From: Climate Etc.

By: Judith Curry

Date: November 17, 2023

A bad recipe for science

Politically-motivated manufacture of scientific consensus corrupts the scientific process and leads to poor policy decisions

An essay with excerpts from my new book Climate Uncertainty and Risk.

In the 21st century, humankind is facing a myriad of complex societal problems that are characterized by deep uncertainties, systemic risks and disagreements about values. Climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic are prominent examples of such wicked problems. For such problems, the relevant science has become increasingly like litigation, where truth seeking has become secondary to politics and advocacy on behalf of a preferred policy solution.

How does politics influence the scientific process for societally relevant issues? Political bias influences research funding priorities, the scientific questions that are asked, how the findings are interpreted, what is cited, and what gets canonized.  Factual statements are filtered in assessment reports and by the media with an eye to downstream political use.

How does politics influence the behavior of scientists? There is pressure on scientists to support consensus positions, moral objectives and the relevant policies.  This pressure comes from universities and professional societies, scientists themselves who are activists, journalists and from federal funding agencies in terms of research funding priorities. Because evaluations by one’s colleagues are so central to success in academia, it is easy to induce fear of social sanctions for expressing the ideas that, though not necessarily shown to be factually or scientifically wrong, are widely unpopular.

Activist scientists use their privileged position to advance moral and political agendas. This political activism extends to the professional societies that publish journals and organize conferences. This activism has a gatekeeping effect on what gets published, who gets heard at conferences, and who receives professional recognition. Virtually all professional societies whose membership has any link to climate research have issued policy statements on climate change, urging action to eliminate fossil fuel emissions. (continue reading)

A bad recipe for science

The 2023 hurricane season has not provided many opportunities for the wizards of instant climate change attribution to assess the impacts of climate change on the performance of individual tropical cyclones. Perhaps this represents an opportunity for them to refocus from “separating the fly specks from the pepper” and apply their vaunted models and analytical skills to understanding why tropical depressions, storms and cyclones form and what determines how they move and develop after they form. The 2023 hurricane season certainly offers some interesting study subjects.

Hurricane Hillary, which formed off the coast of Baja, California made landfall in southern California as a tropical storm and saturated portions of southern California and Nevada. Hillary was an unusual, but not unprecedented storm. What caused this storm to form and what caused it to track through the US Southwest?

What caused tropical storm Otis to form and then rapidly intensify to Cat 5 before making landfall in Acapulco, Mexico?

What caused Hurricane Idalia to form and what caused it to make landfall in a portion of Florida which has not ever experienced a hurricane landfall? What caused it to turn East and move into the Atlantic?

What caused Hurricane Lee to move up the East coast of the US and only make landfall as a tropical storm in Maine and Nova Scotia?

What caused tropical storm Ophelia to form and then to make landfall in North Carolina and move North through the US Northeast?

Why did so many 2023 storms stall or turn North in the mid-Atlantic and then dissipate?

To put these questions in the format preferred by the climate change attribution wizards:

• What impact (if any) did climate change have on the number of tropical waves which formed in 2023?
• What impact (if any) did climate change have on the location at which tropical waves developed?
• What impact (if any) did climate change have on the number of tropical waves which developed into tropical disturbances?
• What impact (if any) did climate change have on the number of tropical waves which developer into tropical depressions?
• What impact (if any) did climate change have on the number of tropical depressions which developed into tropical storms?
• What impact (if any) did climate change have on the number of tropical storms which developed into hurricanes?
• What impact (if any) did climate change have on the number of hurricanes which developed into major hurricanes?
• What impact (if any) did climate change have on the number of these major hurricanes which made landfall?
• What impact (if any) did climate change have on rapid intensification?

It is interesting to ask these questions against the background of a less active than normal hurricane season with only two landfalling hurricanes; and, in a year in which a rare, but not unprecedented, tropical storm made landfall in southern California.

Asking these questions in a year of below average tropical cyclone activity in all of the basins prone to tropical cyclone development might seem strange and perhaps a bit unfair to the climate change attribution wizards, but they must be asked and hopefully answered.

From: Climate Etc.

By: Balázs M. Fekete

Date: November 14, 2023

Net-Zero Targets: Sustainable Future or CO2 Obsession Driven Dead-end?

For over three decades, the reduction of CO2 emission was the primary motivation for promoting the transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources. Concerns about the inevitable exhaustion of fossil fuels were considered particularly during energy crises, but these concerns died out quickly as discoveries of new fossil fuel reserves such as the shale revolution in the US that appeared to secure energy supplies.

An under-appreciated paper by Murphy et al. (1) offers very strong arguments that the energy transition is a must that has to happen in a short time. Anyone looking at Figure 1 from this paper should be more concerned about running out of fossil fuels than climate change. It is almost certain that the spike on Figure 1 will only last for a few centuries irrespective of the exact location of the star, and fossil fuel era will be only a fraction of the history of human civilizations. This period will not last long enough to deserve the proposed anthropocene[1] designation. The industrial era might rightfully be called a geological event that triggers post-anthropocene, but by no means will it last long enough to qualify as geological age or epoch.

Murphy et al. (1) demonstrates vividly how short the energy transition has to be via a seemingly absurd calculation based on the modest 2.4% annual growth rate () of energy consumption (originally observed in the US that the global energy consumption follows now). This growth rate conveniently corresponds to a 10-fold increase per century. (continue reading)

Net-Zero Targets: Sustainable Future or CO2 Obsession Driven Dead-end?

The stated goal of the US Administration’s renewable energy transition is to replace all dispatchable fossil-fueled electricity generation and all direct fossil fuel usage with renewable electricity to reduce CO2 emissions. Logically, the first fossil-fueled generation to be replaced would be coal-fired generation, since it emits the largest quantity of CO2 per unit of electricity output.

There has yet to be a successful demonstration of an electric grid powered predominantly by renewable generation. Potential approaches to such a demonstration have been proposed here, here, here and here. However, each of these demonstration proposals would have involved a very extensive and expensive program.

The demonstration challenge proposed here would be a far simpler and less expensive demonstration, not of an entire renewable grid, but only of the direct replacement of a coal-fired generator with renewable generation plus storage sufficient to render the renewable generation the dispatchable equivalent of the displaced coal-fired generator.

Coal-fired generators are historically available to generate electricity at their rating plate capacity approximately 85% of the hours of the year. Therefore, a 100 MW coal-fired generator would be available to generate approximately 745,000 MWhrs (8760 hrs * 0.85 * 100 MW) each year.

Wind generators are historically able to generate at variable capacities up to rating plate capacity as a function of available wind speeds. Total generation in any given month historically ranges from 23-43% of rating plate capacity, averages approximately 36% and may approach or be zero for periods of hours or days. Therefore, a wind generation system capable of providing 100 MW capacity generation 85% of the time would require rating plate capacity of approximately 300 - 400 MW and storage sufficient to store excess electricity generated when the wind is blowing for use when the wind is not blowing or is blowing at lower speeds.

Solar generators are historically able to generate at variable capacities up to rating plate capacity as a function of available solar insolation. Total generation in any given month historically ranges from 13–32% of rating plate capacity, averages approximately 25%, may approach zero during the day and will achieve zero at night. Therefore, a solar generation system capable of providing 100 MW capacity generation 85% of the time would require a rating plate capacity of approximately 300-700 MW and storage sufficient to store excess electricity generated during the day for use at night and during periods of low insolation.

In both cases, some of the excess generation capacity required during months when generation is low could be offset with long-duration storage, though that storage is not currently available.

The challenge presented here is to build a wind plus storage generation system and a solar plus storage generation system which demonstrate the ability to be dispatched in the same way as a coal-fired generator is dispatched for 85% of the hours of the year. Once this capability has been demonstrated, it should be straightforward to calculate the adjustments to generation and storage capacity required to replace a natural gas fired combined-cycle generator (~90% availability) or a nuclear generator (~95% availability).

The installed cost of the demonstration systems could then be compared with the installed costs of the coal, natural gas and nuclear generators. The cost per kWh delivered by each of the systems could also be compared.

TANSTAAFL – There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

From: Thunder Said Energy

Date: November, 2023

Thermal energy storage: cost model?

This data-file captures the costs of thermal energy storage, buying renewable electricity, heating up a storage media, then releasing the heat for industrial, commercial or residential use. Our base case requires 13.5 c/kWh-th for a 10% IRR, however 5-10 c/kWh-th heat could be achieved with lower capex costs.

Thermal energy storage solutions aim to help integrate solar and wind into power grids, by absorbing excess generation that would otherwise be curtailed, and then re-releasing the heat later when renewables are not generating.

Different storage media are compared in one of the back-up tabs of the model. However, one-third of the companies in our thermal energy storage company screen are pursuing molten salt systems, hence our thermal energy storage model focuses on this option. (continue reading)

Thermal energy storage: cost model?

We have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving and much about which to be concerned.

We can be thankful that the much-predicted “climageddon” has not occurred and does not appear to be imminent, or even reasonable, despite the constant chorus of “climate crisis”, “existential threat” and “climate emergency” from the UN, governments and the sycophantic media.

We can be thankful that there are still no significant trends regarding the frequency, intensity or duration of “extreme” weather events, such as tropical cyclones, tornadoes, droughts, floods and wildfires.

We can be thankful for the continuing “global greening”, most of which is attributed to increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations and for the modest warming which has  extended growing seasons and expanded acreage suitable for farming and grazing.

We can be thankful that the alarmist interest in ”climate lockdowns”, travel restrictions and dietary restrictions have gained little traction in the US, though they are beginning to have an impact in the EU and UK. There is diminishing interest in “veggie burgers”,  virtually no interest in “Franken meat”, and revulsion regarding “bug burgers”.

We can be thankful that farmers in the EU and UK are aggressively resisting government programs to remove agricultural land from production and destroy meat and dairy animals. These programs are inconsistent with concerns about maintaining and improving dietary condition for a growing global population.

We can be thankful that the climate alarmist interest in “15-Minute Cities” has not yet resulted in a federal program to construct such cities in the US. The US experience with high density, multi-use developments has been less than encouraging.

We should be concerned about the growing pressure in the US and globally for the declaration of a “climate emergency”, which could empower global governments to suspend freedoms and impose mandates and restrictions.

We should be concerned about Covering Climate Now, the global climate propaganda cooperation of nearly 400 media organizations flooding the media with climate alarmism and effectively drowning out skeptical discussions regarding climate change.

We should be concerned about US “climate czar” John Kerry’s focus on agriculture and animal husbandry as a contributor to climate change and his calls for reducing that contribution.

We should be concerned about the Administration’s continuing “war” on the fossil fuel industry, including its efforts to choke off fossil fuel supplies by limiting exploration and production.

We should be concerned about the recent focus of US electric utilities, ISOs and RTOs on grid stability and reliability in the face of expanding renewable generation and declining conventional generation resources.

We should be concerned about suggestions that occasional grid blackouts might be acceptable as an approach to combating climate change, particularly regarding the impacts on customers with critical health issues, hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation facilities and prisons. This concern could become acute if fossil-fueled on-site standby generation is banned.

We should be concerned about the rising cost of energy in the US economy and globally as investments in redundant renewable generation infrastructure increase. Rising energy costs have shuttered some manufacturing facilities in the EU and UK and have created energy poverty for growing portions of the population.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”, H. L. Mencken

From: Watts Up With That

By: Kevin Kitty

Date: November 5, 2023

Setting Utility Rates

Until about a year ago, I thought about public utility regulation as too boring, too far outside my education, and unrelated to my interests and experience to bother with. I was wrong.

Figure 1. The relationships among interest on bonds and dividends to preferred shares (collectively called debt) and return on capital to return to ordinary shareholders (equity)

What prompted my change of view was recognizing that a frontline in the war, if you will, to remake the electric grid will take place not in arguments about the reality of climate change, but when utilities decide to change the way they generate electrical energy and pay for these changes. The permission to make these changes, and how the ratepayer gets hit afterward, are decided in the public service commissions which by law have to make their deliberations substantially transparent to the public. In particular permission for changes are gained in hearings of public necessity and convenience; how the ratepayer gets hit is decided in rate cases. I plan to examine only rate setting in this brief essay.

My principal goal is this. Many of us are pretty certain that pouring more renewable energy into a network makes delivered energy more expensive and less reliable. We often point to a graph that shows costs rising with percent renewable contributions to generating capacity. Yet, our antagonists claim that adding energy from renewables should, and in fact does, reduce utility costs. They have data, too. We strengthen our case by demonstrating specific reasons, or lack thereof, for rising utility bills. The rate setting process ought to make those reasons visible.

I also suspect most people know little about rate setting and are unaware about its complexity. It’s important to understand this bit of the order of battle.

Where I live we are in the middle of a general rate case affecting one-half the state.  It calls for substantial rate increases (21.6% or over $140 million) and has become exceptionally contentious. It resembles rate cases that have been decided or are in progress across the U.S.[1] The application for this general rate case includes thousands of pages of exhibits and appendices. (continue reading)

Setting Utility Rates

Free Range: allowed to range and forage with relative freedom
(Merriam-Webster)

Residents of the developed nations have largely been “free range” people, free to live where they choose to live, work where they choose to work, travel when and where they choose to travel, eat what they choose to eat and buy what they choose to buy within their means.

Those freedoms were interrupted, to one extent or another, by government edicts in response to the COVID19 pandemic. Travel was restricted, “non-essential” businesses were forced to close, offices and schools were closed and employees and students worked and studied from home over the internet.  In retrospect, it appears that much of this interruption of individual freedoms was unnecessary and, in some cases, counterproductive.

The pandemic lockdowns, however, resulted in a small but measurable decrease in global CO2 emissions. Government officials and climate change alarmists realized that similar, more extensive and longer-term lockdowns had the potential to reduce CO2 emissions to assist in achieving Net Zero emissions goals. There appeared to be little concern regarding the losses of freedom which would result from such actions.

There is growing discussion regarding climate lockdowns of various forms, including travel restrictions. Air travel restrictions are already in place in France, requiring shorter trips to be taken by train.

A climate initiative proposed by a group of major city mayors has proposed banning meat and dairy consumption, banning personal vehicles and limiting clothing purchases to three items per year per person. Producers are conducting major promotions for “veggie burgers”, “Frankenmeat” and nut-based dairy substitutes, while some governments are taking actions to remove farmland from production and to destroy meat and dairy animals.

The New York Times has declared the end of vacations to eliminate the associated CO2 emissions. So far, that demand has not been adopted by governments.

Urban Planners are touting the benefits of 15-Minute Cities, discussed here and here. One obvious “benefit” would be elimination of the need for personal vehicles, since most products and services would be available in the 15-minute city. While those who are interested in living in a 15-minute city should have the opportunity to do so, those not interested should not be pressured into moving into a highly concentrated urban environment.

Governments are imposing bans on internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and power equipment, natural gas and propane appliances, and fossil-fueled electric power generation and the use of fossil fuels in industrial production. In the US, the goal is to move to all-electric everything by 2050, with fixed dates for the elimination of coal (2030) and natural gas (2035) power generation.

The Ration Book shown in the cartoon below is unfortunately only a slight exaggeration of the measures which have been proposed to reduce CO2 emissions by restricting personal freedoms on a permanent basis.

There is growing pressure on the US federal government to declare a “climate emergency”, though there is clearly no such emergency. However, such a declaration would arguably empower the President to take many of the actions discussed above by executive fiat, avoiding the need for congressional action.

“Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”, Lord Acton

From: Climate Etc.

By: Iain Aitken

Date: October 31, 2023

Climate Change: A Curious Crisis

As explained in my new eBook, Climate Change: A Curious Crisis, the climate change ‘debate’ has long-since become a Manichaean, deeply polarized, ‘you are either with us or against us’ war of words in which both sides accuse the other of being closed-minded and refusing to accept the ‘facts’.

Instead of a respectful exchange of views and the seeking of mutual understanding and common ground we tend to find sarcasm and ridicule and ad hominem attacks, as mutually intolerant, entrenched positions have arisen based on different interpretations of the science and evidence and different perceptions of risk. What should have been a mutually cooperative, disinterested, value-free search for the truth (basically, ‘science’) has morphed into a combative, biased, value-laden promotion of positions and ‘point scoring’ over opponents (basically, ‘politics’). Lest they yield any dialectical ground to their opponents, ‘doomsters’ are deeply reluctant to admit (perhaps even to themselves) that climate change might actually be predominantly natural and benign – and ‘deniers’ are deeply reluctant to admit (perhaps even to themselves) that climate change might actually be predominantly man-made and dangerous.

So what is the doomsters’ story? One of the most prominent and vocal doomsters is António Guterres, the UN Secretary General, who, in August 2021, described the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report as ‘a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil-fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk'.

And in response to the news that July 2023 was likely to be the warmest July since records began he stated, ‘The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.’ So what is all this ‘irrefutable evidence’ of the climate crisis that has so convinced Guterres and his fellow doomsters? Let’s examine a few representative examples:

(1) We know, based on the Anthropogenic Global Warming theory, that increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere (e.g. by burning fossil fuels) will cause global warming to occur. (continue reading)

Climate Change: A Curious Crisis

Oxymoron: (Merriam-Webster)
: a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (such as cruel kindness)
broadly : something (such as a concept) that is made up of contradictory or incongruous elements

Members of the consensed climate science community, climate alarmists, politicians with an agenda and the compliant mass media have produced and promulgated a “veritable plethora” (HT: Howard Cosell) of oxymorons intended to “sell the science” and demean skeptics.

Climate Denier – Supposed “shorthand” for more complex descriptions, such as Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming skeptic or Global Climate Change skeptic. Ridiculous because there is no one who denies that the earth has a climate. Demeaning because of the intended association with Holocaust denial.

Scientific Consensus – Implying that what many or most climate scientists believe must then be true, even though science is not conducted by consensus. The whole concept is based on a cursory review of the abstracts of a small subset of scientific papers dealing with climate.

Settled Science – Implying that the scientific study is complete and the science is understood. This concept is ridiculous in climate science, since the sensitivity of climate to changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations is not known, though it is asserted to fall within an identified range of values; and, since the magnitude of feedbacks is unknown, including whether the feedbacks are positive or negative.

Climate Model - Implying that a mathematical model exists which is capable of accurately simulating the function of the climate and also capable of projecting the future response of climate to perturbations. However, there remain numerous “climate models”, none of which accurately and completely simulate the function of the climate when compared to measurements and observations.

Instant Attribution – The claim that computerized climate attribution models can estimate the extent to which identified climate changes such as atmospheric or ocean warming contribute to changes in current weather events, such as the frequency, intensity, speed of movement and precipitation intensity and volume of precipitation associated with specific tropical cyclones. Some also claim attribution capability regarding tornadoes, droughts, floods and even wildfires.

Climate Crisis – The assertion that an increase of global average near surface temperature of 1(+/-0.2)°C over a period of 150 years, or the potential increase of an additional 1°C over the next 80 years represents a “crisis”, or an “emergency” or an “existential threat”. This despite the fact that the near surface temperature increases and decreases by ~10°C every day, or approximately 0.8°C per hour; and that the near surface temperature increases and decreases by ~25°C seasonally.

Carbon Pollution – Implying that CO2 is the same as carbon and is a pollutant rather than an essential factor in the health and growth of all types of plants, including the cereal grains which constitute a major component of human and animal diets. This oxymoron ignores the impact of increased atmospheric CO2 on global greening.

Inflation Reduction Act – The progressive fantasy that pumping additional money into an already inflating economy, also suffering from supply chain disruptions, to subsidize the sale of uneconomic products and the installation of redundant facilities would somehow magically reduce inflation.

These oxymorons are used by other types of morons to harass and vilify skeptics, to mislead the public on the status of climate science and to frustrate the advancement of climate science.

From: Electroverse

By: Cap Allon

Date: October 24, 2023

Top Climate Scientist Slams Climate Alarm: Carbon Dioxide Is A “Particularly Ridiculous” Choice As A Pollutant

TOP CLIMATE SCIENTIST SLAMS CLIMATE ALARM

Warming by carbon dioxide is logarithmic due to ‘saturation’ within the infrared spectrum, and any future doubling of the gas in the atmosphere will be associated with the same warming of around 1°C.

This is considered obvious by atmospheric scientist and Emeritus Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT, and hardly controversial — although in today’s politicized environment, where CO2 has been forged into a scary and taxable ‘stick’ to bop the global population over the head with, this thinking does fatally undermine the ‘settled’ science concept of the AGW Party and so is regarded as heresy punishable by censorship and demonetization.

Professor Lindzen notes that the present “absurd ‘scientific’ narrative” leaves us with a quasi-religious movement — atop of all this has been the ”constant Goebellian repetition by the media of climate alarm”.

In a paper published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), Lindzen warns that unless we wake up to the absurdity of the motivating narrative, “this is only likely to be the beginning of the disasters that will follow from the current irrational demonization of CO2”, disasters which include the “hobbling” of Western energy systems.

CARBON DIOXIDE IS A “PARTICULARLY RIDICULOUS” CHOICE AS A POLLUTANT

Lindzen considers it “absurd” to assume that the controlling factor for temperature changes Earth’s complex three-dimensional climate system is the small contribution of CO2.

He notes the evidence from the Antarctica Vostok ice core that showed cooling preceded decreases in CO2 during the glaciation cycles of the last 700,000 years; and for the paleoclimatic record, which goes back 600 million years, it is shows “no suggestion of any correlation with carbon dioxide at all.”

Carbon dioxide is a “particularly ridiculous” choice as a pollutant, continues Lindzen, because its primary role is as a fertilizer and currently “almost all plants are starved of CO2”. (continue reading)

Top Climate Scientist Slams Climate Alarm: Carbon Dioxide Is A “Particularly Ridiculous” Choice As A Pollutant

Know;
1a(1) : to perceive directly : have direct cognition of
2a : to be aware of the truth or factuality of : be convinced or certain of

Imagine:
1: to form a mental image of (something not present)
2: suppose, guess
3: to form a notion of without sufficient basis

Project
1a : to devise in the mind : design
  b : to plan, figure, or estimate for the future

Source: Merriam-Webster

We “know” what can be observed or measured, either from personal experience or from the experience of others, past and present. However, there are limits to our knowledge, imposed by our limited exposure or the reliability of the reporting of others with different or broader experience, or with agendas. What we “know” about the past becomes less detailed and less certain the further it is removed in time from the present, especially in periods prior to direct measurement, when what we “know” is based on proxies. In the interpretation of proxies, what we “know” frequently is more what we believe.

As what we “know” transitions from contemporary observation and measurement to recorded observation to interpretation of proxies we are forced to imagine details for which we have no proxies or for which the proxies are ambiguous. We are forced to imagine and develop scenarios which appear to be consistent with the proxy information available. The existence of multiple scenarios based on available proxies clearly marks the transition from “know” to “imagine”, since we cannot “know” two things which are inconsistent or in conflict with each other.

The future is uncertain and, like the past, becomes less certain the longer the timeframe being considered. Regarding the future, over any timeframe, we cannot “know” anything. We are reduced to projecting futures based on our knowledge of the present and the past. Uncertainties regarding details of conditions in the past and present are magnified as those uncertainties are projected into the future.  Uncertainties regarding the effects of factors which might influence projections of potential future conditions result in future scenarios which diverge into the projected future. It is not possible to know which, if any, of these future scenarios is accurate.

There is also significant risk in attempting to analyze what we measure or observe based on what we “know” about the past or about conditions which existed when the event occurred. This is the intent of “attribution science” which purports to model a recent event and then calculate how that event might have been affected by observed conditions at the time of the event. Attribution modeling tells us, on one hand, that a particular event could not have happened without the presence of an event or change we have observed; or, on the other hand, that an event was more likely, or more intense, or otherwise varied because of the occurrence of an event or change we have observed. These “attribution studies” are based, not on what we “know”, but rather on what we “believe” about what we “know”. Regrettably, they are frequently presented as certainty, though they lack sufficient basis for such certainty.

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” (Attribution uncertain)

From: CFACT

By: Rupert Darwall

Date: October 12, 2023

Book review: Climate Uncertainty and Risk, By Judith Curry

Just over three decades ago, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed by President George H. W. Bush in Rio de Janeiro. It has one objective: to stabilize concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere so as to prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” This objective incorporates three assumptions that collectively constitute a scientific and policy paradigm of climate change.

The first assumption is that climate change is caused exclusively by human emissions of greenhouse gases, principally from the combustion of fossil fuels. The second asserts that all the climate impacts from burning fossil fuels are unambiguously bad for people and the planet. The third is that the solution is the progressive—and preferably rapid—elimination of fossil fuels, requiring mankind to do without its main source of energy.

Five presidents and a generation later, this paradigm has been elevated into an overriding planetary imperative. Yet, on its own terms, the UNFCCC has failed. In the ten years before it was signed, global emissions of carbon dioxide rose from 18.88 giga-tonnes (GT) in 1982 to 22.58 GT in 1992, a decadal increase of 3.70 GT. By 2022, CO2 emissions had risen to 37.49 GT, implying an average decadal increase of 4.97 GT—a rise 34% higher than the increase in the decade prior to the UNFCCC. Despite the UNFCCC being further from its stated objective—global net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases—than when it was signed, paradoxically, the three assumptions that underpin it have hardened into unquestioned and unquestionable propositions driving the West’s futile attempt to decarbonize the global economy. Seen in these terms, the UNFCCC might well be the most consequential international agreement of all time.

Initially, these propositions did not command the universal assent of climate scientists. In its first assessment report, released in 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) observed that the average global temperature had increased by between 0.3°C and 0.6°C over the previous hundred years. “The size of this warming is broadly consistent with predictions of climate models, but it is also of the same magnitude as natural climate variability,” the IPCC declared. (contine reading)

Book review: Climate Uncertainty and Risk, By Judith Curry

Nature has intervened in the climate change narrative in a major way with the eruption of the Hunga-Tonga (HT) volcano on the South Pacific seabed. The eruption has experienced minimal exposure in the media because it did not result in major loss of life or property damage. However, it might well prove to be one of the most consequential volcanic events in recent history.

NASA has estimated that the sub-sea eruption expelled sufficient water vapor into the stratosphere to increase stratospheric moisture concentration by approximately 13%, completely overwhelming the minor reduction in stratospheric moisture concentration measured over the past several decades.

Water vapor is the principal greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. A rapid increase of 13% in stratospheric moisture content should have an easily measurable impact on long wave infrared emissions and thus an easily calculable impact on global near-surface temperatures which can be compared to the observed impact. The heated water vapor also transported a significant amount of thermal energy to the atmosphere. The increased water vapor concentration should also ultimately lead to changes in global precipitation.

There has been little or no information provided on other impacts of the eruption. For example, the eruption involved a massive release of both thermal and mechanical energy, both of which contributed to the massive water vapor emission, vaporizing the sea water above the volcano and expelling it to the atmosphere as heated vapor.

However, not all of the water in the immediate vicinity of the volcano was heated sufficiently to vaporize, resulting in a large pool of heated water which should be easily identified and tracked by satellites and the Argo buoys. This pool of heated water might have measurable impacts on the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone and the current El Nino.

The volcanic eruption was a geological event, but it is very likely to influence both weather and climate over a period of several years as the result of the moisture and thermal energy additions to the global atmosphere.

Climate science has a rare opportunity to observe and analyze the effects of a significant step change in atmospheric conditions. Dr. Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) reported an increase of 0.35C in the global temperature anomaly in July. He suggested that it was unlikely that this increase was attributable to the developing El Nino, as it is too early in its development. He suggested that it might be the result of the volcanic eruption, at least in part.

Analyzing the effects of the volcanic eruption offers an excellent opportunity to test the projections of the climate models against observations and refine the models to more accurately model the global atmosphere and its response to changing conditions.

There have been suggestions that the recent, rapid increase in North Atlantic Ocean water temperatures might be the result of undersea volcanic eruptions in the Atlantic basin of lesser magnitude than the HT eruption. Analysis of satellite data and data from the Argo buoys might make it possible to confirm this hypothesis and to locate the volcanoes involved.

The HT eruption offers numerous exciting opportunities to advance the state of climate science.

From: Eigen Values - SubStack

By: David Turver

Date: October 7, 2023

Dismantling the Royal Society Large-Scale Electricity Storage Report

The Royal Society report makes extraordinary claims that do not stand up to scrutiny.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan

Summary

The Royal Society (RS) has recently released its Large-Scale Electricity Storage report that says we can provide the electricity we need using wind and solar power supported by large-scale hydrogen storage. The report makes some extraordinary claims that are interrogated by this report that also seeks to find the extraordinary evidence required to validate their claims. One positive aspect of the RS report is the painstaking analysis of the variations in wind and solar power we might expect over yearly and decadal timescales that drive the need for a very large energy store. The RS report also effectively rules out batteries as a viable alternative as a large-scale energy store.

However, the positive parts of the report stop there. They begin by assuming that electricity demand will be 570TWh in 2050 that represents roughly halving the energy demand across residential, transport and industrial and commercial categories. The evidence from Our World in Data shows that rich economies require high energy consumption to thrive. There are no rich countries with low energy consumption and those countries that have reduced energy consumption have grown more slowly, or even shrunk. The first extraordinary claim of low energy consumption fails because the evidence shows that if we allow that to happen, we will be much poorer.

The report then goes on to assume that the profile of electricity demand will be the same as today. However, as we move from gas to electricity to heat our homes and offices, the winter surge in electricity demand will be further exaggerated. Moreover, demand will change from year to year such as during the cold winter in 2010 that also coincided with a calm period when we would have generated much less renewable electricity. These variations in demand profile will lead to more generation capacity and an even bigger energy store than RS assumes, pushing up costs.

On the supply-side, the report assumes unrealistic load factors for both onshore and offshore wind. They assume that the installed capacity in 2050 will have load factors far higher than has been achieved so far. Even allowing for some technological improvements, the capacity they need to meet their low generation target will need to increase by at least 20%. This would mean a sizeable increase in the capital costs of generation to deliver their plan, pushing up the costs of wind power very significantly. In fact, the costs they assume for renewable electricity generation are three or four times lower than we pay today through Contracts for Difference (CfDs) and Feed-in-Tariffs (FiTs) and are very much lower than achieved in the latest auction round. Using more realistic assumptions about generation costs would double their weighted average generation cost to around £90/MWh. (continue reading)

Dismantling the Royal Society Large-Scale Electricity Storage Report