These items caught my eye – 29 August 2013

It becomes harder, with each passing week, to find new stuff for these updates. The Global Warming/Climate Change bandwagon seems to roll inexorably on, despite the mounting evidence of its utter stupidity. The tone of the debate becomes ever more frantic from the alarmists as they see their faith undermined by Nature on one hand and an increasing number of sceptical scientists putting their heads above the parapet on the other. Still, there are a few snippets that point out the hypocrisy inherent in the warmists’ position. I’ve collected a few from the past week or so. Please remember to read the comments, as the information (and the links) contained in them often put the main article into context..
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Coming soon … Busy bees in the hive: IPCC’s AR5 (the movie)

In a somewhat remarkable departure from the longstanding IPCC tradition of delaying by several months the release of the “reports” underlying its Summaries for Policymakers (and the very carefully prepared Press Releases on the line-by-line Approval of the latter), it seems that when the IPCC gathers for the “very intensive” process of “approving” the Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) of Working Group I’s contribution to the IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report, the powers that be have decreed that the “approved” SPM and the underlying (subject to final editing) Report will be released almost simultaneously) [h/t Marcel Crok] – although it is not yet clear when the earlier drafts, Expert Reviewer Comments, author responses thereto and Review Editors’ findings will be released.

This giant leap forward in “transparency” is a decision that appears to have been made by the Executive Committee of the IPCC, back in February: . . . Click here to read the full article
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Wind Farms Produce Enough For A Few Cups Of Tea.

From the Sunday Telegraph:-

Data released by one of the largest green energy companies shows wind farms producing enough electricity only to boil two to three kettles at a time.

At one stage last week, three big wind farms even took electricity out of the National Grid – to run basic power supplies on site – rather than actually supplying electricity to households.

The wind farms’ owner said that in still conditions electricity “import” can occur for a few hours until the wind picks up. Such a phenomenon is known in the industry as “parasitic consumption”.

The data reveals just how much electricity is being generated by each wind farm at a given moment. . . . Click here to read the full article
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Lomborg On Cook 97% Survey: “It Turns Out They Have Done Pretty Much Everything Wrong”

Bjorn Lomborg comments at Facebook on the Cook 97% survey. Has climate science gotten so bad that it is now resorting to utterly phony claims? Cook confirms that indeed it has.

Here’s what Lomborg writes (my emphasis, links shortened): . . .Click here to read the full article
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Let’s copy Germany: 23,000 wind towers make 7% of its electricity to stop 0 degrees of warming

Steve Goreham describes how one of the leading Green economies works: Germany has 23,000 wind turbines, half as many as the United States but packed into one 27th of the area. Average turbines are producing 17% of their stated capacity. All up, they make 7 percent of the nation’s electricity but consume 2 percent of the nation’s energy.

Crikey! There would be a PhD thesis in making sense of those numbers, because most of that consumption is in the construction phase and depends on assumptions about how long those towers will work. I’d like to see a lifetime calculation of a Joules in and Joules out.

Here’s a part I can’t quite wrap my head around: total renewables share of energy consumption (so that includes oil, gas, coal, wood and the like) apparently rose from 4 percent in 2000 to 12 percent in 2012. I can see a most unfortunate meeting of two lines on a graph here . . .Click here to read the full article
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Taking the Moral High Ground on Fossil Fuels

“The ideal source of energy is not some ‘sustainable’—i.e., endlessly repeatable—form, but the best, cheapest, ever-improving form human ingenuity can devise. . . . An oil industry is ideal in the same way the iPhone is an ideal for so many. It may not be the best forever, but it is the best for now and we should be grateful to have it.”

Yesterday, I discussed the idea that fossil fuels actually improve the planet for human life. This idea has major implications for how the fossil fuel industry represents itself to the public.

Because of the narrative that fossil fuels harm the planet, the industry has tended to fight for its existence defensively, with the argument that it is a necessary evil, to be tolerated because of the jobs it creates, or because of other economic benefits. . . .Click here to read the full article
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A Sensitive Issue and Why Advocacy is not a Moral Imperative

So, the climate debate rushes swiftly on, not so meandering now, not gently spreading out and forming nice ox-bow lakes of comfortably ‘settled science’, but gushing anew, foaming and bubbling as ‘radical’ viewpoints begin to be expressed in the mainstream media and observations of ‘non-warming’ start piling up like so much drifting snow against the front entrance of the warmists’ enclave.

I would say that this paper by Otto et al in Nature Geoscience caused the first really major geological upheaval and set the waters rushing downhill once more. It is authored principally by IPCC scientists and is peer-reviewed (a must it seems, on any papers having to do with climate science, though noticeably not so in many other scientific research fields). I quote:

“The authors include fourteen climate scientists, well known in their fields, who are lead or coordinating lead authors of IPCC AR5 WG1 chapters that are relevant to estimating climate sensitivity. Two of them, professors Myles Allen and Gabi Hegerl, are lead authors for Chapter 10, which deals with estimates of ECS and TCR constrained by observational evidence. The study was principally carried out by a researcher, Alex Otto, who works in Myles Allen’s group.” . . .Click here to read the full article

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Nature Editorial – All change but no change (because the heat is hidden)

A very peculiar Nature Editorial.

First they confirm that there has been a hiatus in global temperature.Then they report on recent papers trying to invoke ocean cycles and their impact on global temperatures. This is followed by a claim that this does not explain the “missing heat” but fail to say that there may be no “missing heat” at all if global warming has slowed-down or ceased. By assuming that there must be “missing heat” they then claim that the underlying science has not changed. The key point of course is that if ocean cycles can cause global cooling they can also cause global warming. Natural processes can then well explain all the temperature observations of the last 150 years. Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere and the 5% of global emission that is man-made emissions of carbon dioxide become irrelevant and unnecessary to the explanations for changes to climate. . . .Click here to read the full article
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solar power’s environmental nightmare …

Not just a blight on the landscape, but the materials used create their own environmental hazards. It could easily have been gas power, using much less land and materials, like the one we have in Broome. An idyll blighted by 18,000 solar panels: Seen from the sky, the reality of alternative energy

Row after row, this astonishing array of solar panels has completely engulfed an enormous 30-acre field in the heart of the countryside.

As this aerial photograph reveals, acres of beautiful Hampshire countryside have been blighted as a result, by 18,000 solar panels. The solar farm covers a staggering 30 acres of land creating a massive eyesore in the centre of an otherwise picturesque view. . . .Click here to read the full article
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The learning curve and Scientific theories

I just posted a response to Latimer Alder on Bishop Hill:

Me: ‘The prevailing methodology in science is to create a model that fits the data. As such, scientists tend to assume all “science like” problems should all be tackled by creating a model and using that to predict what will happen.’

Latimer Alder: Wow. We used to do experiments instead. And test any models against them. Do they just leave out this essential step nowadays?

When I realised that my reply was based on a statistical evolutionary concept of theory building whereas I suspect Latimer’s question was based on the idea that there is only one theory which people uncover by enquiry much as an archaeologist uncovers a ruin by trial and error digging – I thought I’d follow this line of thought further and wrote this. . .Click here to read the full article
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Retreating Glacier In Patagonia Uncovers 400 Year Old Forest

Yesterday we looked at the Exit Glacier in Alaska, where the retreating ice had uncovered remains of a medieval forest. Today we will have a look at the Glaciar Jorge Montt in Patagonia, where forest remains have also been uncovered, these dated to about 460 years ago.

Little Ice Age Advance and Retreat of Glaciar Jorge Montt, Chilean Patagonia. . . .Click here to read the full article
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