Arctic Springtime Postponed

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May 27, 2017 Sea ice all the way to Labrador – Cape Norman Northern Peninsula Newfoundland h/t Newfoundsander

Too dangerous to go fishing due to ice, Coast Guard warns

Weather Canada Marine Forecast
East Coast – north of Cape St. Francis

Issued 10:00 AM EDT 28 May 2017
Today Tonight and Monday
Special ice warning in effect.
1 tenth of first-year ice including a trace of old ice except 9 tenths of first-year ice including a trace of old ice near parts of the mouth of Bonavista Bay and the mouth of Trinity Bay. Unusual presence of sea ice in the western section.
Iceberg Count
More than 100 icebergs.

The Atlantic ice extents show little retreat during May.  Newfoundland coast on the upper left is still locked in ice though less now than 10 days ago.  In Barents not much has changed.

The graph below shows May extent through yesterday, May 28.

For the first time the decadal average dropped below 12M km2.  2017 is 300k km2 above average, 400k km2 above 2007 and 1.1M km2 higher than 2016.  The graph below show the Arctic ice extents, excluding the Pacific basins of Bering and Okhotsk.

Note how persistent is 2017 ice extent, currently 500k km2 above 2007 and the decadal average, and 1M km2 above last year at this date.

The table below shows regional extents for 2017 compared to decadal average and to 2007 on day 148.

Note the strong surpluses of ice in Kara, Barents, Greenland Sea and Baffin Bay.  Note also that Bering is nearly ice free, and the two Pacific basins are now at 136k km2 combined at day 148, which matches where the decadal average will be in 25 days on day 161.

Finally, the image below shows Svalbard comparing 2017 with last year on day 148.

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May 29, 2017 at 05:22AM

EU Economists say carbon price needs to rise 10 – 20 fold to even meet pledges

via JoNova
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The EU Ministry for The Management of Nice Weather says that the artificial price of carbon credits must rise a magnitude or two if they are going to have any chance of meeting their “climate” target. In some senses they are right — the price of carbon would have to be very high to get people to shift energy sources, because the ones that produce carbon dioxide are so wonderfully, blissfully, cheap. They don’t seem to mention what this will do to electricity prices. Global carbon prices must soar to meet Paris climate target: report By Susanna Twidale | LONDON Reuters

The cost of emitting carbon dioxide must rise to $50-$100 per tonne by 2030, much higher than the current price in Europe of less than $6, if countries are to meet climate pledges made under the Paris Agreement, economists said on Monday.

 Under the Paris deal, more than 190 countries pledged to keep planet-warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) to stave off the worst effects of climate change.

The Commission on Carbon Prices, a group of 13 leading economists supported by the World Bank, said in their report that carbon dioxide prices would need to […]

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May 29, 2017 at 05:19AM

New Video : “Arctic Fake News”

via The Deplorable Climate Science Blog
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You can see all of my videos on my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/TonyHeller

via The Deplorable Climate Science Blog http://ift.tt/2i1JH7O

May 29, 2017 at 05:14AM

Producers not Consumers Now Control the UK Electricity System

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

A recent press statement by the United Kingdom’s Transmission System Operator (TSO) shows that the consumer interest is no longer in the driving seat. The system is now run for the convenience and benefit of electricity producers.

On Friday afternoon last week National Grid issued a widely reported statement to the effect that at lunchtime on that day the instantaneous output from the United Kingdom’s nearly 12 GW of solar photovoltaic generation was 8.7 GW, which just over 24% of the load at that time and a new record.

National Grid developed its theme thus:

An increase in renewable generation poses an exciting challenge for National Grid, whose role as system operator is to balance the national transmission network, by ensuring supply and demand is matched second by second.

Duncan Burt, who’s responsible for control room operations said: “We now have significant volumes of renewable energy on the system and as this trend continues, our ability to forecast these patterns is becoming more and more important.

“We have an expert team of forecasters who monitor a range of data, to forecast just how much electricity will be needed over a set period.”

Duncan added: “We have planned for these changes to the energy landscape and have the tools available to ensure we can balance supply and demand. It really is the beginning of a new era, which we are prepared for and excited to play our part”.

Clearly written in haste so as not to miss the moment (“who’s responsible”), this incoherent statement reveals that National Grid is still coming to terms with a genuinely novel situation, one that they can hardly believe, so extraordinary and so favourable is it to their company’s future. It is certainly “exciting” for them, commercially exciting.

Hitherto, forecasters have indeed been concerned with predicting “just how much electricity will be needed”, but as the previous paragraphs show with the advent of a renewables dominated grid they are now engaged on forecasting what is about to be produced. The significance of this change cannot be overstated. The consumer has become a secondary consideration; and the producer interest is now the main focus of National Grid’s attention. Of course, though it has a regulated income and asset base, National Grid is itself part of that producer interest. The grid management “tools” to which Mr Burt refers, software, personnel, and hardware are expensively purchased with consumer funds, but without consumer consent. National Grid will balance the system brilliantly, of course, but very expensively.

If the United Kingdom is to flourish, this mistaken inversion of priorities must be addressed by the next government. The Conservative Party Manifesto remarked that:

A successful industrial strategy requires competitive and affordable energy costs. We want to make sure that the cost of energy in Britain is internationally competitive, both for businesses and households. (p. 22)

One can hardly imagine that sensible people in the other political parties hold any other views. This is motherhood and apple pie. However, as National Grid’s release shows, policies have in fact over the last decade or so, forced the consumer into a subordinate and powerless position, one where it is very unlikely that energy costs will be either competitive or affordable.

The implications for inward investment and the reindustrialisation that many now seem to desire are obvious. Where will an investor prefer to place capital in the hope of generating a return? An economy where electricity demand drives supply, or one where the System Operator forecasts supply and then adjusts demand accordingly? Even if there are rewards on offer for flexible consumers, the truth is that most businesses would prefer complete freedom of operation rather than a compromised liberty and the occasional lollipop.

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

May 29, 2017 at 03:41AM