COSMIC RAYS ON THE RISE AS SOLAR MINIMUM APPROACHES
By Meteorologist Paul Dorian – Vencore, Inc.
vencoreweather.com
The sun is spotless again today which makes 6 days in a row and marks the 36th day this year – already more than all of 2016
Overview
Today marks the 6th day in a row that the sun is blank and the 36th time this year – already more spotless days than all of 2016. In what has turned out to be a historically weak solar cycle (#24), the sun continues to transition away from its solar maximum phase and towards the next solar minimum. In April 2010, the sun was emerging from the last solar minimum which was historically long and deep. The blank look to the sun will increase in frequency over the next couple of years leading up to the next solar minimum – probably to be reached in late 2019 or 2020. By one measure, the current solar cycle is the third weakest since record keeping began in 1755 and it continues a weakening trend since solar cycle 21 peaked in 1980. One of the impacts of low solar activity is the increase of cosmic rays that can penetrate into the Earth’s upper atmosphere and this can have many important consequences.
Comparison of all solar cycles since 1755 in terms of accumulated sunspot number anomalies from the mean value at this stage of the solar cycle. Plot courtesy publication cited below, authors Frank Bosse and Fritz Vahrenholt
Third weakest solar cycle since 1755
A recent publication has analyzed the current solar cycle and has found that when sunspot anomalies are compared to the mean for the number of months after cycle start, there have been only two weaker cycles since observations began in 1755. Solar cycle 24 began in 2008 after a historically long and deep solar minimum which puts us more than eight years into the current cycle. The plot (above) shows accumulated sunspot anomalies from the mean value after cycle start (97 months ago) and only solar cycles 5 and 6 had lower levels going all the way back to 1755. The mean value is noted at zero and solar cycle 24 is running 3817 spots less than the mean. The seven cycles preceded by solar cycle 24 had more sunspots than the mean.
Daily observations of the number of sunspots since 1 January 1900 according to Solar Influences Data Analysis Center (SIDC). The thin
More solar jobs is a curse, not a blessing – ‘Underscores how wasteful, inefficient & unproductive solar power is’
Citing U.S. Department of Energy data, the New York Times recently reported that the solar industry employs far more Americans than wind or coal: 374,000 in solar versus 100,000 in wind and 160,000 in coal mining and coal-fired power generation. Only the natural gas sector employs more people: 398,000 workers in gas production, electricity generation, home heating and petrochemicals.
This is supposed to be a good thing, according to the Times. It shows how important solar power has become in taking people out of unemployment lines and giving them productive jobs, the paper suggests.
Indeed, the article notes, California had the highest rate of solar power jobs per capita in 2016, thanks to its “robust renewable energy standards and installation incentives” (ie, mandates and subsidies).
In reality, it’s not a good thing at all, and certainly not a positive trend. In fact, as Climate Depot and the Washington Examiner point out – citing an American Enterprise Institute study – the job numbers actually underscore how wasteful, inefficient and unproductive solar power actually is.
That is glaringly obvious when you look at the amounts of energy produced per sector. (This tally does not include electricity generated by nuclear, hydroelectric and geothermal power plants.)
* 398,000 natural gas workers = 33.8% of all electricity generated in the United States in 2016
* 160,000 coal employees = 30.4 % of total electricity
* 100,000 wind employees = 5.6% of total electricity
* 374,000 solar workers = 0.9% of total electricity
It’s even more glaring when you look at the amount of electricity generated per worker. Coal generated an incredible 7,745 megawatt-hours of electricity per worker; natural gas 3,812 MWH per worker; wind a measly 836 MWH for every employee; and solar an abysmal 98 MWH per worker.
In other words, producing the same amount of electricity requires one coal worker, two natural gas workers – 12 wind industry employees or 79 solar workers.
Even worse, whereas coal and gas electricity is cheap, affordable, and available virtually 100% of the time – wind and solar are expensive, intermittent, unreliable, and available only 15-30% of the time, on an annual basis. Wind and solar electricity is there when it’s there, not necessarily when you need it.
In truth, about the only thing solar and wind companies do well is collect billions of dollars in subsidies from taxpayers and billions of dollars
Europe’s Biggest Solar Company Goes Up In Smoke
Germany’s SolarWorld, once Europe’s biggest solar power equipment group, said on Wednesday it would file for insolvency, overwhelmed by Chinese rivals who had long been a thorn in the side of founder and CEO Frank Asbeck, once known as “the Sun King”. A renewed wave of cheap Chinese exports, caused by reduced ambitions in China to expand solar power generation, was too much to bear for the group, which made its last net profit in 2014. —Reuters, 11 May 2017
The company once hailed as Europe’s largest solar panel producer filed for bankruptcy Wednesday, blaming cheap Chinese panels for flooding the market. SolarWorld is only the latest bankrupt solar company to blame the Chinese. U.S.-based Suniva Inc. filed for bankruptcy in April, also citing stiff competition from Chinese solar panel makers. The solar industry’s biggest problem is likely the very mechanism that led to its rise: lucrative subsidies. European subsidies, mostly in Germany, led to a massive expansion of the companies green energy industry, but eventually subsidies became their undoing as cheaper solar panels from China began to win out. –Michael Bastasch, The Daily Caller, 11 May 2017
More than 100 coal power plants are in various stages of planning or development in 11 African countries outside of South Africa — more than eight times the region’s existing coal capacity. Africa’s embrace of coal is in part the result of its acute shortage of power. –Jonathan W. Rosen, National Geographic, 10 May 2017
1) Europe’s Biggest Solar Company Goes Up In Smoke
Reuters, 11 May 2017
2) Largest US Solar Panel Maker Files For Bankruptcy After Receiving $206 Million In Subsidies
The Daily Caller, 11 May 2017
3) African Nations To Build More Than 100 New Coal Power Plants
National Geographic, 10 May 2017
4) Why India And Pakistan Are Renewing Their Love Affair With Coal
MIT Technology Review, 3 May 2017
5) Al Gore Personally Pleads With Trump to Stay in the Paris Climate Agreement
Daily Caller, 10 May 2017
6) ‘Apple Of Oil’ Says New Permian Shale Wells ‘Shattered’ Records
Investor’s Business Daily, 8 May 2017
7) Matt Ridley: Wind Turbines Are Neither Clean Nor Green
The Spectator, 11 May 2017 …
King Coal: ‘It takes 79 solar workers to produce same amount of electric power as one coal worker’
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Inconvenient energy fact: It takes 79 solar workers to produce same amount of electric power as one coal worker
In an April 25 New York Times article (“Today’s Energy Jobs Are in Solar, Not Coal“) reporter Nadja Popovich wrote that “Last year, the solar industry employed many more Americans [373,807] than coal [160,119], while wind power topped 100,000 jobs.” Those energy employment figures are based on a Department of Energy report (“U.S. Energy and Employment Report“) released earlier this year that provides the most complete analysis available of employment in the energy economy.
But simply reporting rather enthusiastically (see the NYT headline again) that the solar industry employs lots of Americans, more than twice as many as the number of coal miners and utility workers at electric power plants using coal, is only telling a small part of the story. Here are some important energy facts that help provide a more complete picture about how much energy is being produced in different sectors, how many workers it takes to produce a given amount of electric power, and which sectors receive the most generous taxpayer handouts.
To start, despite a huge workforce of almost 400,000 solar workers (about 20 percent of electric power payrolls in 2016), that sector produced an insignificant share, less than 1 percent, of the electric power generated in the United States last year (EIA data here). And that’s a lot of solar workers: about the same as the combined number of employees working at Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Apple, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Pfizer, Ford Motor Company and Procter & Gamble.
In contrast, it took about the same number of natural gas workers (398,235) last year to produce more than one-third of U.S. electric power, or 37 times more electricity than solar’s minuscule share of 0.90 percent. And with only 160,000 coal workers (less than half the number of workers in either solar or gas),
Analysis: The Sun, Not People, Causes Global Warming
From the Chronicle ( link ) ( It’s the Sun, Stupid .) Source: It’s the Sun, Stupid! The Sun, Not People, Causes Global Warming Apr 13, 2017 The sun is one astronomic unit, or about 93 million miles from Earth. The sun is surrounded by the heliosphere comprised of material expelled from the sun with magnetic qualities, and with charged particles.
Every green initiative has been a disaster says Christopher Booker
Nine years ago, MPs voted almost unanimously for then Labour minister Ed Miliband’s Climate Change Act, thus making Britain the only country in the world committed by law to cut its ‘carbon emissions’ by 80 per cent in just 40 years.
Not one of those politicians bothered to wonder how in practice such an absurdly ambitious target could be met: which is why we have since seen successive governments thrashing about trying to adopt one dotty ‘green’ scheme after another.
Last week, I was asked in conversation: ‘Why is it that almost all these green schemes seem to end up as a fiasco?’ To which I replied: ‘You’ve only got one word wrong there. You can leave out the word “almost”.’
The truth is that every single green scheme the politicians have fallen for has proved to be a total fiasco: failing to achieve any of the results claimed for them and costing us more billions with every year that passes.
Consider the scandal of Drax in Yorkshire, until recently the largest, cleanest, most efficient coal-fired power station in Europe.
Now, thanks to an annual half-a-billion pounds of public subsidy, Drax has been switching from burning coal to millions of tons a year of wood pellets.…
Scientists Reveal How Man-Made Global Warming Is Created Via Data Manipulation, Dismissing The Sun
Fake Warming + A Neglected Sun = Man-Made Climate Change In late 2015, Soon, Connolly, and Connolly (hereafter SCC15) published a comprehensive (101 pages) analysis of how the modern anthropogenic global warming (AGW) paradigm has been constructed.
Source: Scientists Reveal How Man-Made Global Warming Is Created Via Data Manipulation, Dismissing The Sun…
DHS Sec.: Border Wall May Have SOLAR PANELS
Gen. Jack Kelly, the secretary of homeland security, told Congress on Wednesday there’s “no way” he can estimate how much President Trump’s long-promised border wall will cost.
“I mean, I don’t know what it will be made of; I don’t know how high it will be; I don’t know if it’s going to have solar panels on the side, what one side’s going to look like and how it’s going to be painted — I have no idea. So I can’t give you any type of an estimate.
“I will say this, that it’s unlikely that we will build a wall, or a physical barrier, from sea to shining sea, but it is very likely — I’m committed to putting it where the men and women (Border Patrol) say we should put it.”…
Study: ‘Weaker Sun Could Reduce Global Temperatures By Half A Degree’
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 For the first time, model calculations show a plausible way that fluctuations in solar activity could have a tangible impact on the climate. Studies funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation expect human-induced global warming to tail off slightly over the next few decades. A weaker sun could reduce temperatures by half a degree. —Swiss National Science Foundation, 27 March 2017 1) Swiss National Science Foundation: ‘Weaker Sun Could Reduce Global Temperatures By Half A Degree’ 2) Red Teams Can Save Climate Science From Itself 3) Experts Call For The Creation Of ‘Red Teams’ To Challenge UN Climate Science Panel 4) U.S. House Of Representatives Approves Honest And Open Science Act 5) US Coal Production On The Rise As Gas Prices Go Up 6) China’s Coal Power Generation Rising For Second Year: Citi 7) Surprise: Thousands Of Polluters In Northern China Fake Emissions Data, Resist Checks 8) South Africa Gives Green Light For Shale Gas Fracking In The Karoo 9) Editorial: Lessons From Trump On Coal Prominent scientists operating outside the scientific consensus on climate change urged Congress on Wednesday to fund “red teams” to investigate “natural” causes of global warming and challenge the findings of the United Nations’ climate science panel. The suggestion for a counter-investigative science force – or red team approach – was presented in prepared testimony by scientists known for questioning the influence of human activity on global warming. It comes at a time when President Donald Trump and other members of the administration have expressed doubt about the accepted science of climate change, and are considering drastic cuts to federal funding for scientific research. –Chelsea Harvey, The Washington Post, 31 March 2017 The U.S House of Representatives today approved H.R. 1430, the Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act of 2017 (HONEST Act), introduced by Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas). |
In New Study Leading Warmist Scientists Determine Sun Plays Major Role – Projects Warming Delayed by Decades
Climate scientists at Switzerland’s renowned ETH Zurich and the University of Bern have long warned of the risks of man-made global warming.
But in a brand new study their results now appear to have compelled them to postpone the expected global warming – by a few decades!
They now claim that a weaker sun (now expected over the coming decades) could reduce temperatures by half a degree Celsius.
Moreover the scientists clearly concede that the earth’s climate system is nowhere near as well understood as some scientists would like to have us believe and that the sun indeed plays a major role after all – enough so to override and postpone the effects of the often hyped greenhouse gases.
This will be hugely disappointing news for the catastrophe-hopers and cheerleaders, who hold front row tickets to the announced climate catastrophe, which according to some should be happening already.
The Swiss scientists say that sun’s impact on climate change has now been quantified “for first time” (see postscript below).
The Swiss scientists say that their model calculations show a plausible way that fluctuations in solar activity could have a tangible impact on the climate. The Swiss National Science Foundation-funded studies now expect human-induced global warming to tail off slightly over the next few decades. A weaker sun could reduce temperatures by half a degree.
The sun a factor after all
There is human-induced climate change, and there are natural climate fluctuations, the scientists acknowledge, and say one important factor in the unchanging rise and fall of the Earth’s temperature and its different cycles is the sun. As its activity varies, so does the intensity of the sunlight that reaches the earth’s surface. Previously IPCC reports assumed that recent solar activity was insignificant for climate change, and that the same would apply to activity in the near future.
“Significant effect”
However, researchers from the Physical Meteorological Observatory Davos (PMOD), the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG), ETH Zurich and the University of Bern are now qualifying this assumption. Their elaborate model calculations now provide a robust estimate of the contribution that the sun is expected to make to temperature change in the next 100 years and a significant effect is apparent.
They expect the Earth’s temperature to fall by half a degree when solar activity reaches its next minimum.
Project head Werner