Climate Breakdown On Yorks Wolds
By Paul Homewood
Evidence of climate breakdown in the Yorkshire Wolds!
BTW – Why are Downs called Downs, and not Ups?
And yes, I did cycle up that 16% hill, and nearly killed myself!!
Back To The Past With Greta
By Paul Homewood
Tony Heller hits the nail on the head as usual:
https://realclimatescience.com/2019/08/new-video-gretas-dire-straits/
And where exactly did those bananas come from? Downtown Stockholm?
Justice Has Been Served–Mann Loses
Gone Cycling!
By Paul Homewood
I’m away cycling for a couple of days, so apologies is moderation is slow!
By Paul Homewood
When you’re in a hole, stop digging!
I was not going to comment about Harry’s latest private jet jaunt to Nice, just days after flying to Ibiza. Unfortunately for him, Elton John has put his size twelves in, and made matters worse for the Prince!
Sir Elton John by his own admission counted Princess Diana as “one of my dearest friends” and famously and movingly sang at her funeral.
On Monday, the rock star leapt to the defence of her youngest son, in an attempt to shield the Duke of Sussex and his wife from “relentless and untrue assassinations” amid allegations of hypocrisy over private jet flights taken by the couple.
In putting a metaphorical arm around the Duke and Duchess, Sir Elton disclosed that he had paid for Prince Harry and his wife to fly on a private jet to his home in the south of France. He said Prince Harry, his wife and their son Archie needed the “safety and tranquillity” offered by his palatial villa on the French Riviera.
Sir Elton insisted he and his husband David Furnish had made “an appropriate contribution” to a company that specialises in offsetting carbon emissions. The flights, said Sir Elton, were as a consequence carbon neutral.
The Duke and Duchess were photographed with their three-month-old son arriving in Nice in the south of France on a £15 million Cessna 680 Citation Sovereign jet on Wednesday. They left France three days later on Saturday afternoon.
It was, according to reports, their fourth private jet flight in 11 days – they had previously flown to and from Ibiza to celebrate the duchess’s 38th birthday – prompting cries of hypocrisy. The couple have campaigned on green issues and earlier this month the prince said he and his wife would have “two children, maximum” as part of their contribution to saving the environment
In a series of emotional postings on Twitter, Sir Elton said on Monday: “I am deeply distressed by today’s distorted and malicious account in the press surrounding the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s private stay at my home in Nice last week.
“Prince Harry’s Mother, Diana Princess Of Wales was one of my dearest friends. I feel a profound sense of obligation to protect Harry and his family from the unnecessary press intrusion that contributed to Diana’s untimely death.”
The singer, who loaned the couple the use of his home on the French Riviera, went on: “After a hectic year continuing their hard work and dedication to charity, David and I wanted the young family to have a private holiday inside the safety and tranquillity of our home. To maintain a high level of much-needed protection, we provided them with a private jet flight.
“To support Prince Harry’s commitment to the environment, we ensured their flight was carbon neutral, by making the appropriate contribution to Carbon Footprint™.”
The idea that it is OK to fly around the world because Elton John has paid a carbon penance fee, estimated by the Mail at around £120, is not only crass, it is grossly insulting to us mere mortals, who don’t have such money to throw around.
Climate change ‘could expose more ancient monuments and ruins’
By Paul Homewood
Today’s silly story comes from the BBC (where else?)
More ancient monuments and historic ruins will be uncovered as extreme weather caused by climate change gets more frequent, an expert has said.
The remains of a shipwreck off the Abergele coast dating back 150 years was revealed by July’s thunderstorms.
A prehistoric forest and 200 archaeological sites were also unearthed following extreme weather.
Archaeologist Dr Paul Belford said "you’ll see more and more of this" as the world warms up.
Experts have "tentatively identified" the recently-uncovered Abergele wreck as the 35-tonne wooden sloop Endeavour that sunk without trace in gales in October 1854.
The remains of the 45ft long vessel was found at Pensarn beach in Conwy county by a member of the public.
"The stormy weather created giant waves which moved the sand banks and exposed the boat," said Dr Belford, chief executive of the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust.
"You’ll see more and more wrecks and ancient monuments uncovered as extreme weather events become more frequent due to the impact of climate change.
"Like the recent shipwreck find, these discoveries can help us answer the questions of our history.
"Hopefully research will also help us learn lessons from the past and aid the fight against climate change."
The north Wales shipwreck lies in the area known as Abergele Roads, a large area of shoals, near a tidal pond, which is only visible after storms and during low tides.
It comes after a forest buried under water and sand for more than 4,500 years was uncovered between Ynyslas and Borth in Ceredigion by Storm Hannah in May.
The remains of the trees, preserved in the local peat, were exposed by low tides and high winds.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-49413435
They obviously don’t appreciate the irony of discovering a ship that sank in “extreme weather” in 1854!
And as sea levels are supposedly rising so fast, such wrecks should be unlikely to be found in future.
But what about extreme weather becoming more frequent? The claim comes from an archaeologist, who we can safely assume knows bugger all about the climate.
Proper meteorologists would have told him that the opposite is true. As the world warms, the differential between polar cold and tropical heat should reduce (as the poles warm faster), thus reducing the intensity of storms in the Temperate Zone.
Maybe our archaeologist friend should have read HH Lamb!
HH Lamb: Climate, History and the Modern World
National Grid’s Preliminary Report On Blackout
By Paul Homewood
The National Grid has just published its preliminary report into last week’s blackout:
Key points:
- Lightning was the original cause, even though such strikes are perfectly common, and do not usually result in such catastrophic blackouts
- Hornsea wind farm tripped first, contrary to original reports.
- They still don’t seem to know exactly why either Hornsea or Little Barford tripped, though it was obviously due to the lightning.
- Along with the loss of 500MW of small embedded generation (wind and solar), the total loss was about 1878MW
- National Grid has 1000MW of automatic back up power available, incl 472MW of battery storage. Clearly this was not enough.
- Following the lightning strike, the grid’s protection systems worked properly
Certain aspects don’t seem to have been highlighted:
- When Hornsea wind farm is fully operational in the next year or so, it will have capacity of 1200MW. In addition, Hornsea Project 2, due on line in 2024, will have an additional 1386MW capacity. It is not clear whether it will share the same transmission lines, but to have so much capacity at risk of tripping off is clearly far too big a risk.
- The importance of inertia, provided by heavy rotating turbines, is not discussed. If more gas and coal power had been running at the time, would the blackouts have occurred. Just as importantly, what will happen in a few years time, when gas is no longer part of the normal baseload and is simply turned on when the wind is not blowing?
- While the National Grid claim that their backup power worked properly, such measures are only useful for a short period of time, maybe an hour. The report does not mention that gas power very quickly made up the shortfall, within about half an hour.
Funeral For An Icelandic Glacier
By Paul Homewood
One of the sillier climate stories doing the rounds this week is the “funeral of an Icelandic glacier”.
It is remarkable how widely it has been reported, testament to a highly organised effort to publicise it throughout the world, complete with silly “Climate Emergency” placards:
Mourners have gathered in Iceland to commemorate the loss of Okjokull, which has died at the age of about 700.
The glacier was officially declared dead in 2014 when it was no longer thick enough to move.
What once was glacier has been reduced to a small patch of ice atop a volcano.
Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, Environment Minister Gudmundur Ingi Gudbrandsson and former Irish President Mary Robinson attended the ceremony.
After opening remarks by Ms Jakobsdottir, mourners walked up the volcano northeast of the capital Reykjavik to lay a plaque which carries a letter to the future.
"Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as glacier," it reads.
"In the next 200 years all our main glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done.
"Only you know if we did it."
The dedication, written by Icelandic author Andri Snaer Magnason, ends with the date of the ceremony and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air globally – 415 parts per million (ppm).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49345912
If they had bothered to check with proper glaciologists, they would have known that Icelandic glaciers expended massively during the Little Ice Age, reaching their Holocene maxima then.
Monsoon rebound prepares ground for bumper harvest
By Paul Homewood
As I reported last week, India’s monsoon is on track. As a result, they are now expecting a bumper crop:
NEW DELHI: The rebound in monsoon rainfall has created ideal conditions for agriculture for the rest of the year with accelerated planting and much more water in reservoirs, which officials said would lead to record food production this year.
Rainfall in August has been 35% above normal so far, which has further improved crop planting and filled up major reservoirs with 25% more water than the 10-year average.
This completes the turnaround of the farm situation that looked grim in June when authorities were planning drought-relief measures as rainfall was one-third less than normal and reservoirs were depleting at a time they normally fill up to meet post-monsoon requirement of drinking, irrigationNSE -3.64 % and power generation.
Will Also Help Rabi Crops
Now the conditions are ripe for a good harvest of the kharif, or summer-sown, crop and higher farm incomes, which in turn should boost festive season demand and to some extent revive sales of vehicles, gold and consumer goods in an economy where companies have been nervous about weak demand.
“Good monsoon is kind of passport to better harvest,” agriculture commissioner SK Malhotra told ET. “We achieved record food grain production last year. This year also, we expect the same.”
He said crop planting had accelerated in step with monsoon rainfall, which improved significantly in July and has been in a vigorous phase for three weeks.
“The deficit in crop planting is fast reducing since the last 30 days,” Malhotra said. “We see some deficit in paddy sowing only, which we expect to cover up by August end. The sowing window for paddy is till August in West Bengal and Jharkhand. We don’t see any shortfall in food grain productions this year,” he said.
It is a very common misconception here in the west that heavy rainfall is based for India, almost as if we transplant our climate onto theirs.
Anybody with the slightest knowledge of the country, however, would know that a bountiful monsoon is not just good news for farming, but as a knock on effect the whole economy benefits.
Great Barrier Reef Is In Much Better Shape Than Climate Alarmists Claim, Australian Environment Minister Confirms
By Paul Homewood
From GWPF:
Returning from a snorkelling trip to Moore and Flynn reefs offshore from Cairns, Ms Ley was happy yesterday to broadcast the message that tourism operators desperately want heard around the world.
“Today we saw coral that was struggling but we also saw coral that was coming back, that was growing, that was vibrant,” Ms Ley said.
“We saw amazing wildlife, fish, turtles, clams. We saw a reef teeming with life.
“It gives me heart and hope that the future of this magnificent part of the world is a good one.”
Ms Ley said not everything was perfect and there had been areas that were struggling from the impact of cyclones.
However, she told The Australian conditions were better than she had expected.
How scientists mislead the world about the state of the Great Barrier Reef
“I was expecting to see dead areas with a few patches of life,” Ms Ley said.
“I saw the exact opposite to that.”
Ms Ley has spent three days touring the coastal area around Cairns speaking to farmers, tourism bodies and reef scientists.
She has backed the concerns of all sides and attempted to avoid some of the more bitter areas of dispute.
These include new water quality regulations for Queensland farmers, calls for better quality assurance for reef science and the outsourcing of reef program delivery to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation by the Turnbull government.
The Queensland government has introduced new water quality laws to parliament that will more closely monitor and supervise fertiliser use and nutrient run-off in Great Barrier Reef catchments.
Marine scientist Peter Ridd has begun a speaking tour in Queensland calling for a new body to check the quality of reef research.
Accompanying Ms Ley on the visit this week has been Great Barrier Reef Foundation managing director Anna Marsden.
The GBR Foundation has been given $444 million by the federal government and is expected to raise matching funds from private donors.
The federal opposition had said it would have withdrawn the funding if it won the federal election.
