Wednesday, July 10, 2024


Unseen Calm: The North Pacific’s Historic Storm-Free Period

For the first time in the satellite era, which began in 1966, the entire North Pacific has experienced an extraordinary meteorological anomaly.

From June 1 to July 3, 2024, there was no named storm activity in the western, central, or eastern North Pacific. This period of calm is highly unusual given the historical storm activity in the region during these months.

The absence of named storms during this time has significant implications for meteorology and climate science while the silence about this event in the MSM is clear evidence of the bias surrounding climate change.

Several factors contributed to this unprecedented period of calm. One critical factor is thought to be the temperature of the ocean’s surface. Warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are believed to provide the necessary energy for storm development however as reported previously new research has called that into question.

In 2024, SSTs in the North Pacific were lower than average, potentially due to cyclical oceanic patterns such as La Niña, which is characterized by cooler ocean temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific. This cooling effect may inhibit the formation of tropical storms and hurricanes.

Atmospheric conditions also played a crucial role. The North Pacific experienced higher-than-normal atmospheric stability during this period, suppressing the convection necessary for storm development.

Increased wind shear—a difference in wind speed and direction at different altitudes—further inhibited the organization of storm systems. These atmospheric conditions combined to create an environment unfavorable for storm formation.

The lack of named storms in the North Pacific from June 1 to July 3, 2024, provides a unique opportunity for meteorologists and climate scientists to study the underlying causes and potential shifts in weather patterns.

This anomaly challenges existing models and underscores the importance of refining predictive models to improve forecasting and preparation for future extreme weather events.

By analyzing this period of inactivity, scientists can enhance long-term climate predictions and better understand the impacts of natural variability and anthropogenic factors.

The media silence surrounding the North Pacific’s historic lack of named storms contrasts sharply with the overblown coverage of Hurricane Beryl. This disparity is a perfect example of media bias and the manipulation of information by the climate-industrial complex to drive fear and anxiety, pushing policy agendas.

While the media extensively covered Beryl’s every detail, often amplifying the storm’s potential impacts to sensational levels, the unprecedented calm in the North Pacific received little to no attention.

This selective reporting skews public perception, making it appear as though severe weather events are becoming more frequent and intense without providing a balanced view of the overall trends.

This bias fuels a narrative that supports the goals of those who benefit from climate change-driven policies, creating an environment of fear rather than informed understanding.

In conclusion, the unprecedented lack of named storm activity in the North Pacific from June 1 to July 3, 2024, marks a significant meteorological event.

By examining the contributing factors, implications for science, and potential long-term impacts, we gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of weather patterns and the importance of continued research and adaptation.

This interesting anomaly not only challenges our current understanding but also provides valuable insights into the media bias surrounding climate change.

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Solar farms are taking us back to the dark ages

MATT RIDLEY

Even green campaigners fear they are damaging the planet, consuming land that could be left to nature

The actress Tracy Ward objects to her ex-husband the Duke of Beaufort building a 2,000-acre solar farm in Gloucestershire: “Solar panels should be on roofs, along motorways, or industrial sites,” she says. “Be careful what the climate change fear-mongering will lull us into accepting.”

Spot on. While solar panels on roofs can (almost) make sense, huge solar farms are an environmental as well as economic mistake. The whole point of farmland is that it is already a solar farm, and a green one at that. It turns sunlight into food energy for people, insects, voles and birds. “The fact that some green campaigners would rather have low grade electricity than high quality British farm produce shows how bizarrely irrational environmentalism has become,” says Dr John Constable of the Renewable Energy Foundation.

Ah, say solar-energy fans, but you can have both: you can graze sheep under the solar panels or allow weeds to flourish. This is nonsense: the whole point of solar panels is that they catch the sunlight — the clue is in the name – which plants would otherwise use to grow. On a normal summer’s day, perhaps 10% of the sunlight might get missed by the solar panels and caught by the plants’ solar panels (leaves) instead. It’s a zero-sum game.

It is debatable whether we need home-grown electricity more desperately than home-grown food these days: reliance on imports of both are increasing sharply. But you cannot currently make bread or lambs any other way than by using land; the same is not true of electricity.

Solar power needs around 200 times as much land as gas per unit of energy and 500 times as much as nuclear. Reducing the land we need for human civilisation is surely a vital ecological imperative. The more concentrated the production, the more land you spare for nature. Going back to using the landscape to provide energy, as they did in the Middle Ages (through wind, water and hay for horses), would be a disaster for nature.

Britain currently vies with New Zealand each year to break the record for wheat yield: our combination of soil moisture and summer day length is ideal. But it’s right at the bottom of the heap for solar-power potential. Around 1-2 kilowatt-hours a day of “direct normal irradiation” falls on the average square metre in Britain. Most of Australia experiences 5-8 times as much. According to one study, it is not even clear that the energy generated by a typical solar farm in Europe north of the Alps is greater than what went into building it, let alone replacing it every 15 years.

To match UK electricity demand from solar on a June afternoon would mean covering 5-10% of the entire country with solar farms but they would be useless at night and in winter. British solar output peaks at precisely the times we least need it: in the middle of the day in the middle of summer. It contributes the square root of sod all in December, and spring and autumn it stops generating just when demand starts to peak in the evening.

The more solar power we add to the grid, the bigger the evening ramp-up demand for gas. It is expensive to keep so much back-up ready. Batteries will not help much. If we relied on solar power, it would take many billions of pounds to install enough batteries to tide us over a single night, let alone a winter.

Then there is the demand for materials. There is probably not enough silicon, silver or copper being mined and smelted in the world to build a solar farm big enough to supply Britain. The material demands of solar power are about six times greater than for gas, per megawatt of capacity (though half those of offshore wind). Much of this material comes from China, a significant vulnerability in terms of economic security and environmental damage. Solar’s fans are fond of saying that the cost of solar panels is falling fast, but solar panels account for just a quarter of the costs of a solar farm: the cost of the rest of the infrastructure, and the land, is rising.

Planning guidance on solar farms needs to change fast to stop these duke-lucrative, subsidised eyesores gobbling up more of our green and pleasant land.

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22 Workers Killed After Single Malfunctioning Lithium Battery Sets Off Disastrous Chain Reaction

A fire at a lithium battery factory has claimed at least 22 lives.

The fire at the South Korean factory owned by battery maker Aricell took place in the city of Hwaseong, near Seoul, on Monday, according to The New York Times. In addition to the 22 people killed, one worker was missing while eight were injured.

Kim Jin-young, an official with the Hwaseong Fire Department, said 102 workers were in the factory when the fire broke out, according to the Times.

One battery cell caught fire, he said, leading to a series of explosions that rippled through the 35,000 battery cells stored on the factory’s second floor.

Lithium batteries are an essential component for electric vehicles, from bikes to trucks, but the fire risk from them has risen as their use proliferates.

Batteries from Aricell are often used to run utility networks, the Times reported.

More than 160 firefighters and 60 fire engines fought the fire.

Lithium battery fires can be stubborn to extinguish.

A fire at the Gateway Energy Storage facility near San Diego last month broke out on May 15 but was not extinguished until May 31, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Robert Rezende, Alternative Energy Emergency Response coordinator for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, said a lithium-ion battery fire is different from other blazes.

“Historically speaking, we usually tend to see a much longer period of time where this cascading damage just keeps going, almost like the domino effect,” Rezende said, according to the Union-Tribune.

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Backlash over proposed Tasmanian wind farm’s toll on eagles

Greenies are NOT onservationists. They are just a crazy Leftist religion bent on maximum disruption and destruction

Tasmania’s approval of a major wind farm, despite the propon­ent’s projections it could kill up to 81 endangered eagles, has prompted calls for federal intervention.

The proposed 300-megawatt St Patricks Plains wind farm – comprising 47 turbines 231m high in Tasmania’s Central Highlands – was on Monday approved by the state’s Environment Protection Authority.

However, opponents on Tuesday flagged a potential legal challenge and urged Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to block the project, given the likely impact on the endangered Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle.

According to the EPA, proponent St Patricks Plains Wind Farm, owned by Korea Zinc, estimates the blades will kill on average two eagles a year, or 41 to 81 eagles across the farm’s 30-year lifespan, based on mitigation reducing 58.5 per cent of collisions.

The proponent argues its use of technology to halt turbines when eagles approach could further improve collision reduction to 85 per cent, and the total number of deaths to between 11 and 33.

However, eight eagles have been killed at the neighbouring Cattle Hill Wind Farm in the past four years, despite the use of the same IdentiFlight collision-avoidance technology.

“IdentiFlight represents an unreliable technology,” Victoria Onslow, of the local No Turbines Action Group, told The Australian.

St Patricks Plains project spokeswoman Donna Bolton said “learnings” from Cattle Hill had improved Identi­Flight’s effectiveness, and these would help keep eagle mortalities at her wind farm to “the lower end” of the modelling.

The EPA imposed a $100,000 “offset” to be paid for each eagle fatality, but opponents questioned how many eagles would be found by monitoring, as well as the ­morality of the arrangement.

“The sacrificial slaughter of birds … is an unethical bounty monetising the environment,” Ms Onslow said. “Developers should instead avoid high-density eagle sites.”

It is a view shared by eagle experts, who have repeatedly called for wind farms to be built in lower-density eagle areas.

The EPA said the St Patricks Plains wind farm site had a “very high” presence of wedge-tailed eagles: about 40 birds, and 17 nests across the site or within 1km of its boundary.

It is estimated only 220 Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle breeding pairs remain, and there are fewer than 1000 birds overall.

Experts warn there is insufficient consideration for the cumulative impact of multiple wind farms and fear Tasmania’s “wind rush” poses a “major threat” to the species’ survival.

Ms Onslow said a third wind farm for her area – the 58-turbine Bashan Wind Farm – was only 10km away from the St Patricks Plains site.

Ms Bolton said the St Patricks proponent, also known as Ark Energy, had “worked hard to avoid and minimise potential impacts to eagles”, reducing the number of turbines from an original 67 to 47.

“The latest technology and proactive avoidance have been combined to achieve the least impact possible to eagles and other threatened species while still delivering the new renewable energy generation that Tasmania needs,” Ms Bolton said.

The EPA acknowledged cumulative impacts “may be significant” and a lack of certainty over “the number of mortalities that can be considered acceptable”.

“However, the measures and conditions proposed are considered precautionary and sufficient to minimise eagle deaths to a level unlikely to have a significant impact,” it said.

Collision with electricity infrastructure, poisoning and shooting, as well as habitat loss due to logging and land clearing, are blamed for the decline of wedge-tailed eagles.

Ms Plibersek declined to comment but her department said it was reviewing the EPA assessment report. Ms Plibersek is not bound by the state decision and must make her own decision under federal environmental law.

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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