Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Short post. A graph that some people will prefer you ignore.
That’s it. That’s the whole post.
Rock on!
w.
My Usual Request: When you comment, please quote the exact words you are discussing. This avoids endless misunderstandings.
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via Watts Up With That?
March 5, 2025 at 12:03PM
by Sallust
The UK’s Net Zero agenda is making families poorer by driving the productivity crisis and squeezing living standards, economists have said.
This shocking revelation features in a story in the Mail. Investment bank Peel Hunt commissioned a report in order to find out if there was a link between decarbonisation and Britain’s collapsing productivity:
They found a “clear link” between falling energy capacity and weak productivity in the UK, which has “hurt economic performance and growth in living standards”.
A decline in UK electricity supply, which began in 2006, coincided with the start of structural weakness in productivity growth, the research added.
The economists said their analysis challenges the Government’s claim that there is no trade-off between Net Zero and economic growth.
Prior to winning last year’s General Election, Labour pledged to decarbonise the UK’s electricity grid by 2030 as part of accelerating Net Zero efforts.
Since entering Downing Street, Sir Keir Starmer has lifted a de facto ban on onshore wind farms in England and given consent for a slew of solar projects.
The PM has hailed Net Zero as “one of the economic opportunities” of this century, while business chiefs recently pointed to an £83 billion boost from the sector last year.
But the Tories have said the UK’s Net Zero target “leaves us economically worse off” and admitted putting the 2050 deadline into law was among “mistakes” they made when in power.
The report’s damning verdict was:
The result of the UK’s decarbonisation efforts, so far, appears to be weak economic growth, high energy prices, de-industrialisation and no significant impact on the overall trajectory of global emissions.
If an economy throttles its production of energy, it impairs its capacity to produce all types of goods and services. Productivity is the major driver of per capita GDP.
It’s not all doom and gloom though. If you’re in your 20s or 30s there’s something to look forward to (at least while the sun is shining and the wind is blowing):
“If the Government can stay on track with plans to build new renewable capacities, electricity supplies can rise sharply,” they added – although they warned new technology such as Artificial Intelligence would ramp up energy demands.
But that’s hardly what the Confederation of British Industry came out with:
The report contrasts with a recent analysis by the Confederation of British Industry that suggested the Net Zero sector in the UK has become a “powerhouse of job creation and economic expansion”.
But as the Daily Sceptic’s Chris Morrison points out, Net Zero is facing global collapse, while in the Telegraph Nick Timothy says Net Zero is a luxury we can no longer afford:
Decarbonisation in one country – or more accurately one continent – is only possible in a globalised economy. Britain has managed to reduce its carbon emissions at least in significant part by shedding its domestic industries and importing goods instead. This is obviously a pointless exercise, as global emissions increase when goods are manufactured in countries with dirtier energy sources and poorer environmental standards, and when the goods must be transported around the world.
The reality of decarbonisation – that as long as the policy runs faster than technology allows, and other countries do not follow our lead – is that it means deindustrialisation, with all the consequences that follow. The country is less resilient to shocks, supply chains are stretched and we are exposed to instability in other parts of the world.
The Mail‘s piece is worth reading in full.
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via Watts Up With That?
March 5, 2025 at 08:07AM
The study says that ‘inter-model uncertainty is one of the most severe problems in global climate change projections’. That begs the question: how many (known) severe problems are there? The lead author of the study says the ultimate goal is ‘providing a more convincing basis for estimating future climate changes’. Solving the tropical Pacific problems described in this study would be a step forward for climate models, but meanwhile how much significance can they realistically claim?
– – –
New research has uncovered why different climate models offer varying projections of sea surface temperature (SST) changes in the tropical Pacific, a region critical for global climate patterns, says Phys.org.
The study, published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, identifies cloud–radiation feedback as the dominant source behind these differences.
Reliable projections of the tropical Pacific SST warming (TPSW) pattern are crucial for understanding how global climate will change in a warming world.
While the latest climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) generally project an El Niño-like warming pattern—characterized by a weakening of the zonal SST gradient between the eastern and western tropical Pacific—the intensity of such weakening varies significantly across models.
Using advanced statistical techniques and heat budget analysis, researchers from China and the UK analyzed data from 30 CMIP6 models. They discovered that the diversity in projecting TPSW patterns stems from two distinct cloud–radiation feedbacks:
— Eastern Pacific: Different cloud–radiation feedback over the eastern Pacific drive varying magnitudes of El Niño-like warming. This is the leading source of uncertainty in the projected TPSW among models, particularly in the far eastern equatorial Pacific.
— Central Pacific: Different negative cloud–radiation feedback over the central Pacific, coupled with ocean–atmosphere interactions including the wind–evaporation–SST (WES) feedback and the Bjerknes feedback, determines the different warming in the western Pacific. Most models underestimate this negative feedback, resulting in projections of stronger warming in the western Pacific than the multi-model average.
“These findings highlight the critical role of cloud–radiation feedback in shaping how different climate models project future warming patterns in the tropical Pacific,” said Dr. Jun Ying, lead author of the study, from the Second Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, China. “Unraveling these mechanisms brings us closer to producing more reliable climate projections.”
. . .
A major challenge lies in reconciling the observed long-term SST trend, which suggests a La Niña-like warming (enhanced west-minus-east SST gradient), with the El Niño-like pattern projected by CMIP6 models. The research team aims to resolve this discrepancy in the next study.
“Our ultimate goal is to refine model projections of the tropical Pacific SST warming pattern, providing a more convincing basis for estimating future climate changes,” Dr. Ying added.
Full article here.
– – –
Study: Causes of Differences in the Tropical Pacific SST Warming Pattern Projected by CMIP6 Models
Quote from the study:
However, there has been a long-standing uncertainty as to whether the zonal SST gradient in the tropical Pacific will be strengthened or weakened under global warming (Seager et al., 2019; Watanabe et al., 2021). On the one hand, the majority of climate models, such as those from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), project a future weakened east-west SST gradient—the so-called “El Niño-like” warming pattern (Huang and Ying, 2015)—which lies in stark contrast to observations that depict a strengthened east-west SST gradient in recent decades—the “La Niña-like” warming pattern (Seager et al., 2022). This model–observation discrepancy lowers the reliability of model-projected results, as part of the discrepancy is believed to be caused by different responses to external forcing (Lee et al., 2022; Heede and Fedorov, 2023). On the other hand, there are also prominent inter-model differences in the projected tropical Pacific SST warming (TPSW) pattern under the same future emission scenario. Although most climate models project an El Niño-like warming pattern, a few models still project a La Niña-like warming pattern (Kohyama et al., 2017) or a zonally uniform pattern (DiNezio et al., 2009). Such inter-model uncertainty is one of the most severe problems in global climate change projections (Ma and Xie, 2013; Cai et al., 2021). Here, we focus on the inter-model difference in the projected TPSW pattern while leaving the model–observation discrepancy in the TPSW pattern to be examined in other studies. [bold added]
via Tallbloke’s Talkshop
March 5, 2025 at 06:36AM
50.79522 0.28299 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 4 Installed 1/1/1896 but who knows where?
This is probably the most confusing station review of all I have made so far. Tim Channon reviewed this site in 2012 as an object lesson in where to “hide” rather than locate a Stevenson screen.
Tim’s original report is essential reading in setting the scene for modern updating. The depth of detail Tim went to including original 19th century siting, data on the adjacent transformers and all the other various compromising factors was very impessrive indeed
As Tim identified, the screen then marginally relocated within its immediate locality was one of the worst sites possible being technically below ground level. Below is the best 2009 image I could manage looking down onto the screen roof in photo centre behind the (then) public toilets.
However, the area does not look like this now and there are no notes in the archives indicating the relocation or when it was. Here is the latest image of the 2012 known site now – no screen anymore!
The Met Office does not rename nor renumber sites on relocation if the distance moved is small or the local climatology does not significantly change. The screen was moved to my headline image site at some subsequent data to a site that was thus, presumably, judged to be equally bad. Again it is only just possible to make out the new site in Streetview as it is almost entirely obscured by tall hedging – so much so it might as well be below ground level.
The new screen is also still a manually reporting one as presumably the site was not considered worth the expense of automating. However, whether or not the site is even still operational at all is debateable. CEDA archives indicate readings stopped 2/10/2023 even though the site is still listed as active here.
I contacted the Met Office over two weeks ago to clarify (Case number CS0090364) however, answering simple yes/no questions seems remarkably slow from them at the moment.
In summary Eastbourne was a very poor quality manual site of several different locations over time that was also relocated at some recent, but unspecified date, to an equally bad one – it may or may not still be operational. Confused? I am.
via Tallbloke’s Talkshop
March 5, 2025 at 04:46AM
