New paper: ‘Cold Little Ice Age period agrees with timing of Maunder sunspot minimum of low solar activity’
A comparison of the climates of the medieval climate anomaly, little ice age, and current warm period reconstructed using coral records from the northern South China Sea
Authors
Abstract
For the global oceans, the characteristics of high-resolution climate changes during the last millennium remain uncertain because of the limited availability of proxy data. This study reconstructs climate conditions using annually resolved coral records from the South China Sea (SCS) to provide new insights into climate change over the last millennium. The results indicate that the climate of the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA, AD 900–1300) was similar to that of the Current Warm Period (CWP, AD 1850–present), which contradicts previous studies. The similar warmth levels for the MCA and CWP have also been recorded in the Makassar Strait of Indonesia, which suggests that the MCA was not warmer than the CWP in the western Pacific and that this may not have been a globally uniform change. Hydrological conditions were drier/saltier during the MCA and similar to those of the CWP. The drier/saltier MCA and CWP in the western Pacific may be associated with the reduced precipitation caused by variations in the Pacific Walker Circulation. As for the Little Ice Age (LIA, AD 1550–1850), the results from this study, together with previous data from the Makassar Strait, indicate a cold and wet period compared with the CWP and the MCA in the western Pacific. The cold LIA period agrees with the timing of the Maunder sunspot minimum and is therefore associated with low solar activity. The fresher/wetter LIA in the western Pacific may have been caused by the synchronized retreat of both the East Asian Summer Monsoon and the Australian Monsoon. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Britain’s Green Energy Sector Shrinks After Government Subsidy Cuts
…‘Cue Ball’ mode: Number Of Sunspots Dwindling Faster Than Expected, NASA Says
…The Sun-Climate Connection: Over 100 Scientific Papers From 2016 Link Solar Forcing To Climate Change
…Trump Says Plan to End Climate Spending Would Save U.S. $100 Billion over eight years
By Renee Schoof and Dean Scott
Nov. 1 — Donald Trump says he would save $100 billion over eight years by cutting all federal climate change spending—a sum his campaign says would be achieved by eliminating domestic and international climate programs.
“We’re going to put America first. That includes canceling billions in climate change spending for the United Nations, a number Hillary wants to increase, and instead use that money to provide for American infrastructure including clean water, clean air and safety,” the Republican presidential candidate said Oct. 31 at a rally in Warren, Mich. “We’re giving away billions and billions and billions of dollars,” he said.
In a policy statement from his campaign on the same day, “New Deal for Black America,” Trump said he would “cancel all wasteful climate change spending” under the Obama administration and plans by Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, a sum that Trump said would total $100 billion over eight years.
Trump Campaign Explains Number
The Trump campaign did not give a specific tally to account for the $100 billion total in response to a query from Bloomberg BNA.
But in an e-mail, the campaign press office said that the figure combined an estimate of what the Obama administration had spent on climate-related programs, the amount of U.S. contributions to an international climate fund that Trump would cancel, and a calculation of what Trump believes would be savings to the economy if Obama’s and Clinton’s climate policies were reversed.
The Trump campaign said the $100 billion total included $50 billion, or what it estimated the Obama administration has spent on programs related to climate change.
“Eliminating that spending will save similar amounts over the Trump administration,” it said.
Spending Estimate
The e-mail said the estimate was based on a Congressional Research Service report in 2013 that looked at federal climate change funding from fiscal year 2008 to the administration’s budget request for FY 2014.
However, that report did not estimate the administration’s full spending related to climate change over eight years. The nonpartisan research service reported that direct federal spending to address global climate change totaled about $77 billion from FY 2008 through FY 2013, and that 75 percent of that amount was for technology development and deployment, mostly through the Department of Energy.
The report said that the breakdown in the administration’s FY 2014 request of $11.6 billion for these programs was about 68 …
Reality check: In 1908, fossil fuels accounted for 85% of U.S. energy consumption. In 2015, more or less the same
…Analysis: ‘Solar isn’t that green really’
Solar energy isn’t all that ‘Green’ argues energy analyst Keith Bryer. He reports that making photovoltaic (PV) panels – known to the person in the street as solar panels – in particular produces by-products poisonous to a degree that dwarfs the miniscule amount radiated by uranium ore scattered across the Karoo. Wind generators need tons of copper, most dug up from enormous open cast mines that scar the landscape.
24 October 2016 – Leaving aside Eskom’s recent falling out of love with wind and solar power, there’s more to worry about these generators than the cost of running them, and feeding their power into the national grid.
Often whispered but rarely said aloud is the pollution they create – pollution every bit as bad as wild fantasies about nuclear radiation. Their pollution never degrades, ever. Recycling the poison is often an afterthought, if that.
Solar panels aren’t all that green argues energy analyst Keith Bryer. Image Wikipedia
Making photovoltaic (PV) panels in particular produces by-products poisonous to a degree that dwarfs the miniscule amount radiated by uranium ore scattered across the Karoo. Wind generators need tons of copper, most dug up from enormous open cast mines that scar the landscape.
But it is PV panels that create most pollution. Even environmental professors dare to say that every PV module uses at least one rare or precious metal such as silver, tellurium (a by-product of copper mining) or indium (from platinum mines).
Most people, including the Greens, have never heard of the latter two elements, or the vicious acids used like hydrochloric, and the even more frightening hydrofluoric. Greens may shudder at open cast mines but these chemicals are far worse.
PV panels include the use of sodium hydroxide, hydrofluoric acid, water and electricity
Making PV panels takes sodium hydroxide, hydrofluoric acid, water and electricity – so much for climate change, carbon dioxide emissions and removing toxic chemicals from the environment. The sunlight is free but that’s about it. And most PV panels are made in China these days, and China gets most its electricity from coal burning power stations.
The pollution aspects of making PV panels should be no secret. For thirty years sensible environmentalists in Silicon Valley in the US called the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) have monitored the problem. They have urged manufacturers to protect their workers, recycle, stop using toxic stuff, and dumping dangerous chemicals.…
3 New Papers Reveal Dominance Of Solar, Cloud Climate Forcing Since The 1980s … With CO2 Only A Bit Player
According to the IPCC (2007), changes in climate occur as a consequence of variations in the Earth’s radiation budget (solar energy absorbed by versus leaving the surface). Changes in the Earth’s radiation budget occur for 3 primary reasons; two of those three reasons involve solar forcing.
IPCC AR4:
“Global climate is determined by the radiation balance of the planet. There are three fundamental ways the Earth’s radiation balance can change, thereby causing a climate change:
(1) changing the incoming solar radiation (e.g., by changes in the Earth’s orbit or in the Sun itself),
(2) changing the fraction of solar radiation that is reflected (this fraction is called the albedo – it can be changed, for example, by changes in cloud cover, small particles called aerosols or land cover), and
(3) altering the longwave energy radiated back to space (e.g., by changes in greenhouse gas concentrations).”
Reason (3) is, of course, the one that gets nearly all the attention from those who wish to characterize climate changes as primarily influenced by — or caused by — human activity. That’s where the 100 parts per million change in atmospheric CO2 concentration since 1900 comes in. According to the latest IPCC report, the total amount of radiative forcing attributed to changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations since 1750 (through 2011) is just 1.8 W m-2. Again, that’s the total accumulated radiative effect attributed to CO2-forcing of climate changes over the last 260 years.
To put this into context, consider that the total amount of radiative forcing attributed to the +22 parts per million CO2 increase for the 2000-2010 period is claimed to be just 0.2 W m-2 by Feldman and co-authors (2015):
“Here we present observationally based evidence of clear-sky CO2 surface radiative forcing that is directly attributable to the increase, between 2000 and 2010, of 22 parts per million atmospheric CO2. … The time series both show statistically significant trends of 0.2 W m−2 per decade (with respective uncertainties of ±0.06 W m−2 per decade and ±0.07 W m−2 per decade)”
Remember that. CO2 climate-forcing amounts to merely 0.2 W m-2 per decade with a 22 parts per million increase in atmospheric concentration during the first decade of the 21st century, when there was a pause in global warming.…
Despite Green Hype, Coal Still Makes 55 Times More Power Than Solar
Environmentalists are overjoyed on news the world has more solar power capacity than coal capacity, but that obscures the fact that solar still produces far less electricity than coal on a global scale.
A report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) found total global solar power capacity is larger than total coal capacity. The report was quickly seized on by environmentalists to claim solar subsidies have been successful.
There’s just one problem. Most of this global green energy capacity isn’t used due to unreliability.
“For the first time, renewables accounted for more than half of net annual additions to power capacity and overtook coal in terms of cumulative installed capacity in the world,” the IEA report’s executive summary states.
Capacity is how much a power plant can theoretically produce under the best possible conditions, but actual power generation from solar power is 55 times lower than the amount of electricity from coal due to the basic unpredictability of sunlight. Coal provides more than six times as much electricity as solar and wind power combined, because far more coal capacity can be put to use.
Last year, wind and solar power only accounted for 4.7 and 0.6 percent of all electricity generated in America respectively, according to data from the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA). Coal power and natural gas power collectively provide 66 percent of all power generated in the U.S. and nuclear power generates another 20 percent.
Wind power provided substantially more electricity than solar, but it has grown at a slow rate, while solar produced far less electricity, but has grown at a relatively faster rate. Even in the unlikely event that both wind and solar power continue to grow rapidly, they will only provide about 10 percent of U.S. power within a decade. Hydropower and biofuels account for 6 and 1.6 percent of all electricity generated last year, but both are increasingly targeted by the green movement, difficult to rapidly expand and dependent upon regional conditions.
Media claim: ‘Renewables surged past coal…become world’s biggest source of electricity’ – Reality: Coal produced 41% & Renewables 6%
The business news network featured an article in the “Sustainable Energy” section of its Website that proclaimed: “Renewables surged past coal in 2015 to become world’s biggest source of electricity: IEA.”
In reading that headline, one might get the impression that wind turbines and solar panels produced more electricity last year than coal. But the fine print actually reveals a very different picture.
The opening paragraph of the article by “Freelance digital reporter” Anmar Frangoul gives a clue as to the sleight of hand being used. Frangoul cites the International Energy Agency (IEA) as reporting that “Renewable energy moved past coal in 2015 to become the biggest source of global electricity capacity.” The key word there is “capacity.”
What’s noteworthy is that capacity is far different from actual production. The average wind turbine has a maximum rated capacity of roughly 2 megawatts. That means, if the wind is blowing between 26-56 mph, the turbine can spin up to its peak generating capacity. In such moments, the wind turbine can produce its full 2 megawatts.
However, wind turbines, like solar panels, offer only intermittent power generation. Wind turbines can only produce power when there is sufficient wind—and when they are not shut down due to cold weather, repairs, or high winds. And solar panels only produce electricity during periods of direct sunlight. Thus, while a wind turbine can have a maximum capacity of 2 megawatts, its typical output may often be far less, or even 0 megawatts (on a windless day).
Thus we see some of the misleading language in the CNBC article.
Frangoul talks about renewables producing 23 percent of world power generation in 2015—which is only possible when hydropower’s robust 16.4 percent is added to renewables’ paltry 6.3 percent share. And while the IEA says that “renewables represented more than half the new power capacity around the world” in 2015, one has to remember their frustrating intermittency. Wind turbines only generate roughly 20 percent of their installed capacity, and solar panels yield an even more meager 10 percent.
So, while Frangoul is happy to tout all of