Month: April 2017

Uncategorized 14 Apr 2017

Fifth Thing To Know About Climate Change–Nat Geographic

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By Paul Homewood

There is no doubt that the “extreme weather lie” is one of the most fraudulent aspects of the whole climate scam.

Even the IPCC’s SREX report could not find any evidence that that extreme weather was increasing.

National Geographic’s claim is based on the above graph from Munich Re, showing the number of “global natural disasters”. But how are these defined?

Clearly every single flood, storm and so on is not counted. According to Munich Re themselves:

Taking very small events out of the equation, 750 relevant loss events [in 2016]such as earthquakes, storms, floods, droughts and heatwaves were recorded in the Munich Re NatCatSERVICE database.

So what determines a “relevant event”. The answer of course is heavily weighted to economic cost. While this may have relevance to the insurance industry, it has little bearing on climate trends.

As the European Environment Agency explained in their “Damages from weather and climate-related events” report in 2012:

The observed damage increase is primarily due to increases in population, economic wealth and human activities in hazard-prone areas and to better reporting.

It is currently difficult to determine accurately the proportion of damage costs that are attributable to climate change.

Roger Pielke Jnr, a leading expert on the cost of disasters, has repeatedly shown claims that extreme weather is getting worse to be worthless. His graph below sums the whole topic up well.

Note that it is based on Munich Re’s own database.

https://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/684740869707071488

Of course, Munich Re have a vested interest in pretending that weather disasters are on the increase, as it allows them to push up their insurance premiums.

Despite a supposedly calamitous year for disasters, Munich Re actually made a profit of Eu2.6bn in 2016, well ahead of its target of Eu2.3bn.

Most of this profit came from the reinsurance business, which made Eu2.5bn.

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April 13, 2017 at 11:07PM

Uncategorized 14 Apr 2017

Renewables’ deep-sea mining conundrum

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Deep sea mining for rare earth minerals [image credit: BBC News]

To what extent do ‘renewables’ depend on finding sources of non-renewables? Mining is involved – the raw materials have to be found and extracted from the earth.

British scientists exploring an underwater mountain in the Atlantic Ocean have discovered a treasure trove of rare minerals, reports BBC News.

Their investigation of a seamount more than 500km (300 miles) from the Canary Islands has revealed a crust of “astonishingly rich” rock. Samples brought back to the surface contain the scarce substance tellurium in concentrations 50,000 times higher than in deposits on land.

Tellurium is used in a type of advanced solar panel, so the discovery raises a difficult question about whether the push for renewable energy may encourage mining of the seabed. The rocks also contain what are called rare earth elements that are used in wind turbines and electronics.

Energy implications

Known as Tropic Seamount, the mountain stands about 3,000m tall – about the size of one of the middle-ranging Alpine summits – with a large plateau at its top, lying about 1,000m below the ocean surface.

Using robotic submarines, researchers from the UK’s National Oceanography Centre found that the crust is dark and fine-grained and stretches in a layer roughly 4cm thick over the entire surface of the mountain.

Dr Bram Murton, the leader of the expedition, told the BBC that he had been expecting to find abundant minerals on the seamount but not in such concentrations. “These crusts are astonishingly rich and that’s what makes these rocks so incredibly special and valuable from a resource perspective.”

He has calculated that the 2,670 tonnes of tellurium on this single seamount represents one-twelfth of the world’s total supply. And Dr Murton has come up with a hypothetical estimate that if the entire deposit could be extracted and used to make solar panels, it could meet 65% of the UK’s electricity demand.

He says he is not advocating deep-sea mining, which has yet to start anywhere in the world and is likely to be highly controversial because of the damage it could cause to the marine environment.

But Dr Murton does want his team’s discovery, part of a major research project called MarineE-Tech, to trigger a debate about where vital resources should come from.

“If we need green energy supplies, then we need the raw materials to make the devices that produce the energy so, yes, the raw materials have to come from somewhere.

“We either dig them up from the ground and make a very large hole or dig them from the seabed and make a comparatively smaller hole.

“It’s a dilemma for society – nothing we do comes without a cost.”

Scientists are now weighing up the relative risks and merits of mining on land as opposed to on the seabed.

Full report: Renewables’ deep-sea mining conundrum – BBC News

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April 13, 2017 at 10:09PM

Uncategorized 14 Apr 2017

What “permanent drought”? New all-time rainfall record set for California

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What “permanent drought”? New all-time rainfall record set for California

From the California Dept. of Water Resources

Northern Sierra Precipitation Sets Water Year Record Atmospheric Rivers Pushed Total to 89.7 Inches since October 1

SACRAMENTO – Never in nearly a century of Department of Water Resources (DWR) recordkeeping has so much precipitation fallen in the northern Sierra in a water year. DWR reported today that 89.7 inches of precipitation – rain and snowmelt – has been recorded by the eight weather stations it has monitored continuously since 1920 from Shasta Lake to the American River basin.

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Today’s total surpassed the previous record of 88.5 inches recorded in the entirety of Water Year 1983. The region’s annual average is 50 inches. California traditionally receives 30 to 50 percent of its annual precipitation from atmospheric rivers (ARs), long and relatively narrow “rivers in the sky” laden with moisture that blow in from the Pacific. The West Coast experienced 46 ARs between October 1 and March 31, the first six months of Water Year 2017. Nearly one-third of the total were “strong” (13) or “extreme” (3) ARs. DWR’s 5-station San Joaquin index is keeping pace with Water Year 1983’s record total of 77.4 inches in the region. Today’s total of 68.2 inches among the stations is 194 percent of the average precipitation recorded by today’s date during the water year and far exceeds the San Joaquin annual average of 40.8 inches.

The six-station index in the Tulare Basin, often called ground zero of California’s five-year drought, which officially ended in most of California on April 7, has recorded 178 percent of the amount of precipitation that normally falls by this date during an average water year. Total precipitation so far is 45 inches, about 1.5 times the average annual precipitation of 29.3 inches in the basin. The snow water equivalent of California’s snowpack is far above average throughout the Sierra Nevada — 176 percent of the April 13 average. DWR will conduct its final snow survey of the season on May 1 at Phillips Station in the Sierra 90 miles east of Sacramento.

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April 13, 2017 at 09:14PM

Uncategorized 14 Apr 2017

Catastrophic Collapse Of Solar Energy As UK Government Cuts Subsidies

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
http://www.thegwpf.com

The number of solar panels being installed in the UK has fallen by more than 80 per cent, according to an analysis of new figures in the latest sign that the industry is being strangled by government policies despite being one of the cheapest sources of electricity.

The Solar Trade Association (STA), which produced the figures based on recently released government statistics, found the first three months of this year had seen a catastrophic collapse in the number of solar panels being put up following the withdrawal of virtually all subsidies, a stunning business rate hike of up to 800 per cent and the imposition of “red tape”.

No form of energy generation – renewable or fossil fuel – can currently be built without some form of subsidy and the STA stressed it was simply seeking a “level-playing field”.

Overall, there was an 81 per cent decline in new solar panel capacity compared to the average over 2016.

The STA said it was particularly concerned by a 65 per cent drop in the number of large-scale solar schemes on hospitals, factories and other large buildings, which may well have been caused by the business rate increase. The figures equate to just one large factory roof having solar panels fitted every month in the whole of the country.

And the number of people putting solar panels on their homes is now at a six-year low.

Between January and March, there were about 650 rooftop deployments a week – a fall of more than 75 per cent on the long-term average of 2,700 a week since 2010.

Solar has grown rapidly in the past few years, but installations have now crashed (Solar Trade Association)

The number of new solar farms, producing large amounts of cheap and green electricity for the grid, has also crashed after being “shut out of a heavily distorted electricity market”. New installations are running at about an eighth of the level in January last year.