UK: coldest summer since 1993

31 August, 2011 by

Not exactly Bondi, is it?

From the Weather Isn’t Climate Department. Ah, memories of an English summer’s day on the beach when I was a kid – before Global Warming, that is: covered in goosebumps, sand in the ice-cream, the bucket and spade are halfway to France, with the beach-ball not far behind, desperately trying to stop Granny’s deck chair from taking off, and now it’s drizzling. Idyllic. Looks like those halcyon days might be on the way back:

As Britons return to work today after a soggy Bank Holiday weekend, official weather data reveals that average temperatures were significantly down on recent years.

The UK’s average temperature from June 1 to August 15 was only 57F (13.9C) – the lowest for 13 years.

For central England the average was 59F (15C), making it the coolest summer since 1993.

Helen Waite, a Met Office forecaster, said: “The average temperature for central England this summer has been just 15C – this sort of temperature is normally typical of September.

“Generally speaking, you would expect to see temperatures of at least 17C for this time of year.”

Source.

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Solar effects only cause cooling

7 July, 2011 by

Thames Frost Fair, 1694

Climate scientists in the consensus camp are scrambling to find a reason for the slowing of the global temperature rise in the last decade. According to their models, in which climate sensitivity is very high and positive feedbacks rule, temperatures should have continued rising with CO2.

Solar effects are to all intents and purposes ignored, since as the IPCC states in AR4, changes in solar irradiance are too small to affect the climate, and other methods such as cosmic ray modulation are “controversial” [translation: they don’t fit our agenda – Ed]. So they are simply glossed over.

Just yesterday, we read that the additional aerosols from burning coal have “offset” the greenhouse warming over the past decade and are actually cooling the planet, and today, we read that solar effects may cause UK winters to become colder, as the BBC reports:

Britain is set to face an increase in harsh winters, with up to one-in-seven gripping the UK with prolonged sub-zero temperatures, a study has suggested.

The projection was based on research that identified how low solar activity affected winter weather patterns.

However, the authors were keen to stress that their findings did not suggest that the region was about to be plunged into a “little ice age”. [Note the essential caveat – don’t anyone start thinking this is some kind of global effect – Ed]

The findings appear in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

“We could get to the point where one-in-seven winters are very cold, such as we had at the start of last winter and all through the winter before,” said co-author Mike Lockwood, professor of space environment physics at the University of Reading. (source)

There is a clear double standard at work here. The IPCC and the consensus scientists are terrified of investigating solar links to climate change too closely, since it may blow their CO2 driven cash cow out of the water. In their book, virtually none of the current warming is linked to increased solar activity or other solar-related phenomena, it’s all down to man-made CO2. That’s despite the fact that by their own admission, the level of scientific understanding of forcing by solar irradiance is “low” and that of cosmic rays “very low” [translation: “virtually zero” and “zero” – Ed].

But suddenly, as soon as there is a need to find a reason for cooling, the fog clears, as it were, and they invoke the sun as a cause.

Either we understand enough about the sun to link it to regional or global changes in climate or we don’t. You can’t have it both ways.

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The pointlessness of wind power

3 July, 2011 by

Monument to green stupidity

Once again, the futility of wind energy has been brought into sharp focus in an article by Christopher Booker in the UK Telegraph. The lights will be going out in Britain if the present government, and in particular Chris Huhne, continues with its suicidal plan to wreck the country’s energy generation capacity:

Centrica and other energy companies last week told [the Department of Energy and Climate Change] that, if Britain is to spend £100 billion on building thousands of wind turbines, it will require the building of 17 new gas-fired power stations simply to provide back-up for all those times when the wind drops and the windmills produce even less power than usual.

We will thus be landed in the ludicrous position of having to spend an additional £10 billion on those 17 dedicated power stations, which will be kept running on “spinning reserve”, 24 hours a day, just to make up for the fundamental problem of wind turbines. This is that their power continually fluctuates anywhere between full capacity to zero (where it often stood last winter, when national electricity demand was at a peak). So unless back-up power is instantly available to match any shortfall, the lights will go out.

Two things make this even more absurd. One, as the energy companies pointed out to DECC, is that it will be amazingly costly and wildly uneconomical, since the dedicated power plants will often have to run at a low rate of efficiency, burning gas but not producing electricity. This will add billions more to our fuel bills for no practical purpose. The other absurdity, as recent detailed studies have confirmed, is that gas-fired power stations running on “spinning reserve” chuck out much more CO2 than when they are running at full efficiency – thus negating any savings in CO2 emissions supposedly achieved by the windmills themselves.

How supposedly intelligent people can be taken in by this nonsense is beyond belief, unless of course, rational thinking has flown out of the window, and all that remains is devotion to a green religion.

Read it here.

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UK: Huhne "the Hoon" on the ropes

17 May, 2011 by

Double demerits?

Looks like the UK’s dangerous and downright unhinged Energy and Climate Secretary’s days are quite possibly numbered, as he “does an Einfeld” by allegedly getting his estranged wife to take the rap for a speeding offence:

Chris Huhne’s career was hanging by a thread last night after his estranged wife agreed to testify that he asked her to take speeding points for him.

A close friend said Vicky Pryce would swear in court that she was busy all day in central London when the offence was committed 40 miles away in Essex.

As political support ebbed away from the Energy Secretary at Westminster, Essex Police appointed a senior detective to look into the allegations that Mr Huhne broke the law.

Sources said that if Miss Pryce co-operates and provides corroborating evidence, it is almost certain to lead to a full criminal inquiry. This could mean Mr Huhne facing charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice. [maximum penalty: life imprisonment – Ed]

A friend of Miss Pryce told the Mail: ‘She was working in London during the day and evening of the date the offence took place in Essex. And she’s quite prepared to stand up in court and say so if necessary.’ (source)

Maybe there is a glimmer of hope that the UK climate madness could be reversed if Hoon Huhne was a guest of Her Majesty for a while. A few years, say.

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Madness: UK commits climate suicide

16 May, 2011 by

Looney (image thanks to Guido Fawkes)

Chris Huhne will be remembered as The Man that Screwed Britain. In twenty years’ time, when wind farms are standing idle, with conventional power stations all past their sell-by date, and Britain is a third world country, the long-suffering population, sitting in the cold and the dark, will look back at the climate madness inflicted on the country by Huhne and cry “Bring back hanging.”

And there isn’t a hint of caution, just ploughing on, full steam ahead into the abyss, with legally mandated emissions cuts of 60% by 2030 and 80% by 2050 on 1990 levels (1990 levels!!!), whilst at the same time, China and India just continue with business as usual (virtually), offsetting many times over anything that Britain does:

Chris Huhne will announce a long-term programme that will put Britain at the forefront of the battle against climate change.

Cabinet ministers have agreed a far-reaching, legally binding “green deal” that will commit the UK to two decades of drastic cuts in carbon emissions. The package will require sweeping changes to domestic life, transport and business [translation: reducing the UK to a third world nation – Ed] and will place Britain at the forefront of the global battle against climate change.

The deal was hammered out after tense arguments between ministers who had disagreed over whether the ambitious plans to switch to more green energy were affordable. The row had pitted the energy secretary,Chris Huhne, who strongly backed the plans, against the chancellor, George Osborne, and the business secretary, Vince Cable, who were concerned about the cost and potential impact on the economy. [But we don’t want to worry about minor details like that. We’re SAVING THE PLANET!!!! – Ed]

However, after the intervention of David Cameron, Huhne is now expected to tell parliament that agreement has been struck to back the plans in full up to 2027. He will tell MPs that the government will accept the recommendations of the independent committee on climate change for a new carbon budget. The deal puts the UK ahead of any other state in terms of the legal commitments it is making in the battle to curb greenhouse gases. (breathlessly reported by The Guardian, of course – source)

It has been said before but I’ll say it again: goodnight Britain. It’s been nice knowing you, but I’m very glad I emigrated to Australia. Because you guys are well and truly screwed.

(h/t PC)

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Polar bears "having fewer cubs due to global warming"

9 February, 2011 by

Creating the next IPCC report?

Various other commitments means not much going on at Climate Madness Towers today, so I thought I’d post a cuddly polar bear story. You have to hand it to the warmists, they never give up. Even when the general public are sick to the back teeth with hippies banging on about polar bears, they still insist on doing it. Even the bears themselves are sick of it, I expect. From the UK’s moonbat Telegraph and the even moonbattier Louise Gray:

Researchers at the University of Alberta looked at how melting sea ice in the 1990s effected [sic] the breeding success of polar bears.

During the spring and summer months the females are hunting seals on the ice to build up energy for the autumn and winter when they will hibernate for up to eight months and give birth.

The study found the early melting of the ice made it more difficult for the bears to hunt seals successfully and build up energy.

Therefore there is less chance of a successful pregnancy.

In the early 1990s 28 per cent of energy-deprived pregnant polar bears in the Hudson Bay region failed to have even a single cub. (source)

The comments are far more entertaining, like this one from torch12volt:

Time is flying by, the cut and paste queen is at it again, more drivel, still never let the truth get in the way of a very weak story.

Now the Telegraph looks up to Hello as a shining example of quality journalism.

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UK Met Office has some explaining to do

29 January, 2011 by

Explanation, please…

A Freedom of Information request to the UK Met Office has revealed that there was no “secret” forecast of extreme cold given to the UK government, as claimed in the second report here. Autonomous Mind takes up the story:

A look at the information makes clear there is nowhere left for the Met Office to hide.  The Met Office has been caught ‘cold’ lying about its winter forecast in a disgraceful attempt to salvage its reputation.  Its claim that it forecast the cold start to the winter lays in tatters thanks to an exchange of emails between the department and the Cabinet Office.

As a result the Met Office is completely discredited.  Also utterly discredited is the BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin, who on the Met Office’s behalf used a column in the Radio Times (later carried in the Telegraph and the Daily Mail) to state that:

In October the forecaster privately warned the Government – with whom it has a contract – that Britain was likely to face an extremely cold winter.

It kept the prediction secret, however, after facing severe criticism over the accuracy of its long-term forecasts.

(My emphasis in bold italic above and below) Harrabin went on to say in his piece that:

Why didn’t the Met Office tell us that Greenland was about to swap weather with Godalming? The truth is it [The Met Office] did suspect we were in for an exceptionally cold early winter, and told the Cabinet Office so in October. But we weren’t let in on the secret. “The reason? The Met Office no longer publishes its seasonal forecasts because of the ridicule it suffered for predicting a barbecue summer in 2009 – the summer that campers floated around in their tents.

The email exchange in the screenshot below [not shown here – Ed] proves this is a lie. The Cabinet Office civil servant (bottom message) confirms the weather outlook supplied by the Met Office earlier that day is what the government will use in its ‘Forward Look’.  The Met Office employee (top message) agrees with it.

The all important sentence is the first.  ‘The Met Office seasonal outlook for the period November to January is showing no clear signals for the winter’.  The Met Office knew this was the case when it sent Harrabin scurrying off to spin its lie that the Met Office ‘did suspect we were in for an exceptionally cold early winter, and told the Cabinet Office so in October ‘.  The briefing to the Cabinet Office contains no such warning – and vindicates the parliamentary answer given by Francis Maude when questioned about the forecast the government received from the Met Office. (source)

“No clear signals for the winter” means that they aren’t predicting either a colder one or a warmer, which is hardly a forecast of “extreme cold”… Time for an explanation from the Met Office and Harrabin, I think.

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BBC: "propaganda machine for climate change zealots"

25 January, 2011 by

Blows the lid off the BBC

In another damning article in the UK’s Daily Mail, former BBC newsreader Peter Sissons blows the lid off the institutional climate change bias at the BBC. The results are truly shocking, if not entirely surprising. For “BBC” you can substitute most other news organisations, ABC, Fairfax, AFP… Bias against climate realism is endemic in the left-leaning media, it’s only a question of degree:

For me, though, the most worrying aspect of political correctness was over the story that recurred with increasing frequency during my last ten years at the BBC — global warming (or ‘climate change’, as it became known when temperatures appeared to level off or fall slightly after 1998).

From the beginning I was unhappy at how one-sided the BBC’s coverage of the issue was, and how much more complicated the climate system was than the over-simplified two-minute reports that were the stock-in-trade of the BBC’s environment correspondents.

These, without exception, accepted the UN’s assurance that ‘the science is settled’ and that human emissions of carbon dioxide threatened the world with catastrophic climate change. Environmental pressure groups could be guaranteed that their press releases, usually beginning with the words ‘scientists say . . . ’ would get on air unchallenged.

On one occasion, after the inauguration of Barack Obama as president in 2009, the science correspondent of Newsnight actually informed viewers ‘scientists calculate that he has just four years to save the world’. What she didn’t tell viewers was that only one alarmist scientist, NASA’s James Hansen, had said that.

My interest in climate change grew out of my concern for the failings of BBC journalism in reporting it. In my early and formative days at ITN, I learned that we have an obligation to report both sides of a story. It is not journalism if you don’t. It is close to propaganda.

The BBC’s editorial policy on climate change, however, was spelled out in a report by the BBC Trust — whose job is to oversee the workings of the BBC in the interests of the public — in 2007. This disclosed that the BBC had held ‘a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus’.

The error here, of course, was that the BBC never at any stage gave equal space to the opponents of the consensus.

But the Trust continued its pretence that climate change dissenters had been, and still would be, heard on its airwaves. ‘Impartiality,’ it said, ‘always requires a breadth of view, for as long as minority opinions are coherently and honestly expressed, the BBC must give them appropriate space.’

In reality, the ‘appropriate space’ given to minority views on climate change was practically zero.
Moreover, we were allowed to know practically nothing about that top-level seminar mentioned by the BBC Trust at which such momentous conclusions were reached. Despite a Freedom of Information request, they wouldn’t even make the guest list public.

READ IT ALL.

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UK madness: "greenest government ever"

20 January, 2011 by

William Hague the Younger

And they say it as if it’s something to be proud of! Personally, I wouldn’t be proud of associating myself with an anti-human Marxist ideology, which would demolish our hard-won Western standards of living, with everyone sitting in the dark because the reliable coal- and gas-fired power stations have been abandoned, and the windmills are standing becalmed – a monument to environmental stupidity, with people shivering in their homes, unable to afford to pay their energy bills.

And that isn’t just hyperbole, the UK has committed itself to cutting its emissions by some astronomical figure like 80% by 2050, so the lights going off is a real possibility.

But UK Foreign Minister William Hague, who I remember making a cringe-making speech at a Tory conference in the 1980s as a precocious teenager (see photo), and who is visiting Australia at the moment, thinks that being the greenest government ever is something to aspire to:

The most senior minister from the Conservative-led British coalition Government to visit Australia will today lay out his nation’s ambitious plan to combat climate change, as debate continues over whether global warming has contributed to devastating floods in several states. [Have to drop that in of course, this is the Canberra Times, after all – Ed]

Foreign Affairs Minister William Hague will deliver two speeches in Sydney where he will promote British Prime Minister David Cameron’s vision for his coalition administration to be the “greenest government ever”.

In contrast, the Federal Government’s policy is unclear and Prime Minister Julia Gillard is waiting for a committee to recommend whether to proceed with an emissions trading scheme or adopt a carbon tax.

That’s nonsense. The Federal government’s policy IS clear – a price on carbon during this parliament – and equally idiotic as the UK’s policy.

The communique issued after the talks said that both governments were committed to ”promoting swift action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions” at home and overseas.

”Action on climate change is urgent and cannot wait for the signature of an international treaty,” it said. (source)

And it will do nothing for the climate. Pointless environmental tokenism at its worst.

UPDATE: Irony of ironies, the European carbon market (of which the UK is a part) has had to be suspended because of fears of yet another massive fraud (read here). Why can’t Julia and her hopeless Labor government see what’s coming? They don’t need a crystal ball, just look at the UK.

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UK Climate Madness

5 January, 2011 by

Green in oh so many ways

A couple of stories from my home country to raise a smile, and perchance, a chuckle into the bargain:

  • Eco-totalitarian George Monbiot wants to force people with big houses to take in lodgers, to save the planet, I guess. Would it apply to his own massive pile? Ed West in the UK Telegraph rips Moonbat a new one. Ed calls it fascism, but I think it’s closer to Marxism. What do you think?
  • The Met Office is in damage control mode, as it tries to spin its way out of failing to forecast the UK’s coldest winter in 300 years. Apparently, they did tell the government, but didn’t make a public announcement as the nasty general public were mean and horrid to them the last time they screwed up with the “barbecue summer” prediction. Sound credible? No, doesn’t to me either.
  • Louise Gray, eco-loony environment reporter for the Telegraph discovers that wind turbines are useless when the wind doesn’t blow. Maybe the government will also realise this in time, before the UK’s lights go out for good.
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