Category Archives: AGW

Understanding Colorado Flooding

Posted on September 15, 2013 | Leave a comment

This is a reblog.

Can not improve on this one. Once again the “extreme” weather brigade are ill-informed or purposely deceptive. Your guess.
cbdakota

Real Climate Science

The Poudre River in Fort Collins drains more than 500 square miles of mountains and empties through a narrow canyon.

The Big Thompson River in Loveland drains more than 500 square miles of mountains and empties through a narrow canyon.

The St. Vrain River, Lefthand Creek and Boulder Creek drain more than 500 square miles of mountains and empty through narrow canyons.

Upslope winds force humid air from the plains up into the mountains. The air expands, cools and drops below its dew point. Rain falls and floods occur.

In 1976, the Big Thompson drainage received 14 inches of rain in four hours and produced one of America’s most deadly floods. This week’s rains have been nowhere near that intense.

In 1997, Spring Creek in Fort Collins received 10 inches of rain in four hours, and produced a flood with killed five people. Again, that rainfall was much more intense than this…

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Posted in AGW, Climate Alarmism, Climate Models, Storms/hurricanes, Tornados

Forecasting Solar Cycle 25 Using The Solar Polar Field Strength

Posted on September 13, 2013 | 4 comments

Forecasting the strength of Solar Cycle 25 will not be easy. The expert’s track record for their Cycle 24 predictions show how hard it is. For example, Doctor David Hathaway is quoted in December 2006 that cycle 24 would “be one of the most intense since record keeping began 400 years ago.” He forecast 160+/- 25 as the peak Smoothed International Sunspot Number (SISN). His prediction as charted in 2006 below:

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Posted in AGW, CO2, Global Temperatures, IPCC, Solar Cycle 24, Solar Cycle 25, Sun, sun and climate, Sunspots

Solar Cycle 24— August 2013 Update

Posted on September 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

Solar Cycle 24’s Sunspot number bounced up a little as did the F10.7cm radio flux. However, Cycle 24 is still on track to be the least active Cycle since the first part of the last century. The Sun’s North pole appears to have firmly switched its polarity but the South Pole may be months away from switching its polarity. A cycle’s “maximum” is usually called when both poles have done the swap.

The August Sunspot and the F10.7cm radio flux are shown below (Click on Charts to enhance view):

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Posted in AGW, Global Temperatures, Solar Activity, Solar Cycle 24, Solar Flux, Sun, Sunspots

Fuel Cell Vehicles–Hydrogen Too Costly

Posted on September 9, 2013 | Leave a comment

A previous posting, “Fuel Cell Vehicles”, reviewed the basics of the fuel cell and the fuel cell vehicles. At the end of that posting, it was said that: “There are a lot of things going for H2 powered fuel cell vehicles except the economics.”

What does that mean? There are two factors that make H2 non-competitive versus other alternatives. Factor one is that hydrogen (H2) is very costly to produce, and distribute. The second are the physical characteristics of H2 that increase the cost of distribution and use.

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Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, Domestic Energy, Electric Vehicles, fuel cells, Personal Automobiles, US Auto Manufacturers, US Manufacturing Companies

Bloom Box Surcharge Increases 570%, Stunning Delaware Utility Customers

Posted on August 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

In 2012 the Governor of the State of Delaware, Jack Markel, entered into a long-term contract with Bloom Energy. The contract obligated Bloom to begin manufacturing their “Bloom Boxes” in the closed Chrysler Assembly plant. Delaware was obligated to subsidize Bloom to the tune of the difference of the cost of the electricity produced by Bloom Boxes and the cost of open market electricity. That subsidy rose from $0.67 in October 2012 to $3.83 for September 2013, a 570% increase, where it increases each ratepayers month’s bill. Delaware has mandated a requirement to buy renewable energy produced electricity that grows to 25% of the total energy used in the State by 2025. The open market electricity price has been dropping due to the increased availability of natural gas from fracking operations around the Nation. The natural gas is becoming the major source of energy for producing electricity. Natural gas is not considered a “renewable” form of energy. But the State passed an exception to their renewable energy law that allows Bloom Box energy to be called “renewable” even though these boxes use natural gas as their energy source. The irony here is that the electricity produced using natural gas the standard way, the electricity is much less expensive than electricity produced by Bloom Boxes. But remember, the State has a law that demands the use of “renewable” energy produced electricity.

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Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, Batteries, Climate Alarmism, Domestic Energy, Electric Vehicles, Electricity, fossil fuels, fuel cells, Renewable Energy, solar cells, US Manufacturing Companies

There Is A Difference Between “Warm” And “Warming”

Posted on August 20, 2013 | Leave a comment

The National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its State of the Climate in 2012: Highlights on August 2. The report says:

Many of the events that made 2012 such an interesting year are part of the long-term trends we see in a changing and varying climate—carbon levels are climbing, sea levels are rising, Arctic sea ice is melting, and our planet as a whole is becoming a warmer place,” said acting NOAA Administrator Kathryn D. Sullivan, Ph.D.

The report itemizes those things from which they have developed the theme that the planet is becoming a warmer place. The first on the list was this one:

Warm temperature trends continue near Earth’s surface: Four major independent datasets show 2012 was among the 10 warmest years on record, ranking either 8th or 9th, depending upon the dataset used. The United States and Argentina had their warmest year on record.

Now you are forgiven if you interpret that item as saying that the Earth is getting warmer, and indeed most of the media jumped to that conclusion. But what are the facts? Look at the HadCrut* temperature chart for the period from 1998 to 2012 that NOAA made this claim:

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Posted in AGW, Climate Alarmism, Climate Models, CO2, CRU Temps, Global Temperatures, Media Bias, Sea Ice, Sea Level

US Congress–Take Back Your Constitutional Rights From President Obama

Posted on August 20, 2013 | 1 comment

The President’s Organizing for Action (OFA) committee has been embarrassed by lack of interest by libs, greens and NGOs in the OFA’s “Action August” events. In early August, the OFA had a Virginia kick off meeting touting Obamacare and only one person showed up and at last week’s DC kick off meeting supporting the Obama climate change agenda, no one showed up.

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Posted in AGW, cap and trade, carbon tax, Coal, Domestic Energy, Electricity from Coal, EPA, Government Regulations

Is Greenpeace Behind Destruction Of Field Trials Of Golden Rice?

Posted on August 18, 2013 | 2 comments

Philippines’ environmental groups destroyed a “Golden Rice” development test plot. Golden Rice is genetically modified rice that is being developed to combat vitamin A deficiency in the developing world. The Hellen Keller International organization says the around 670,000 children world-wide will die each year from vitamin A deficiency and about 350,000 will go blind from the lack of vitamin A. It is reported that one cup of Golden Rice will supply half an adult’s recommended daily intake. The International Rice Research Institute reports that: “The rice has been modified by adding extra genes that turn on the plant’s ability to produce beta-carotene, which humans can convert into vitamin A.”

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Posted in AGW, Climate Alarmism, crop yields, Environment, fossil fuels, NGO's eg Greenpeace/WWF, NGOs greenpeace, Nuclear Energy, Windpower

Svensmark Theory—Cosmic Rays Contribute To Lower Global Temperatures

Posted on August 8, 2013 | Leave a comment

The previous posting closed with: Low Sunspot numbers and low F 10.7 indicate low solar activity. How this activity translates to cooler weather is not clear. The correlation between low activity and cooler weather has been know for several hundred year (or perhaps longer— recently read that the Chinese recorded Sunspot numbers many century’s ago and reported this correlation.)

One possible explanation is the Svensmark theory. This theory begins with high energy galactic cosmic rays (GCR) entering the Earth’s atmosphere where they collide with atmospheric molecules of oxygen. The collisions shatter the molecules and the resulting particles become nuclei for cloud droplets from which clouds are formed. Clouds reflect a significant amount of the Sun’s radiation back into space. The weaker the Sun’s magnetic field (low solar activity), the more GCR enter the atmosphere. The more clouds, the more cooling. This is opposed to the situation where the Sun’s activity is high, fewer GCR result in fewer clouds.

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Posted in AGW, Ap index, CO2, fossil fuels, Global Temperatures, IPCC, Solar Cycle 24, Solar Cycle 25, Solar Flux, Sun, sun and climate, Sunspots

Solar Cycle 24 July Update

Posted on August 7, 2013 | 1 comment

NASA predicts a solar magnetic field reversal in about 3 to 4 months. When that happens, Solar Cycle 24 will have reached what is known as the cycle maximum. After that the Sunspot numbers will decrease with time. There is a possibility that a short period of none at all will happen before Cycle 25 kicks in. NASA has produced a video that discusses the mechanism and the implications of the solar magnetic field reversal. The video can be viewed by clicking here.

The July charts for Sunspots and F10.7 cm Radio flux are shown below.