SOURCE:
The Week That Was: (October 1, 2022)The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “A man who is certain he is right is almost sure to be wrong.”– Michael Faraday
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
The weather disturbance in Southeast US disrupted travel resulting in a brief TWTW with a very brief This Week Section.
Tim Ball – RIP: The world lost a gentleman and scholar with the death of Timothy Francs Ball at the age of eighty-three.
Tim retired as a professor at the University of Winnipeg specializing in geography with emphasis on historical climatology.
He emphasized the weather records of the Hudson Bay Company which covered the area of North America that drains into the Hudson Bay, most of central Canada. The area is also known as Rupert’s Land.
The records show that warming and cooling in the area is natural, there is nothing unusual with today’s climate change.
Ball was co-author of Eighteenth-Century Naturalists of Hudson Bay which discusses the flora and fauna of Rupert’s Land as well as the careful efforts by members of the Hudson Bay Company to consistently record weather.
Although these locations were far distant from one another, they provide a solid 200-hundred-year record of what occurred over a large, major area of North America.
In 2007, Tim earned the wrath of the climate change alarmists including the United States Geological Survey when he criticized the listing of the polar bear as an endangered species about to be eliminated by global warming.
Based on the weather (climate) records, Ball did not consider the melting of the Arctic ice sheet unusual.
A member of the US National Snow and Ice Data Center strongly disagreed and trashed the paper, without evidence why.
We are now seeing that the polar bear is thriving due to a reduction in hunting (particularly the use of airplanes while hunting polar bear) and that the Arctic Ice Sheet is rebounding as it has in the past.
Tim long recognized the great failings of global climate models that are not tested against observations. He authored several essays on the importance of naturally occurring Rossby Waves.
These eddies, or swirls, can become stationary. In the summer they can cause stationary high-pressure systems, causing “heat waves.”
In the winter they can cause polar weather to descend on the east side of the Rockies, over parts of the Great Plains – a Texas “blue norther.”
Among other matters, he understood the difference of behavioral pattern of plains and woodland buffalo (bison) and how natives hunted them.
Since he plainly spoke for science based on evidence, Tim was sued by several people. Perhaps the worst was by Michael Mann, which drained him financially and emotionally.
Mr. Mann lost and was ordered to pay court costs in British Columbia, Canada. But Mr. Mann never did.
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Challenging the Orthodoxy: Recently retired from Plasma Physics Division, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Wallace Manheimer has authored papers on diverse subjects such as magnetic fusion, inertial fusion, and the energy/climate dilemma.
His recent paper in the Journal of Sustainable Development, “While the Climate Always Has and Always Will Change, There Is no Climate Crisis” is noteworthy.
Chairman of SEPP, Tom Sheahen gave a presentation to the Irish Climate Science Forum and CLINTEL on the second most absurd push by climate scientists after CO2 – Methane.
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Hurricanes: After a strong tropical storm weakens, it become an “extratropical” storm, but this has no clear definition as to either strength or latitude.
It is extratropical because it began in the tropics and was a cyclone (a hurricane).
Former hurricane Fiona hit eastern Canada and politicians shouted alarm of global warming; however, former hurricanes have hit Greenland as well, without such cries of alarm.
Hurricane Ian was a large strong storm that made landfall in the Fort Myers and Cape Coral area of Florida, where hurricanes seldom make landfall.
But the claims that the hurricane was unprecedented appear false. After presenting records of prior hurricanes, Paul Homewood writes:
“To be blunt, 130 Kt wind speeds are not consistent with 940 MB pressure.
“And this is not the only evidence of inconsistency.
Estimates of wind speeds from satellite data are largely based on the Digital Dvorak system, which measures temperatures within the cyclone.
“According to the satellites, Ian only peaked at around 120 Kts at landfall. Indeed, it briefly peaked higher on the 27th when winds were estimated at 110 Kts.
The red line represents the actual measurements, while the green line is the published number, in this case peaking at 135 Kts just prior to landfall:” [Homewood gives charts supporting his statements]
The claim of 150 mph winds (130 Kt) may be quietly abandoned.
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A Mineral Cliff? As the leaders of many nations assert that solar, wind and other sources of energy are the solution to the [non-existent] problem of human-caused climate change, resorting to censorship of “climate change deniers” is very much in vogue.
Further, advocates of the great energy-leap forward assume that there are no difficulties for obtaining the rare earths needed for this transition.
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According to an article in Geosystems and Geoenvironment, there are fourteen rare earths or metals that will be needed to reach net zero.
The most critical rare earths of metals are: Te (tellurium), In (Indium), Ag (silver), and Cd (Cadmium).