All Australians “are detrimental”. Climate Scientist worries that her baby will cause floods, droughts, and warm globe

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After years of struggle to conceive, plus tortured introspection about the effect her baby might have on future storms, Sophie Lewis, climate scientist, announces conception in the most convoluted way:

And then, just as senselessly as our grief began, it ended. For no particular reason, the expected bad baby news never arrived and now the complexity of having an imagined child will become a concrete ethical entanglement.

Exactly. And many a climate model operates with all the same clarity and insight.

But sincere congratulations to Sophie Lewis. We hope her good news brings her  years of joy.

We also pray she escapes the climate bubble soon. Because by golly, she’s in deep.

Lewis reveals the paroxysms of irreconcilable guilt — where the evolutionary drive conflicts with the climate religion:

Older climate scientists speak widely about their worries for their grandchildren and the world they have provided them. While such concerns must weigh on older minds, younger climate scientists’ future concerns require active deliberation. Should we have children? And if we do, how do we raise them in a world of change and inequity? Can I reconcile my care and concern for the future with such an […]

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March 19, 2017 at 06:41AM

Cloud-Forming Cosmic Rays Above Average More Than One Year As Sun Begins Slumber

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Translated/edited from wobleibtdieerderwaermung.de.

A huge hole in the magnetically hot corona of the sun in the coming weeks will lead to a powerful solar wind and initiate hefty polar lights in the earth’s magnetic field.

NASA writes: BIG CORONAL HOLE TURNS TOWARDS EARTH!

“Coronal holes are places–big places–where the sun’s magnetic field opens up and allows solar wind to escape,” NASA writes. “A wide stream of solar wind flowing from this coronal hole is expected to reach our planet on March 23rd. The impact of the solar wind should produce magnetic activity around Earth’s poles and could spark the first auroras of northern spring.“  Source NASA.

In the HMI magnetogram the coronal hole today appears as a large dark spot on the left side (east side) of the sun and over the coming days as the sun rotates (Bartel’s Rotation) will be aimed at the earth, see the following image:

HMI magnetogram from March 17, 2017 shows a large dark hole with little magnetic activity on the sun’s surface (CH/Coronal Hole). As the sun rotates the coronal hole will be aimed at the earth and a large solar wind of electrically charged solar plasma will strike our planet. Source: http://ift.tt/1s0Sgxd

Even though there have not been any solar sunspot activity in 2 weeks, meaning galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) have been easily reaching into the earth’s atmosphere. Now these galactic cosmic rays will be deflected away temporarily from the earth by the expected powerful solar winds.

The SILSO chart from March 17, 2017 above shows the daily solar sunspot count over the past 30 days. In early March there was a plummet from 55 to zero on March 4 and March 6-17. The month’s average (blue line) has fallen below SN 10. Source: http://ift.tt/2nSAPQg

Whether this results in a so-called Forbush event, where a strong fall in high energy cosmic rays such as the sort of a solar eruption, coronal mass ejection(CME), remains to be seen.

The impacts can be monitored daily using the Finnish University’s OULU which measures galactic cosmic rays (GCR).

Because of the unusually weak solar sunspot beginning in 2016, GCR intensity has increased significantly:

The above Oulu plot shows the daily strength of galactic cosmic rays (GCR) as a percent of mean value from January 2015 until March 17, 2017, top right. Due to the increasingly weaker solar sunspot activity galactic cosmic rays has increased significantly since 2015. The temporary large drop in June 2015 was caused by a so-called Forbush event, where powerful solar winds shielded the earth from cosmic rays. Source: cosmicrays.oulu.fi/

Wikipedia describes “Coronal Holes“:

Coronal holes are areas where the Sun’s corona is colder, hence darker, and has lower-density plasma than average because there is lower energy and gas levels. Coronal holes are part of the Sun’s corona and are constantly changing and reshaping because the corona is not uniform. The Sun contains magnetic fields that arch away from areas in the corona that are very thin due to the lower levels of energy and gas,^[1] which cause coronal holes to appear when they do not fall back. Thus, solar particles escape at a rate great enough to create a lower density and lower temperature in that area.”

In the areas designated by A, the magnetic flied lines are closed and trap the plasma of the corona. In the area designated B (coronal hole) the magnetic flied lines extend out into space and plasma can escape.“ Source: Koronales Loch

The shielding of the earth against cloud-initiating cosmic rays during the solar winds from the coronal hole will however be only temporary. Recall that CERN measured that cosmic rays enhances cloud formation by to 100 times.

The solar minimum of 2019/20 will bring extra cosmic rays, pink auroras, and much more.

“Dec. 26, 2016: Christmas Day 2016 brought a fantastic display of auroras to the Arctic Circle. A great many of them were pink. James Helmericks sends this picture from the Colville River Delta in northern Alaska.“ Source: pink auroras.

We will continue to watch how long the sun continues its sunspot strike, excluding coronal holes, as was the case in February 2017: Eastern Limb of Sun Feb 18th and 19th 2017 – YouTube.

Yours, Schneefan2015

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March 19, 2017 at 04:43AM

NASA Budget Shifts Focus From Climate Science to Space Exploration

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

In all, President Donald Trump’s NASA budget cuts won’t gut the space agency’s funding too much. But they highlight the 45th president of the United States’ desire to focus on space travel, while drawing criticism from lawmakers regarding the significant garnishing of funds, or outright elimination, of funding for climate change initiatives.

A look at the president’s new budget proposal released earlier in the week shows that NASA’s funding has only been reduced by less than one percent, with Trump reducing the space agency’s budget from $19.3 billion to $19.1 billion. According to the Los Angeles Times, this suggests that the agency is in better shape budget-wise than the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other government organizations that received generous cuts for the year 2018.

In a prepared statement reacting to the 2018 budget plans released by Donald Trump, NASA acting administrator Robert Lightfoot released a prepared statement acknowledging that the agency’s budget remains similar to what it has been in recent years and ample enough to ensure it achieves its most important goals.

“This is in line with our funding in recent years, and will enable us to effectively execute our core mission for the nation, even during these times of fiscal constraint.”

But if one were to look at NASA’s budget allocation in terms of its individual ingredients, it would appear that climate change has gotten the short end of the stick, according to The Verge. Budget cuts to the space agency’s Earth science program have come as no surprise, and while the cuts “aren’t so drastic,” two important missions stand to be terminated, namely the PACE spacecraft, which will be launched in order to perform health checks on Earth’s oceans, and the CLARREO Pathfinder, which has been mooted as a way to provide more accurate information on climate and weather.

Full story

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

March 19, 2017 at 03:22AM

Walking Dead: Paris Climate Deal Died Last Week

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

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will never admit it, the 2015 Paris climate treaty Canada signed with great fanfare died last week. It died because of the release of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2018 budget plan.

While Trump has to get it through the U.S. Congress, which means parts of it are unlikely to survive, his clear intention to gut U.S. climate change policy by dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency spells the death knell for the Paris treaty.

Trump is proposing deeper cuts to the EPA than any other government agency, reducing its $8.2 billion budget by 31%, laying off 19% of its 15,000 staff and cutting 50 programs.

That includes funding for Barack Obama’s signature climate change initiative, his Climate Action Plan, to reduce America’s use of coal-fired electricity.

Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, made the president’s intention crystal clear Thursday.

“Regarding the question of climate change … We’re not spending money on that anymore,” Mulvaney said. “We consider that to be a waste of your money … ”

That means the U.S., the world’s second-largest emitter of industrial greenhouse gases (China’s first), has effectively pulled out of the Paris treaty, regardless of whether it formally withdraws.

As the leader of the developed world, America’s participation in the Paris treaty was vital to the United Nations’ Paris treaty.

That’s why the UN abandoned its previous commitment to binding emission reduction targets in Paris, to get the U.S., then under Obama, on board.

A treaty with binding targets would have required Obama to get the deal approved by the U.S. Senate, impossible given its Republican majority.

At Obama’s behest, the Paris treaty was designed so he could introduce his Climate Action Plan through EPA regulations, rather than legislation.

Except that Trump, who has said in the past he considers man-made climate change a hoax by China to damage U.S. industry, is not only proposing to gut the EPA but has appointed Scott Pruitt to run it.

Pruitt, the former attorney general of Oklahoma, an oil-producing state, sued the EPA in that capacity a dozen times before Trump installed him as its administrator.

The Paris treaty was always doomed to fail because it did not take into account that governments, at least democratic ones, operate in four or five year election cycles, not the 30, 40, 50 or 80-year time spans envisioned by the treaty. […]

With Trump’s moves last week, the Paris climate treaty is as dead as the “Dead Parrot” in Monty Python’s famous skit of the same name.

Full post

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March 19, 2017 at 03:22AM