that these people can predict the weather at the end of this century – 83 years from now? La Nina was supposed to hit in Southern California in 2016. It appears to have shown up this year. They cannot even get that right. Yet they want to significantly reorient the energy sources in our society. And what happens 83 years from now if they are wrong – do they just say “sorry”?

8. Rigged Numbers - The recent revelation by a whistleblower that the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provided rigged numbers to the people behind the Paris Accord shocked everyone except for those who blindly believe all regarding climate change. This validated that the supporters have ulterior motives that drive their interests beyond good science.

This isn’t to say that man has not had some effect on the atmosphere or that we are not going through a period of global warming. These are just some points to bring in to question the militant orthodoxy of the current climate change universe.

SOURCE




Greenwire reports on Heartland conference

The most important message to send the Trump administration and Capitol Hill right now: The 2009 finding that carbon dioxide endangers public health "must go."

Advisers to the Trump administration's transition team at U.S. EPA and other long-established climate contrarians repeated that mantra for the past 36 hours at the Heartland Institute's 12th annual International Conference on Climate Change.

"You need to contact your members of Congress, and you need to make noise and — particularly the scientists here — that the endangerment finding needs to be reopened," said Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and former head of President Trump's EPA transition team.

"President Trump said that he would do it," Ebell told the crowd, after listing about a dozen Trump campaign promises related to energy. Ebell also explained some of the hurdles he believes are holding Trump back, including a shortage of staff in his personnel office.

With Trump expected to take action next week on an executive order that will begin the process of unwinding parts of the Obama administration's climate agenda, the energy industry, environmental community and conservative activists are gearing up for legal and legislative action.

"We need to make it possible to go in and litigate every bit of science — I don't care how long it takes," said Steve Milloy, an attorney and longtime legal foe of EPA, who participated in the Trump transition (Greenwire, Feb. 24).

Milloy urged the "cowards" in Congress to get busy working to "overrule the terrible decision" made in Massachusetts v. EPA, one of three Supreme Court decisions that now have affirmed EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's conclusion in a widely panned interview with CNBC that carbon dioxide is not the main driver behind climate change encouraged some GOP lawmakers who want the agency to revisit the finding (E&E News PM, March 10).

Those include Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), head of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment; Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety Chairwoman Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.); and, most recently, Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who served as an energy adviser to Trump during last year's campaign.

House Science, Space and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) may also join the list of gavel-wielding members of Congress keen on examining the endangerment finding.

Smith was asked yesterday during the conference whether he would hold a hearing on the topic.

"Probably, but it hasn't been set yet. ... We can add that to our list. It will be about 14 or 15 on the ideas that we have coming up that we think are good ones," Smith said.

Long-established climate contrarian Pat Michaels of the Cato Institute rallied the like-minded audience yesterday around vacating the finding, alleging major flaws in the models that support the finding authored by former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

"When the president eviscerates the Clean Power Plan ... it has to go," Michaels said, warning that otherwise every "tentacle" of the "green blob" would be petitioning the courts for a stay of the White House's expected executive action.

"There are people I have heard that are trying to finesse their way around it. There is no way to finesse around a monster, so let's go forward," Michaels said in his keynote address to the two-day conference.

Ebell speculated that lawyers from the right-of-center Federalist Society, who are said to have affected Trump's pick for the Supreme Court vacancy, are pressuring the administration against reopening the endangerment finding.

Ebell speculated those lawyers are advising: "It's too much work, and you don't really need to do it."

Environmental attorneys are girding for defense of President Obama's initiatives, with a multipronged strategy in the works (E&E News PM, March 7).

"It was certainly a revealing moment when Scott Pruitt confessed or slipped up and said what he really thought on CNBC," said David Doniger, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's climate and clean air program, on a panel earlier this week previewing climate action under Trump.

"I know that certain gadflies from think tanks and [others] have been urging that EPA during his tenure revisit the endangerment determination," Doniger said, but a "mountain of evidence, thousands of peer-reviewed studies stretching back over now several decades," and courts support it, he said.

Whether EPA chooses the administrative route or Congress revisits the Clean Air Act amendments, Doniger predicted the chances of overturning the finding are "nil."  He sounds like those who predicted that Trump would never be President

"That is a doomed effort, but that isn't to say it won't be attempted," he said.

SOURCE





Australia's conservatives looking to Asia to build new coal-fired power station in north

The Turnbull government has opened talks with Asian investors to build a coal-fired power station backed by its $5 billion northern Australia fund, as half the nation’s voters endorse the use of taxpayer funds to develop the project and improve energy security.

Resources Minister Matt Canavan is fast-tracking the plan amid a growing fight with Labor and the Greens over support for coal power, as cabinet ministers prepare to decide how to encourage big investors into the market.

Senator Canavan told The Australian there was a “high ­degree of interest” from Asia helping to develop the new power station in northern Queensland, arguing that finance from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund would be needed to give the project long-term certainty.

A special Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian, ­reveals that 47 per cent of voters favour the use of federal government funds to help construct a new coal-fired power station to improve energy security, while 40 per cent are opposed and 13 per cent undecided.

Amid a push by environmental groups to block new coalmines and coal-fired power stations, the national survey finds that 35 per cent of Labor voters and 15 per cent of Greens voters support using public funds to ­develop more coal-fired power.

It also shows that 59 per cent of Coalition voters favour public ­financial support for the new power station, lending weight to Malcolm Turnbull’s declaration that coal must be one of the options in a “technology neutral” approach to fixing energy ­security.

The findings come as the Prime Minister and Scott Morrison crack down on electricity ­retailers in a new move to act on fears about rising prices, ordering the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission to review the sector in order to get a better deal for consumers.

The Prime Minister and Treasurer will announce today that their response to the ACCC’s ­review will consider new measures to improve “reliability, security and pricing” across the sector.

As the imminent close of the ageing Hazelwood power station reignites debate about electricity shortages and price spikes, Labor climate change spokesman Mark Butler has declared there is no support from industry to build new coal-fired power stations in Australia.

The Australian Energy ­Council, which represents companies supplying electricity to 10 million homes, warns it has become “very difficult” to finance coal-fired power stations when investors are ramping up wind and solar projects as well as gas generators that provide baseload power with lower greenhouse gas emissions than coal.

But the government is determined to keep the coal proposal on the agenda by raising the prospect of funding from the northern Australia fund, which is also a potential source of support for the controversial coalmine planned for central Queensland by Indian company Adani.

Senator Canavan said there was “no doubt” of the rudimentary economic and commercial case for a coal-fired power station in northern Queensland but that the government’s challenge was to set the energy market rules to offer certainty.

“There’s clearly a risk of government policy changes in this area, and I think that’s a risk that’s been created by the Labor-Green(s) movement,” he said.

“Until last year there was bipartisan support for the future of coal in Australia but it was last year when Labor supported the Senate inquiry that said we should shut down all coal-fired power stations in Australia. That wasn’t the position of Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard.

“The decision by Labor and the Greens to move to the radical fringes of our energy debate and turn their back completely on coal, on our second-biggest export, has introduced an element of risk to potential new coal-fired power stations.

“It’s now a sovereign risk and the only people who can get rid of sovereign risks are the sovereigns.”

A Senate inquiry led by a Labor and Greens majority last year argued for an “orderly retirement” of the nation’s coal-fired power stations but the government believes there is strong support in northern Queensland for a new coal project at a time of rising electricity prices.

Senator Canavan is examining options for a new power station near the Adani coalmine in the Galilee Basin, in Collinsville, to add to an existing power station or in Gladstone near an existing power station and taking advantage of transmission lines that are already in place.

The Resources Minister, who is also the Minister for Northern Australia and oversees the infrastructure fund, rejected suggestions that the help for a coal-fired power station would be a “subsidy” that meddled with the market.

“I wouldn’t characterise it as a subsidy, it’s an investment. Governments for decades have invested in energy infrastructure; all the energy infrastructure in Queensland is owned by the state government,’’ Senator Canavan said.

“It’s not unusual and generally those investments have paid off very well. I think most Australians see the central role of government as being investing in infrastructure — roads, rail and energy.”

Senator Canavan said the investment would be comparable to Mr Turnbull’s decision 10 days ago to offer government support for a $2bn expansion of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme.

The energy security committee of cabinet is waiting on a report into the electricity market from Chief Scientist Alan Finkel before deciding any changes to the sector, with energy security expected to gain a priority so that baseload power generators — including coal-fired ones — are assured a long-term return.

Senator Canavan is talking to Japanese companies that believe they could transfer their “high efficiency, low emissions” technology to the northern Queensland project.

Mr Butler is warning against the use of taxpayer funds for the rail line to the Adani mine or a new power station, claiming the long-term future for coal is one of decline.

“This is something the coal industry needs to deal with. We’ve said as a federal Labor Party we will not support taxpayers’ money going in to support infrastructure or pay for infrastructure around this (Adani) mine,” he said last week.

SOURCE

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1 comment:

GoFigure560 said...

If the report is true that NOAA data actually conflicts with the AGW theory - more radiation is escaping to space, that would be very surprising.

I cannot believe that NOAA would have ever permitted such data to exist (without first "homogenizing" it !