THIS WEEK:
by Ken Haapala, President,
Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope:
After discussions over the past few weeks on how global climate modelers ignore advances in our understanding of the atmosphere, particularly over the past 50 years, and our understanding of earth’s climate history, particularly over the past 2.5 million years, this TWTW discusses some of the consequences of this deliberate ignorance. [If surgeons deliberately ignored advances in medicine over the past 50 years, they would be accused of medical malpractice. Instead, climate modelers receive Nobel Prizes.
... natural causes of the February 2021 Texas Norther which dove deep into the southern Great Plains, the June 2021 hot ridge over the Pacific Northwest and western Canada, and the July 2021 flooding of parts of Germany. The group known as World Weather Attribution wasted no time calculating exact probabilities that carbon dioxide was the likely cause for the latter two events. Ross McKitrick has shown that the frequency probabilities used by World Weather Attribution have no basis in established Probability Theory, thus their estimates are meaningless.
... Also discussed will be a series of op-eds and articles in the Wall Street Journal on the new Disinformation Governance Board being established by the Department of Homeland Security under the Biden Administration. Had the Trump Administration set up such a board, the howls from mainstream media would have been deafening.
Also, this week, Biden’s Department of Justice announced it established an office for Environmental Justice. Fifty years after the Clean Water Act, the US does not have a solid operational definition of waters of the United States. How many years will it take for an operational definition of Environmental Justice?
For a few minutes at 2:50 pm on Saturday. April 30, 99.87% of electricity delivered by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) came from sources other than fossil fuels. Of course, this was trumpeted by promoters of solar and wind. Using data from CAISO, TWTW checked what happened at 7:15 pm when the sun was going down.
Paul Homewood and Andrew Montford continue to report on the false claims that offshore wind is a cost-effective alternative to fossil fuels.
******************
Extreme Weather Events Are Natural:
In a 20-minute video, with transcript, on his blog, ecologist Jim Steele discusses the pioneering work of Carl-Gustav Rossby in the 1940s on how jet streams “cause extreme weather when their waviness increases and causes weather patterns to linger over a region longer than normal.”
“Rossby insisted that the jet stream's wavy patterns were essential for the planet to achieve greater temperature equilibrium more efficiently as each wave's ridge transports more warm tropical air poleward and each trough drives more cold arctic air equator-ward.
“The jet stream normally steers mid-latitude weather systems relatively quickly from west to east across the globe. When that eastward movement slows, the jet streams become more wavy causing weather patterns to linger and extreme weather to evolve. Rossby noticed the minimal circulation speeds most frequently happened in late February and early March when sufficient cold arctic air reservoirs developed and pushed the jet stream equator-ward.
... a recent study shows that 34% of all USA weather stations with at least 70 years of data exhibit cooling trends and most are concentrated in the jet stream's trough.
“Knowing that published temperature data, when the government falsely claims in its ‘Climate Resilience Tool Kit,’ that cities in the southeast are at risk due to heat from climate change, that false claim only generates mistrust for the government's climate science narratives.
“Aligning with Rossby’s observation that the jet stream's greatest waviness occurs during winter when the reservoir of cold arctic air reaches a maximum, the jet stream dove deep into the southern United States between February 12th-19th, in 2021. Arctic air caused the regions colored purple to remain below freezing for over 160 hours.
It is important to note that such extreme cold periods occur in the Great Plains. Three occurred in the 1880s prompting Teddy Roosevelt to wonder if the Great Plains could support human settlement. Steele goes on further to explain how Rossby waves are similar to the meandering streams:
... Steele discusses other jet stream-caused extreme weather events such as the 2015 rapid summer melting in the colder northwestern Greenland while there was no such melting in the generally warmer south, and the severe flooding in western Germany in 2021 for which Steele states:
“But the real cause was the dynamics of a cut-off low that concentrated the moisture in that region for days
“Cut off lows are called weatherman’s woes because it unpredictably causes extreme weather. Cut off lows form from the same naturally evolving fluid dynamics that cause cutoff highs and omega blocks.”
Unfortunately, once distinguished science groups follow the CO2 fad and fail to look at naturally occurring events. A leader in this false blaming of CO2 is the World Weather Attribution group (WWA).
According to its website, “WWA is a partnership of:
“Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford (ECI) “Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) “Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environment (LSCE) “University of Princeton “National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) “Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre (The Climate Centre).
Again, we see the influence of the Princeton modeling group and NCAR, where climate modelers fail to test their models against over forty years of comprehensive atmospheric temperature trends and the compilation of spectroscopic parameters used to predict and simulate the transmission and emission of light in the atmosphere, the high-resolution transmission molecular absorption database (HITRAN).
******************
Fear and Anger at Public Hearings for Nut Zero:
Attorney Francis Menton describes his thoughts about those who gave presentations for over two hours at a public hearing of The Climate Action Council (CAC) which developed a plan for reducing CO2 emissions in the State of New York:
“The first statutory target is a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, which as a practical matter means that fossil fuels must be almost completely eliminated from the electricity sector by that date. The Council issued its Draft Scoping Plan for how to achieve the targets on December 30, 2021. The Draft Scoping Plan is some 300 pages of text plus 500 pages of appendices; but the gist comes down to, we will order the private sector to eliminate emissions by various dates certain, and then it is up to the little people to work out the details.”
After reflecting on the hearing Menton wrote:
“As stated in my prior post, of the 60 or so speakers, all but myself and four others were vigorous supporters of the critical necessity of achieving the stated zero carbon goals by the given dates as an urgent matter of saving our planet and our children. This was so despite what appeared to me to be manifestly huge issues of physical feasibility and cost that are almost certain to cause these grand ‘net zero’ energy schemes to fail. The CAC’s draft ‘Scoping Plan,’ as it currently exists for public comment, does not consider these feasibility or cost issues in any remotely adequate fashion, if at all. That fact did not appear to bother the overwhelming majority of the speakers.”
“The previous post mentioned fear as a common theme — fear that use of fossil fuels by us New Yorkers will bring on storms, floods, and other disasters to threaten our lives and livelihoods. But what I failed to mention was another emotion that was even more prevalent in the comments — anger.”
One can imagine what may happen to this fear and anger when members of the public recognize they have been fooled into believing there is a climate crisis when there is none. Once government tried to quell fear, now it exploits it.
******************
Ministry of Truth?
The Biden Administration continues with steps towards an authoritarian government, tolerating no disagreement. In an amazing action the Department of Homeland Security established a Disinformation Governance Board (DGB). Since the administration has declared a climate crisis that only appears only in an imaginary atmosphere found in climate models rather than in physical evidence, it is extremely difficult to grasp what is disinformation to this administration?
In “Disinformation for Dummies” an editorial in the Wall Street Journal begins: We realize public schools don’t teach the classics anymore, but has no one in the Biden Administration read George Orwell? Apparently not, because that’s the only explanation for its creation of a new Disinformation Governance Board.
We have to admit that when we first read about it, we thought the news was itself disinformation from the Administration’s political enemies. Surely, no one in this age of polarization and public mistrust of institutions would think it’s wise to set up a government shop with the job of telling Americans what is true.
We were wrong. No less an authority than Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, broke the news about the board last week in an appearance before Congress. He said the purpose of this new corner of the bureaucracy will be to warn Americans about falsehoods coming from foreign adversaries such as Russia, China and cartels that smuggle migrants into the United States.
After presenting comments by the secretary of Homeland Security, the editorial continues: But does anyone think this board will limit itself to foreign falsehoods? The temptation will be great to address issues that are part of America’s raucous domestic political debate.
All the more so given that the disinformation board’s first executive director is reported to be Nina Jankowicz, whose partisan footprints are all over social media. She can be seen on TikTok singing her own highly partisan adapted lyrics to the tune of a ‘Mary Poppins’ song. (What did Julie Andrews do to deserve that?)
In an article titled “Biden Establishes a Ministry of Truth” professors of finance and economics, respectively, Roger Koppl and Abigail Devereaux write about threat experts: “If you predict doom and nothing much happens, it was because of your wise warning. If you don’t predict doom and reality is worse than you predicted, you will be blamed and shamed. The incentives are clear. Truth experts at the DGB will proclaim grave threats around every turn even when any ‘threats’ are minor to nonexistent.
“By creating the DGB, the U.S. government is creating a crisis monitor with the dial permanently set to ‘existential threat.’ No one inside the board will have the incentive—or the courage—to dial it down.”
In another essay, columnist Gerard Baker begins: “It’s always exciting for progressives when they create a new government office of something or other. They live for this: another excuse to spend piles of taxpayer dollars; another polysyllabic title and flashy logo; another opportunity to extend the long, comforting arm of the bureaucracy into the business of ordinary citizens who never knew how impoverished their lives were without it.”
After discussing false claims by President Obama, he concludes:
“You don’t promote truth by banning error. You don’t have a monopoly on truth in the first place, and you may discover your “truths” are errors or lies. Even if you’re right, and epistemically 100% certain, it doesn’t give you the authority to ban someone from saying something different.
“The only proven effective way to counter bad information is with good information. The only way to overcome lies is with truth, and the government can’t be the arbiter of what that is.”
*****************
Operational Definition of "Waters":
An operational definition for “physical sciences” can be described as physical evidence which can be observed and measured. In discussing new litigation seeking clarity of the definition of U.S. Waters (which have included piles of wet leaves far from any stream) Jan Stroup writes:
“’Fifty years after the enactment of the Clean Water Act, its reach is clear as mud,’ writes Jonathan Wood, introducing an amicus brief for a Supreme Court case.”
The Department of Justice has announced a new office focused on environmental justice. The concept appears to be as clear as muddy waters. The enforcement strategy (as of now) appears to be: DOJ will force those whom they don’t like to either pay off the friends of DOJ, or else suffer consequences.
******************
California Electricity Was 100% Renewable for a Few Moments
According to a report from Palm Springs:
“While partygoers celebrated in the blazing sunshine at the Stagecoach music festival, energy demand statewide hit 18,672 megawatts at 2:45 p.m., "and at 2:50, we reached 99.87% of load served by all renewables, which broke the previous record ... of 97.58%," said Anna Gonzales, spokeswoman for California Independent System Operator, or CAISO, a nonprofit that oversees the state's bulk electric power system and transmission lines.”
TWTW checked the next day and found that according to CAISO: at 2:50 pm Solar generated 12,462 MW, Wind 4,790; Geothermal 774; Biogas 201; and Small Hydro 153.
By 7:15 pm Solar was near zero, but who needs electricity at night to keep the lights on? At 7:15 pm Large hydro supplied 2,459 MW [including dams from outside of California]; Imports 4,241 [power supplied outside of California regardless of source]; Batteries 779 and Nuclear 2,260. Solar power is not ready for prime time.
******************
Corrections on Volcanoes:
Last week when discussing emissions from volcanoes TWTW incorrectly stated that hydrofluoric acid, HF, is a weak acid. Its corrosive ability varies, depending on source of information. TWTW thanks the readers who corrected this error. It is amazing the AAAS Science publishes articles claiming that volcanoes give off carbon dioxide which forms a weak acid while ignoring the strong acids so emitted."