“Stunning Development” … EPA Chief Doesn’t Even Know If Climate Projections Are Rights Or Wrong!

By on 6. March 2015

It is indeed stunning. A must-watch. It’s as damaging a performance on behalf of a cause that you will ever see.

EPA chief Gina McCarthy also says she doesn’t even know whose models policy is being based on.

She says that the models diverging from actual observations “on the whole makes no difference to the validity in the robustness of climate science that is telling us that we are facing an absolute challenge that we must address …blah blah blah…”

Sorry, but it makes all the difference in science. McCarthy thus confirms observational data mean nothing and that climate science is a religion at the EPA.

“Whose models? What projections?” she asks – as if she has no idea what’s going on at all. This is as incompetent as you will ever see.

 

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Solar Cycle Weakening…And: German Analysis Shows Climate Models Do Overestimate CO2 Forcing

By on 5. March 2015

By Frank Bosse and Fritz Vahrenholt

In February the sun was very quiet in activity. The observed sunspot number (SSN) was only 44.8, which is only 53% of the mean value for this month into the solar cycles – calculated from the previous systematic observations of the earlier cycles.

Figure 1: Solar activity of the current Cycle No. 24 in red, the mean value for all previously observed cycles is shown in blue, and the up to now similar Cycle No. 1 in black.

It has now been 75 months since cycle No. 24 began in December, 2008. Overall this cycle has been only 53% of the mean value in activity. About 22 years ago (in November 1992) Solar Cycle No. 22 was also in its 75th month, and back then solar activity was 139% of normal value. The current drop in solar activity is certainly quite impressive. This is clear when one compares all the previous cycles:

Figure 2: Comparison of all solar cycles. The plotted values are the differences of the accumulated monthly values from mean (blue in Figure 1).

The solar polar magnetic fields have become somewhat more pronounced compared to the month earlier (see our Figure 2 “Die Sonne im Januar 2015 und atlantische Prognosen“) and thus the sunspot maximum for the current cycle is definitely history. It’s highly probable that over the next years we will see a slow tapering off in sunspot activity. Weak cycles such as the current one often follow. Thus the next minimum, which is defined by the appearance of the first sunspots in the new cycle 25, may first occur after the year 2020. The magnetic field of its sunspots will then be opposite of what we are currently observing in cycle 24.

The radiative forcing of CMIP5 models cannot be validated?

A recent paper by Marotzke/ Forster (M/F) is in strong discussion here at climateaudit.org with more than 800 comments. Nicolas Lewis pointed out the question: Is the method of M/F for evaluating the trends infected by circularity?

There is not only a discussion about the methods, but also about the main conclusion: “The claim that climate models systematically overestimate the response to radiative forcing from increasing greenhouse gas concentrations therefore seems to be unfounded.”

Is the natural variability really suppressing our efforts to separate the better models of the CMIP5 ensemble from not so good ones?

Here I present a method to find an approach.

Step 1

I investigated the ability of the 42 “series” runs of “Willis model sheet” (Thanks to Willis Eschenbach for the work to bring 42 anonymous CMIP5 models in “series”!) to replicate the least square linear trends from 1900 to 2014 (annual global data, 2014 is the constant end-date of these running trends). I calculated for each year from 1900 to 1995 the differences between the HadCRUT4 (observed) trends ending in 2014 and the trends of every “series” also ending in 2014. The sum of the squared residuals for 1900 to 1995 the differences between the HadCRUT4 (observed) trends ending in 2014 and the trends of every “series” also ending in 2014.

The sum of the squared residuals for 1900 to 1995 for every “series”:


Figure 3: The sum of the squared residuals for the running trends with constant end in 2014 from 1900,1901 and so on up to 1995 for every “Series” in “Willis sheet”. On the x-axis: the series 1…42.

Step 2

We describe the same procedure described in Step 1, but this time with the trends up to 2004, only 10 years before the end of the trend series:

Figure 4: The sum of the squared residuals for the running trends with constant end in 2014 from 1900, 1901 and so on up to 1995 for every “series” in the “Willis sheet”. On the x-axis: the series 1…42. The ordinate scale is the same as in Figure 3.

Here one sees that the errors for the trends until 2004 on average are much smaller (Figure 4) than they are for the trends up to 2014 (Figure 3). That is no wonder as the parameters of most models for the time period up to 2005 were “set“. Thus the depiction of the trends of the models up to 2014 are also well in agreement with observations:

Figure 5: The trends of the model mean (Mod. Mean, red) in °C/ year since 1900, 1901 etc. up to 1985 with the constant end-year 2004 compared to observations (black).

Obviously the setting of the model parameters no longer “hold” as the errors up to the year 2014 rise rapidly.

Step 3

We calculate the quotients of the errors for the 2014 trends divided by the errors for the 2004 trends (See Figure 4) for every single series and make a 2-dimensional check:

Figure 6: The single series as plotted points. The coordinates are determined by the trend error der until 2014 (X axis) and the ratio of the error up to 2014/2004 (Y axis). The red rectangle marks the “boundaries”, the “good“ series are inside, the “bad“ are outside.

The borders are represented by the standard deviations of both series.

The y-axis in Figure 6 above is the quotient of failures in trend estimations to 2014 (see Figure 5) divided by the trend estimations to 2004 (see Figure 4) with a standard deviation of 3.08; the x-axis is the accuracy of the series in trend estimation for the running trends with the constant end year 2014 (see Figure 5) with a standard deviation of 0.0038. The big differences of many series (up to a factor of 11) between the trend errors compared of 2004 and the trend errors to 2014 is impressive, isn’t it? The stability of the series with great differences seems to be in question, that’s why they are “bad”.

Step 4

Now comes the most interesting part: From the 42 runs of different series, I selected the “good” ones which are within the borders of the red rectangle in Figure 4 and calculated their average. The same procedure was done with all the “bad” ones.

Figure 7: The selected “good” series (see step 1-3), the series mean of all 42 series, the “bad” ones and the observations for rolling trends with constant end-year 2014 in K per annum.

The “good” (blue) series produce a remarkably better approach to the observations than the model mean (red) and the “bad”( green) show the worst performance.

Up to this point we didn’t know what model was behind what “series” in the “Willis sheet”. Thanks to the help from Willis Eschenbach and Nic Lewis we just learned the assignment and the properties of the models behind the “series”, also their corresponding sensitivity with respect to forcing by GHG. The mean value of the transient climate response (TCR), which is the expression for the calculated greenhouse gas effect, is approximately 1.6 for the “good“ models, the model mean (all models) is 1.8 and the “bad” model mean is 1.96.

As one observes is Figure 7, the selection of the “good” models “improves” the convergence towards the observations. For this a TCR of approximately 1.3 is assumed, compare to our blog post “Wie empfindlich ist unser Klima gegenüber der Erwärmung durch Treibhausgase? (How sensitive is our climate with respect to warming from greenhouse gases)“.

Conclusion

The mean of the models overestimates the radiative forcings in the global temperature to 2014. The objectively better models have a lower mean of TCR. The “bad” models have a higher mean of TCR. Many models are perhaps “over tuned” for the trends to 2005. The result is a dramatic loss in forecasting quality beyond the tuning period. Are Marotzke and Forster wrong? Will we ever hear them admit it? There are reasons for doubt.

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Former IPCC Climatologist Lennart Bengtsson Calls Out Spiegel On Climate Gloom: “Wrong…Hopelessly Naïve…Ought To Know Better”

By on 4. March 2015

Some days ago I wrote about how German news weekly Der Spiegel had resorted once again to catastrophe-hopping when it recently rolled out its print edition whose front cover featured a burning planet caused by human climate change.

Skeptics in Europe reacted harshly, but at the same time dismiss the doomsday piece as a desperate sensationalism stunt in a bid to stem its hemorrhage of readers.

Alarmist views “wrong, completely naïve”

Some criticism even came from rather hefty figures in the climate scene. For example Swedish professor Lennart Bengtsson, former IPCC climatologist and former head of the German Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg.

Hat-tip: Hans Labohm

Bengtsson posted a commentary concerning the Spiegel doomsday piece at the Swedish Anthropocene site here. He calls the alarmist views of book author Naomi Klein, which Spiegel cited in its article: “not only wrong, but also hopelessly naïve.”

No basis showing weather has gotten more extreme

Bengtsson, who has gravitated from being an regular alarmist to a non-alarmist luke-warmer over the years, thinks that the growing emission of greenhouse gases is a problem over the long term, but that it is not an urgent problem. He writes there is no scientific basis showing the weather has become more extreme.

The storms are not worse than before, and they will be fewer in a warmer climate as a result of the polar regions warming up.”

No urgency

On sea level Bengtsson writes that it is now rising at about 3 mm per year, but has not accelerated over the past 23 years. It makes no sense to rush and to make “hasty and inaccurate decisions“. He writes:

The reason for the increased emissions of carbon dioxide is the increasing earth‘s population and the desire of all the poor to live a life that is a little better and more hopeful, and perhaps someday even take a taxi at any time – surely among some of Naomi Klein’s environmental sins.”

Bengtsson calls the belief that a non-capitalist system can solve the earth’s energy and environmental problems “completely naïve” and uninformed, citing past failed experiments in socialism.

If anyone ought to be familiar with the costs needed to solve the problems left behind by communist East Germany, it is Spiegel. The Elbe River was a dead river at the time of the German reunification. Now, thanks to the capitalist system, it has returned to life.”

As an example of a successful approach to lower CO2, emissions, Bengtsson uses the United States: “In fact, one of the few countries that has significantly reduced CO2 emissions are the United States, through its growing gas exploration!”

Bengtsson adds:

The only hope to solve the planet’s long-term environmental problems is via the open and free society, not least of all by a socialist dictatorship on a global scale. This at least Spiegel’s editors ought to know.”

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European Institute For Climate And Energy: Ocean Cycles Are Main Driver, No Relationship Between Arctic Sea Ice And European Winters!

By on 3. March 2015

Two days ago I wrote about the first part of an analysis (on Germany winter temperatures) by Kowatsch and Kämpfe appearing here at EIKE. Winter temperatures in Germany have been falling for a quarter of a century now. Much to my satisfaction, that post has been widely shared among social media.

Today I’m writing about the second part: What is the primary driver behind Europe’s variability, i.e. what causes periods of cold winters and periods of milder winters? The main drivers, Kowatsch and Kämpfe conclude, are oceanic cycles.

Figure 1 below shows a plot of German winters since 1881. Shown is the temperature lower curve and the number of days with westerly winds (upper curve) – along with their corresponding smoothed curves.

Figure 1: Germany’s mean winter temperature (lower blue curve) follows the course of the frequency of days with mild westerly winds (W, SW and NW, violet upper curve). Both are accompanied by a smoothed curve).

It’s no surprise that the more days a winter has with winds coming from the west (Atlantic), the milder the winters turn out to be. A correlation here does not surprise us. Here the mechanism that drives Europe’s winters is the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), which is the pressure difference between southwest Europe (Portugal to the Azores) and northwestern Europe (Iceland).

When the NAO is very positive it means there is a powerful Azores high and a powerful Icelandic low which serve to pump Atlantic air eastwards into Central Europe (Figure 2, right). If the Azores high and the Iceland low are both weak, then cold air from Eastern Europe or Siberia can make its way over across Europe and the winters tend to be much colder (Figure 2, left).

Figure 2: Prevailing weak NAO pattern shown left leads to cold Europe winters. Strong positive NAO pattern shown right leads to mild winters (Source: UKMO).

Next Figure 3 shows the NAO chart for the past winter, which was most of the time was highly positive, meaning many mild westerly winds swept in from the Atlantic and over Europe.

Figure 3: Winter 2014/15 saw an overwhelmingly positive NAO, thus producing a mild winter for Western and Central Europe.

So what drives the NAO air pressure difference? Kowatsch and Kämpfe have analyzed this and found there is a strong correlation between NAO and the Atlantic Multidecadal Osciallation (AMO). Figure 4 below shows the inverse relationship between the AMO and the winter-time westerly wind frequency over Europe:

Figure 4: The higher the AMO value, the less westerly weather that occurs.

Not only does the AMO drive the NAO, but it is also is a major factor driving Arctic sea ice extent. Arctic sea ice extent does not drive the winters over Europe, as some scientists have been hypothesizing over the recent years. Rather it is the AMO that is driving the Arctic sea ice and the European winters as well.

Although good satellite sea ice data records for the Arctic go back only 35 years, one sees a distinct relationship between the AMO and wintertime Arctic sea ice, see Figure 5 below:

Figure 5: As AMO values rise (green curve), sea ice area (blue) reduces significantly.

EIKE adds:

And there are clear indications that this relationship applies over the long-term as well. During the 1930s, i.e. during the last AMO positive phase, large melting of the sea ice and strong melting of the Greenland glaciers were observed.”

And when the severe winters of 2009/10 and 2012/13 caused the proponents of the global warming theory to scramble for an explanation, they concocted and put out the tale that “melting Arctic sea ice was disturbing the large scale circulation and thus favored winter cold at the middle latitudes“.

The scientists claimed that especially the low levels of Arctic sea ice in September were suddenly responsible for causing cold winters. Yet, the following chart shows no relationship at all:

Figure 14: The extent of September Arctic sea ice has no impact whatsoever on winter temperatures over Central Europe (Germany). Arctic sea ice cover in blue; Germany winter temperatures in red. The same is true for other times of the year (autumn ice cover or winter ice cover to winter temperatures show no relationship).

EIKE warns that the climate system is much more complicated than meets the eye: “Still the complicated and yet to be researched relationship between ocean currents, AMO, sea ice and large weather patterns have with a high probability an impact on Europe’s climate and weather, and there exists no easy explanations”. Studies have shown that solar activity also play a role in Europe’s winters.

At the end, Kowatsch and Kämpfe look at the (lack of) success that institute’s and experts have had in forecasting the winter of 2014/15. It shows that the science of forecasting is lacking terribly. Of the 7 forecasts examined, 2 were completely faulty, 3 were poor, and 2 were only about half correct and would not earn a grade any higher than a C -.

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Growing “Swept Area” Of Annihilation…Study Points To Wind Turbines’ Barotraumatic Mayhem Of Bats

By on 2. March 2015

As wind turbines increase in size and scale, so do their deadliness to wildlife and hazards to human health.

Today’s modern wind turbines now soar to heights of up to over 200 meters, can have outputs of well over 5 MW, and blade tip speeds of over 300 kilometers per hour, thus making them especially lethal to avian wildlife, and hazardous for human health through infrasound.

bat barotrauma

Source: academia.eu, Erin F. Baerwald et al.

21,000 square meters of “swept area” of annihilation

To give an idea of their scale, Danish company Vestas, for example, offers an 8-MW offshore turbine with a total height of 220 meters that is equipped with a monster rotor diameter of 164 meters. The result: horrendous blade speeds and pressure gradients. Flying wildlife stand no chance. Worse is the growing size of the hazardous swept area.

Vestas boasts that its V164-8.0 MW® turbine has a swept area of more than 21,000 square meters, which is “equivalent to almost three football pitches“. Vestas bellows: “When it comes to profitability, the bigger the swept area the bigger the revenue.”

Unfortunately for birds and other wildlife it is also: The bigger the swept area, also the bigger the wildlife annihilation area. But wildlife be damned.

Huge number of fatalities

Wildlife fatalities from wind turbines are poorly documented and mostly unknown. Estimates are on the low side and thought to be much higher, as the industry attempts to play down their real danger.

Birds, bats and other animals can be killed by turbines in any one of three ways: 1) through loss of their habitat due to the disruption of a vast installation area, 2) direct impact with high speed moving blades (birds) and 3) from barotrauma, where bats are the primary victims.

The most sinister of the three is barotrauma, which is a common way bats are killed by wind turbines.

Study shows mayhem

An article published at academia.edu by Erin F. Baerwald et al of the University of Calgary confirms the violent deaths that bats suffer from wind turbines. Bats do not even need to come into contact with the moving blades. It is enough for them to be close to the end of a moving blade to become victims of barotrauma. As the turbine’s blade slices by at 300 km/hr, the negative pressure in the blade’s wake causes the air in the bats’ lungs to expand and incur lethal injury.

Barotrauma typically occurs when an organism is exposed to a significant change in ambient pressure, such as when a scuba diver, a free-diver or an airplane passenger ascends or descends, or during uncontrolled decompression of a pressure vessel.

The academia.edu article writes:

The decompression hypothesis proposes bats are killed by barotrauma caused by rapid pressure reduction near moving turbine blades [1,4,5]. Barotrauma involves tissue damage to air-containing structures caused by rapid or excessive pressure change; pulmonary barotrauma is lung damage due to expansion of air in the lungs that is not accommodated by exhalation.”

Moving turbine blades create zones of low pressure as the air flows over them. Animals entering these sudden low pressure zones may suffer barotrauma; academia.edu article writes:

Pressure differences as small as 4.4 kPa are lethal to Norway rats Rattus norvegicus) [6]. The greatest pressure differential at wind turbines occurs in the blade tip vortices which, as with airplane wings, are shed downwind from the tips of the moving blades [7]. The pressure drop in the vortex increases with tip speed, which in modern turbines turning at top speed varies from 55 to 80 m/s. This results in pressure drops in the range of 5–10 kPa (P. Moriarty, personal communication), levels sufficient to cause serious damage to various mammals [6].” […]

Even if echolocation allows bats to detect and avoid turbine blades, they may be incapacitated or killed by internal injuries caused by rapid pressure reductions they cannot detect.”

188 dead bats examined

Baerwald and her team examined 188 dead bats killed by a wind turbine facility in southwestern Alberta:

Of 188 bats killed at turbines the previous night, 87 had no external injury that would have been fatal, for example broken wings or lacerations (Table 1). Of 75 fresh bats we necropsied in the field, 32 had obvious external injuries, but 69 had haemorrhaging in the thoracic and/or abdominal cavities (Table 1). Twenty-six (34%) individuals had internal haemorrhaging and external injuries, whereas 43 (57%) had internal haemorrhaging but no external injuries. Only six (8%) bats had an external injury but no internal haemorrhaging.

Among 18 carcasses examined with a dissecting microscope, ten had traumatic injuries. Eleven bats had a haemothorax, seven of which could not be explained by a traumatic event. Ten bats had small bullae — air-filled bubbles caused by rupture of alveolar walls — visible on the lung surface (Figure 1A). All 17 bats examined histologically had lesions in the lungs consistent with barotrauma (Table 1), with pulmonary haemorrhage, congestion, edema, lung collapse and bullae being present in various proportions (Figure 1). In 15 (88%), the main lesion was pulmonary haemorrhage, which in most cases was most severe around the bronchi and large vessels.”

In summary, the wind turbines are extremely lethal to wildlife on a scale so horrendous and embarrassing that it is being kept out of the public’s eye. What’s worse is that these turbines, and the growing swept areas of annihilation they bring with them, have been installed by the thousands and plans are being made to install many thousands more – many in natural areas. Wildlife will have no chance.

This is all endorsed by Greenpeace and the WWF.

 

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Climate Models Turn Out To Be “Fairy Tales” … Long-Term Central Europe Winters Show Distinct COOLING Trend!

By on 1. March 2015

Josef Kowatsch and Stefan Kämpfe at the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) analyze the winter data from Germany’s DWD Weather Service an conclude that winters have been cooling.

The two authors present a lengthy analysis of German winter trends and what factors impact them the most. Today I will focus on the first part of their article, i.e. winter trends in Central Europe – mainly Germany. What follows is an abbreviated summary version.

Because of Western Europe’s proximity to the Atlantic, mild winters are nothing unusual and have occurred many times in the past. Two mild winters in a row occurred from 1909/10 to 1912/13, 1918/19 to 1920/21, 1934/35 to 1936/37, 1947/48 to 1949/50, 1987/88 to 1989/90. The article by Kowatsch and Kämpfe looks at if German winters are really getting warmer and less snowy, as is frequently claimed. They are not.

Now trend in snow coverage

An important indication for the character of a winter in Germany is the number of days with a snow cover on the ground that is at least 1 cm. That can be traced back thanks to the records of the Potsdam station, which goes back to 1893/94. There snow can fall already in October and well into April, and so it makes sense to look at the seasonal snow coverage days, where by the season goes from October 1 to April 30:

Figure 1: The number of snow coverage days – which fluctuates wildly – has been unchanged over the long-term. There’s no indication of reduced snow coverage days for Potsdam. The low snow year 2014/15 in the German lowlands is not included in this chart; yet it will show significantly more snow coverage days than the extremely low snow winter of 1974/75. (Source: PIK).

When one considers only the meteorological winter (DJF), no trend is detectable for snow coverage. However there are periodic fluctuations (Figure 2):

Figure 2: In the 1910s to the 1930s 1910er as well as at the end of the 20th century, there were generally fewer snow coverage days, instead the winters were wetter, milder. (Data source: PIK).

Over a large regional scale (entire northern hemisphere) reliable data on snow cover are available since 1967. During this almost 50-year period snow coverage fluctuated strongly, yet there is no declining trend:

Figure 3: Since 1967 there has been no reduction in wintertime snow cover days over the northern hemisphere (Source: NOAA).

German winter temperatures – cooling!

Next we will look back at German winters over the past 28 and 18 years, and do so without considering the urban heat island effect despite the ongoing landscape alteration by man: Every day some 108 hectares are being built upon in Germany and thus creating growing heat islands around temperature measurement stations.

Germany’s winter of 2015 is currently pegged by the German DWD Weather Service as being 1.8°C above normal. Thus it’s the second warmer than normal winter in a row. However, the German DWD neglects to tell the public one thing: Over the long-term winter temperatures have dropped. It’s getting colder. See Figure 4. Data come from the German DWD Weather Service in Offenbach.

Figure 4: Winter temperatures have been falling in Germany for almost 30 years. The two recent mild winters have not changed that trend.

Result: Despite the alleged “global warming”, which is supposed to make itself evident especially in the winters, German winters are ignoring the forecasts made by the so-called climate scientists. It’s going to take an impressive series of mild winters just to flatten the trend.

This is proving to be terribly inconvenient for climate scientists who banked on warming. In the meantime cooling phases are being ignored, or data are even being falsified.

With the German winter temperature, the trend downwards would be even steeper if the UHI were properly accounted for. Yet, already some scientists are seizing upon the fact that the last 2 winters have been mild as “proof of warming”.

Next the single winter months (DJF) are examined individually (all data come from the DWD). Here’s December for the last 30 years:

Figure 5a: The trend is slightly downward, mainly owing to the especially cold December of 2010.

If one factored in the UHI, then the trend would be even more pronounced.

What follows is the 28-year trend for January:

Figure 5b: January has gotten markedly cooler over the years.

January also shows no warming in sight. One finds warming only in the climate models, and nowhere else. The next chart depicts the trend for February:

Figure 5c: Here the downward trend is unmistakable.

The February trend tells us one thing: Springtime is not arriving earlier. February 2015 in Germany was just a bit above normal.

Fairy tale models – truth being covered up

Kowatsch and Kämpfe summarize: “Winter in Germany is taking on a course of its own and is ignoring the forecasts made by the IPCC and the PIK. Warming? Where? In any case they are not to be found in German winters.” The two authors ask:

Where is the global warming which we are supposed to be massively combatting in Germany over the last ten years? Foremost the winter months were supposed to especially warm up. We were warned that there would be no more snow in the flatlands and that winter sports would be possible only at high elevations. […] It turns out these were forecasts from the category of Germany fairy tales. However, what’s worse is that this truth is being covered up and hidden from the German public. Not a single one of our charts is being shown by the media.”

No warming in Central England in 30 years

Kowatsch and Kämpfe also show the same is true in Central England; no temperature rise in 30 years:

Figure 6: No increase in 30 years, which is a climate-relevant period.

Tomorrow I will post on the factors that Kowtsch and Kämpfe say drive western European winters: Ocean cycles (and not Arctic sea ice).

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The Final Countdown Begins: Planet Has Less Than 11 Months To Go Before Al Gore’s Predicted Fiery Death!

By on 28. February 2015

Conservative radio talkshow host Rush Limbaugh’s countdown clock now shows less than 11 months to go before our blue oceanic planet starts sizzling for good.

Countdown

Cropped from Rush Limbaugh site.

About a decade ago Al Gore was earnestly predicting the planet had only another 10 years if we failed to dramatically reduce our CO2 emissions. Well, we haven’t cut them at all. In fact CO2 emissions have grown very strongly since then.

Yet, so far the global mean temperature is not any warmer than it was 10 years ago, just before Gore made the bold prediction – see chart that follows. Same was true a year ago.

Hadrcut

Current 10-year trend even shows slight cooling tendency. Source: Woodfortrees.org.

Countdown for what’s left of Gore’s reputation

Woodfortrees chart shows that global temperatures have not risen at all since Gore issued his warning. Ironically the countdown is actually turning out to be one for Mr. Gore’s reputation. In fact none of the predictions the Nobel Peace prize winner made in his Oscar-winning movie are coming true. There’s been no warming, and the poles even have more sea ice today – about 1 million sq. km more!

At his site Limbaugh quoted Larry David, husband of AIT producer Laurie David:

You know, Al is a funny guy, but he’s also a very serious guy who believes humans may have only 10 years left to save the planet from turning into a total frying pan.”

CO2 climate science, like all sciences, is also proving to be flat out wrong. The difference here is that there is so much at stake that no one wants to admit it.

 

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If This Cold Is Warming, Then ISIS Is Peace … USA’s Stunning Shock-Freeze Contradicts NOAA Warmth Claims

By on 28. February 2015

Not only last winter was a brutal one for the USA, which saw the Great Lakes freeze over, this year is also turning out to be an epic one as record cold temperatures continue their unrelenting grip across the nation and massive snowfalls bury large regions across the east.

The UPI’s Fred Lambert recently wrote the bitter cold extends all the way to Siberia and had killed dozens across the US. Lambert writes:

According to the Weather Channel, the cold air mass now seizing the country stretches as far west as Russia, moving down through Canada and into the United States in what some meteorologists call the “Siberian Express.”

New all time records

The UK’s Mail online here reports that New York City’s 1°F reading set yesterday broke it’s 65-year old all-time cold record temperature. In Minnesota the mercury plummeted to -41°F. The Mail continues:

The temperature in Boston is below freezing, as the city is set to break the record of 16 days below 32F set in 1961.

In Florida, strawberry and orange crops have frozen over because of the harsh winter weather.”

The online English daily presents a spectacular series of winter photos. Even Niagara Falls has frozen over!

Unexpected freeze

As of Wednesday, over 85% of the Great Lakes was frozen over with experts predicting 100% ice cover in perhaps just a matter of a few more days. The USA Today here quotes George Leshkevich of the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory:

Nobody expected 2014 to be as bad as it was, almost record breaking for ice cover and this year it’s the same thing with these very cold temperatures.”

“Historical ice cover record”

This morning mlive.com here shows images of Lake Huron, which it writes: “Lake Huron is almost entirely covered in ice. It is only 2.7 percent away from its historical ice-cover record.”

All this in the “6th warmest winter”?

Strangely, despite all the record freezing, the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) claims that it has been the sixth-warmest winter on record. NCDC officials may want to go back and check their thermometers, as these claims are looking a lot like “padded room” quality.

If this cold and ice are warming, then ISIS is peace.

Meteorologist Joe Bastardi explains the breathtaking, acrobatic tricks the NOAA used to produce the reality-disconnected result (see 1:30 mark).

Next cold blast to arrive next week

Dr. Ryan Maue at Twitter tells us that the cold wave is not yet done:

Maue Twitter

Note Maue warns of more records to possibly come. Obviously the US weather never got the message that it is supposed to be the 6th warmest on record.

 

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Vermont Madness: How “Environmentalists” Go About “Saving” The Global Climate

By on 27. February 2015

Take a bunch of mad scientists, put them in the same room as idiot policymakers who are gullible enough to believe them, and the results you get are more often then not totally disastrous. History has shown this time and again. Some examples are eugenics, the lipid hypothesis and DDT.

Now such is the case in my home state of Vermont, just a stone throw away from my childhood hometown.

Reader “The Indomitable Snowman, Ph.D.” sent me a couple of aerial shots of what Lowell Mountain looks like today after wind energy proponents got their way and installed 21 wind turbines on it. Each are some 450 feet tall:

Lowell Mountain 1

Photo: “The Indomitable Snowman, Ph.D.”

You’ll find many more far gorier photos in the Internet simply by Googling “Lowell Mountain Wind Project”.

Turned off when power is really needed

So how well is the Lowell Mountain wind project rescuing the climate? Not very well, it turns out.

Vermont Digger site here, for example, reports how in 2013 during a heat wave grid operator ISO New England asked Green Mountain Power (GMP) to take much of the windpark offline, citing “insufficient infrastructure” to transmit power from Lowell.

VtDigger writes:

Instead of using wind power, GMP was required to use more carbon-heavy and expensive fuels because ISO officials say the infrastructure used to transmit power from Lowell is insufficient.”

ISO New England then called on GMP “to fire up its four jet turbines and six diesel engines located elsewhere around the state to match the high demand.” So here we see that it’s not even enough for the wind to blow. You also have to hope that the wind park is also located in the right spot!

Of course Vermont No. 1 eco-knucklehead Governor Peter Shumlin was angered that the wind park’s power had been curtailed and demanded that the power be used. After all people like Shumlin fret that the green power that did not get fed in probably led to 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000011°C more theoretical global warming, give or take a few zeros, and so may have stressed a little bit a couple of microbes somewhere in the Arctic.

Lowell Mountain wind power was not the only power that got curtailed, by also another wind park in Vermont and one in Maine got cutailed, VtDigger reports. The reason: “transmission limitations”.

This is precisely the sort problems we are seeing with Germany’s North Sea wind parks, which are set up but have no sufficient infrastructure to transmit the power where it is needed. Green masterminds at work.

The Lowell Mountain wind park has accomplished one thing: It has destroyed an entire mountain area and the delicate biodiversity and ecosystem surrounding it.  That’s a hell of price to pay for the theoretical 0.000000000000001°C or so less global warming the park will lead to.

I’m curious to know just how much power the 64.5 megawatt project actually produced over its first year of operation and percentage of rated capacity that was. I suspect it was probably even lower than the urine-poor results we’ve seen in Baden Wurttemberg.

“The Indomitable Snowman, Ph.D.” comments in his e-mail:

The other silly part is that this kind of stuff is being brought to us by the same people who, for years, fought tooth-and-nail against the construction of little tiny mobile communications towers on the same ridgelines – on the grounds that they amounted to ‘visual pollution’.  With these, they’re even trying to get artists to create agitprop to convince people that these things are beautiful; the infamous totalitarian regimes of the 20th century were always conscripting ‘artists’ into ‘the cause’ in the same way.”

Why do morons like Shumlin and their destruction remind me of this? It took nature hundreds of thousands of years to form Vermont’s mountains.

 

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Catastrophe-Hopping Spiegel: German News Magazine Rolls Out Latest Climate Horror Vision: A Burning North Pole

By on 26. February 2015

This week’s hard copy of Spiegel features the front cover story dubbed “Der verheizte Planet” – The heated planet – (see right image below). Thus, Spiegel is returning and keeping to its long tradition of promoting end-of world scenarios.

The following image sequence shows how the burning planet is just the latest and newest climate catastrophe designed to get an apocalypse-weary public to worry (and to buy its magazines). So far the reaction, however, has been a big yawn. The world is, after all, full with other real concerns.

Spiegel disaster hopping

Spiegel depictions over the last decades. 1986 and 2015 were even front cover images. 1974: cooling. 1986: sea level rise. Now, 2015: it’s a burning planet.

1974 – 10,000 to 1 chance at best of planet returning to warming

In 1974 Spiegel warned of global cooling, writing that climate change was leading to growing deserts and global cooling. The article even claimed that the North Atlantic had cooled 0.5°C – this after “The global annual mean temperature increased by 0.7°C from 1890 to 1945.” During that warming period, Spiegel writes: “Near the poles the temperature was even several degrees warmer.”

In the lengthy article Spiegel even quoted meteorological researcher James McQuigg who said the chances of the climate returning to warmer conditions such as those in the 1930s were “at best 10,000 to 1″.

Also in Spiegel’s 11 February, 1974 edition an article titled The Desert is growing shows a temperature chart that tells us the global temperature fell from 16.0°C to 15.7°C from 1945 to 1970. Someone needs to tell this to NASA GISS. Today aren’t they saying the global temperature is now 14.9°? Weird.

1986: “Die Klimakatastrophe”

Then, just 12 years later in 1986, scientists realized the ocean cycles had flipped to their warm phase and so suddenly global warming was back in the pipeline. Immediately Spiegel ran with its legendary August 11, 1986 edition bearing the front page headline “Die Klimakatastrophe“, which depicted the Cologne Cathedral half submerged in sea water.

Forest die-off scare, acid rain

Spiegel not only spread fear about climate catastrophes, but it was also instrumental in spreading the acid-rain/forest die-off scare in the 1980s. In 1981 the magazine featured a 3-part series depicting the German forests as being doomed and certain to be forever lost.

Back to some rationality

Over the past years, it seemed Spiegel had been backing off from global climate catastrophe meme. The flagship news magazine often featured balanced reports, foremost by science journalist Axel Bojanowski, who often questioned the claims of a climate catastrophe and challenged the shrillness of the IPCC’s warnings. NoTricksZone often wrote about these articles. It seemed the magazine was back to rational and critical journalism on the topic of climate change, and this fostered hopes of a balanced debate someday taking place in Germany.

2015 Spiegel returns to the apocalypse

But this was wishful thinking, it turns out, as this week on Monday Spiegel rolled out its latest apocalyptic issue with the front page bearing the headline: “The Heated Planet” and an image of a planet on fire. The article is a repackaging all the doom and gloom scenarios that rest of the German mainstream media had been crowing about for a good two decades now. Balance has disappeared, regrettably.

Plummeting circulation

So why suddenly the change in tone? One can only speculate. Clear is that Spiegel circulation has been taking a massive beating over the recent years. For example in the 3rd quarter of 2014 alone Spiegel newsstand sales fell a whopping 12 percent, so reports the online horizont.net.

The European Institute for Climate and Energy presents the chart for subscriptions to Spiegel:

Source: EIKE

Veteran science journalist Ulli Kulke of flagship Die Welt writes at his blog:

Does the new editorial board at Spiegel want to scale the magazine back to being a warrior on behalf of the environment? Will the critical journalism over the past years that questioned the increasingly baseless end-of-world-mood now come to an end? The new frontpage cover “The Heated Planet“ appears to be going back to the good old days of the apocalypse…”

PS: So far none of the catastrophes have come to pass.

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German Black Forest Wind Turbines Yielded Only 11.8% Of Rated Capacity In 2014! … “Frightening Results”

By on 25. February 2015

The European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) has a report here analyzing the 2014 wind energy output of the German state of Baden Wurttemberg (BW), home of the world famous Black Forest, which in turn is home to the cuckoo clock.

Well, it turns out that not only the clocks in BW have gone cuckoo, but so has its energy policy!

“Frightening” results

A few years ago the traditionally conservative South German state elected a green Prime Minister, who vowed to shut down the state’s nuclear power plants and to install wind energy in its place. BW is not exactly the best place for wind power. EIKE writes that the Gegenwind- Straubenhardt wind power protest group compared actual wind energy production to the expected figures. The results, EIKE writes, are “frightening”.

By the end of 2014 BW had 397 wind turbines with 678 MW of total installed rated capacity. The yield and result, EIKE writes:

All wind turbines in Baden Wurttemberg produced a total of 699,564 MWh of power. That corresponds to an annual mean wind power feed-in of 79.9 MW or 11.8% of the available annual mean of 676.9 MW.”

Only 11.8%!

The following chart shows the output of BW’s wind turbines for each month:

Figure 1: Wind power feed-in (red) and installed rated capacity (green) over the year 2014. Source: TransnetBW

Readers can see the multiple times wind power went almost completely AWOL, like early December, early August, or the end of March through the early part of April. Pathetic.

The breakdown of the operating hours of wind power output shows just how pathetic wind energy really is.

* 339.75 hours (= 14.2 days = 3.9%) saw zero wind (0 MW), no power was generated at all!

* 1403.50 hours (= 58.5 days = 16.0%) power output was under 7 MW (1% of rated capacity).

* 3614 hours (= 5 months = 41.3%) power output was under 5% of rated capacity

* 5308 hours (= 7.4 months = 60.6%) wind power was below 10% of rated capacity.

Here we see that conventional power plants always need to be on standby, and most of the time they have to be filling in for the often AWOL wind turbines.

The industrialization of Germany’s Black Forest region with ugly skyscraper-dimensioned wind turbines is a hell of a price to pay for so little in return.

 

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German Critic On Energiewende: “Megalomania Rather Than Mega-Project”. Now “At A Dead End”

By on 24. February 2015

What follows is a comment written at FaceBook by alternative energy critic Wolfgang Neumann on the plight of Germany’s “Energiewende” (national transition to renewable energy) and a documentary on German television: Energiewende at a dead end. What follows is the translation (with slight editing):
========================================

Energiewende – at a dead end
By Wolfgang Neumann

The world has never witnessed anything like it before: An industrial country giving up nuclear power and switches over to wind, water and solar. It almost sounds like a miracle – but it’s not going to be one because physics will prevent it from being so. Also power does not flow from everywhere where power is written on it! Indeed the ‘Energiewende’ proponents have yet to realize that the ‘gifts from the sky’ sun and wind are actually only very temperamentally available – they fluctuating as the engineers say. It appears the ‘Energiewende’ is running into a dead end!

The facts

The necessary offshore wind parks are located far away from the consumers. Those who speak of a “decentralized” power supply but yet install approximately 35,000 MW of offshore wind turbines in an area of the North Sea without first thinking about how to bring the power onshore to the consumers have surely misunderstood the meaning of ‘DECENTRAL’!

The potential for hydropower in Germany is as good as exhausted and so there not much is happening. Photovoltaic systems have little significance in the wintertime – too unproductive! Grid expansion as a whole is just not making any progress because individual states and the federal government are constantly bickering. And although for years they have been working feverishly on storage technology for alternative energies (AE), there has been no real technical or economic progress up to now. So far it’s all been mostly wishful thinking and little reality!

True that over the last decades the power supply companies took advantage of their monopoly position, played with marked cards and have not allowed anyone to get a look at their hand. And now it turns out that sun and wind are not for free after all and power conversion systems are costly! Now we see that wind turbine and solar system operators have learned quickly from the large power companies: They too are not allowing anyone to get a look at their cards and are circling the wagons: Don’t answer thorny questions, e.g. about operating and maintenance costs of wind turbines and solar systems! Also don’t answer questions about the long-term material strength of wind turbines or the real number of full capacity hours of wind and solar systems, i.e.. their real efficiency. The main question still remains today: How efficient are alternative energy producing systems?

The Energiewende has been an embarrassing, amateur chaos over much more than just the last two years. From a specialist point of view it has lived fully from bad estimates, false assumptions, wishful thinking, outright illusions and empty words coming from self-proclaimed ‘energy experts’ with ideological visions of the ‘energy supply of the future’. The only purpose it serves is to provide wind solar plant operators with subsidies thanks to a wasteful generosity!

I believe that with the Energiewende, too many ‘experts’ and not enough real professionals had a say. In earlier times power plants were built in industrial zones or cities with the aim of reducing the length of power lines. Today the plan is to install offshore power plants with a total nameplate capacity of approximately 40 GW way out in the North Sea. However the power is not even needed at the coast and so expensive cross country power transmission lines will need to be built. The route which these power lines should take, however, is being hotly disputed among the German states. And the greater the installed capacity of wind and sun becomes, the more precarious and prone the grid will be to windless and sunless days and so the greater becomes the need for conventional power plants to always be ready on standby. That means even higher costs for the consumers!

In my view the Energiewende is an attempt at a state-controlled, centrally planned energy economy. German ARD public television even had a documentary on this: ‘Energiewende – Megalomania rather than Mega-Project‘.

Wolfgang Neumann is a critic of Germany’s Energiewende and one can find many comments and posts on the subject at his Facebook site.

 

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The Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hannam Grossly Deceives His Readers Using Massively Doctored Photo

By on 23. February 2015

What follows is photo-shopping taken to an extreme.

It’s little wonder few people believe anything the mainstream dailies write when it comes to climate change. Time and again they’ve been exposed to be unloading barges of BS onto their readers.

Reader Jim sent an e-mail bringing attention to probably the most amateur photo-shopping work on behalf of global warming propaganda I’ve seen in a long time, all used by eco-journalist Peter Hannam of the Sydney Morning Herald in a piece about the coal-fired Liddel Power Station in Hunter Valley, NSW.

Not only is the photo totally manipulated with the aim of deceiving readers, but Hannam’s facts are just as misleading as the photo-shopped power plant image itself:

SMH propaganda2

Glaring photo-shopped image by Jonathan Carroll gets used by the SMH to produce impression that the Liddel coal power plant is causing disease at an epidemic proportion. Original photo: Jonathan Carroll.

Note how the steam emitted by the power plant’s cooling towers is a sinister black. Since when is water vapor black? Hannam obviously is unable to distinguish between the smoke stack and the cooling towers. The scant emissions from the single smokestack in the center of the image shows just how clean coal power plants have become.

The photo also tells the many readers residing in the northern hemisphere that skies down under have very weird colors.

Hannam reports on an activist group of doctors who using a dubious formula claim they have succeeded in putting a figure on the health damage the power plant causes: $600 million annually.

Hannam writes:

The Coal and Health in the Hunter report by the Climate and Health Alliance estimates that burning coal for electricity in the valley alone produces health damage in the order of $600 million annually from the resulting air pollution, including the release of small particles.”

However, as reader Jim points out, a quick search of health statistics from Hunter New England Health (which covers the Hunter Valley) shows that Hannam’s claims are dubious at best. What follows is a chart showing the causes of death for all respiratory ailments:

NSW Health chart

Source: Health Statistics New South Wales

The above chart shows that deaths due to respiratory ailments are primarily caused by lung cancer (smoking) and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) which is in part related to pollution. Deaths from COPD, which to some extent are linked to the emissions from coal power plants, have been declining over the last 15 years.

Deaths due to asthma, a disease that could certainly be exacerbated by pollution, shows no trend.

Why would any reader believe anything Hannam writes? Using doctored images and dubious statistical methods, he is obviously attempting to fabricate a health crisis that does not exist.

 

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Sick Side-Show: Justin Gillis And New York Times’ Attempt To Blow Up Distinguished Professor’s Reputation.

By on 22. February 2015

UPDATE: I got an angry e-mail from a reader who acted like he was offended by my likening the intolerance of warmists to that of the ISIS. The writer demanded that I get back to “a little bit of civility here”. Gee, I thought burning enemies was something Christians did hundreds of years ago, and so we ought not get so upset about it, at least that’s what President Obama told us. At any rate, I’ve decided to replace the IS image below with another that meets the warmists’ standards of civility. Happy now?
===================================

Unfortunately we live on the same planet as a couple of apocalyptic cults which find the existence of non-believers an affront to their particular belief system. One cult fantasises about executing non-believers, the other does it in imaginative ways. Both cults need to believe in hidden things. Both are best avoided.”

- David Archibald

10 10 no pressure 2

IS propaganda image. What zealot warmists really fantasize of doing to dissenters. Source: cropped from here.

Distinguished scientist Willie Soon has become the target of a nasty smear job led by Justin Gillis of the hopelessly biased New York Times. It is not so much that the Smithsonian professor dared to question climate science orthodoxy (which is what science is all about to start with), but rather that his questions have yet to be answered. Thus Soon is viewed as a threat and so he has been condemned a heretic by the global warming cultists. And so ensues the orchestrated attempt by the New York Times, and the usual suspect web of alarmist scientists and activists, to cage-burn Soon’s reputation as a scientist.

Sideshow rather than scientific debate

Obviously the strain brought on by the embarrassment of the 18-year global warming pause and the unexpected record winter weather has been taking its toll on the global warming apostles and the desperate activist media outlets. The supposedly settled science apparently has more than its share of prickly thorns in its side.

Instead of arguing the science point by point, the New York Times led by Gillis prefer to create a diversionary side show: Soon’s reputation gets put in a cage that is to be set afire as the science goes ignored.

The activist past of Justin Gillis

Gillis’s brand of one-sided, highly activist and aid-and-abet journalism on behalf of end-of-world theorist scientists is hardly new. His true identity was exposed, for example, in his attempt to go after distinguished MIT professor Richard Lindzen. Christopher Horner writes of collusion at the Washington Examiner:

Gillis wrote a piece in May laboring to undermine one of the most highly credentialed and respected climate ‘skeptics,’ the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Dr. Richard Lindzen. This front-page article prompted my request for information reflecting how the A&M professor and activist whom Gillis quoted was using his taxpayer-funded position.

The specific correspondence began when Gillis wrote that interviewing Lindzen for a piece on his area of expertise was ‘unavoidable,’ and ‘[s]o I need a really good bibliography of all the published science’ countering Lindzen’s position on cloud feedback — ‘that is, anything that stands as evidence against Lindzen’s claim that the feedback has to be strongly negative.’

Remember, this was a reporter for the New York Times writing this. In the released emails, Gillis comes off as an activist posing as a journalist, sneering at Lindzen. Of another prominent skeptic, Gillis wrote, ‘I sense you’ve got him in a trap here … can’t wait to see it sprung.’ “

The Galileo treatment

The need to go after heretics who stand out is as old as humanity itself and is a seemingly incurable mental illness that has ailed human civilization from the start. Today, as David Archibald points out, it is starkly manifested by radical Islam. One illustrative scientific case from the past is the Trial of Galileo from some 400 years ago:

Galileo’s renunciation of Copernicanism ended with the words, “I affirm, therefore, on my conscience, that I do not now hold the condemned opinion and have not held it since the decision of authorities….I am here in your hands–do with me what you please.”

The parallels are stunning to say the least. Unfortunately Galileo was pretty much alone in his plight and did not have a blog.

Long list of warmists funded by Big Oil, industry

Of course Gillis writes as if questionable funding is only a problem one finds on the skeptic side, who in fact are massively underfunded compared to the global warming alarmists. Many skeptic blogs operate on volunteer basis. Recently NTZ exposed the massive funding the radical warmist elements get from Big Industry: Long List Of Warmist Organizations And Scientists Haul In Huge Money From Big Oil And Heavy Industry.

Earth to Gillis…Earth to Gillis..do you read?

Not only is the New York Times article just a sorrowful side-show, but it is one involving immature and juvenile elements. Prior to article appearing, taunting e-mails were anonymously sent to Professor Soon. It is not known who was behind the e-mails, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out it came from a circle close to the New York Times piece.

Pitiful attacks mean skeptics are winning

So what does Gillis’s sorrowful piece of journalism tell us? Most climate skeptics skeptics have become very familiarized with the words of Gandhi concerning being first ignored, then laughed at, and then attacked before finally emerging victorious. The attack on Willie Soon is just the latest sign of the warmists’ desperation. They know their science is just sinking refuse.

Finally read: Goon Squad Fails To Distract Public From Fact That Climate Models Stink.

Also see many links to reports at Climate Depot.

http://www.breitbart.com/witch-hunt/

 

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75% Of International Experts View Germany’s Energiewende As A Threat To European Power Supply Stability!

By on 21. February 2015

For some renewable energy proponents, it simply doesn’t matter what hard facts showing wind and solar make little sense get put on the table, they’ll religiously insist that it’s the best thing ever in energy technology.

Germany for example has invested massively in wind and solar energy in an attempt to replace its coal and nuclear plants, which environmentally fell out of the public’s favor during the end of the last century and early 21st century. Unfortunately Germany’s mad rush into wind and sun dubbed the Energiewende) (transition to renewable energy) is not paying off.

Today Germany’s online FOCUS reports on a new survey of international experts concerning the success of the German Energiewende: “World Energy Council warns: German Energiewende threatens Europe’s power supply reliability / Experts: no “export hit“. FOCUS writes:

International experts are harboring huge doubt over the success of the German Energiewende. This is the result of a survey by the World Energy Council… […]. Three quarters of those surveyed see a threat from the Energiewende to the supply stability of power in Europe. Two thirds believe the Energiewende will weaken the German economy over the short and mid-term. Only three percent believe Germany will accomplish its transition to renewable energies within the prescribed timeframe.”

FOCUS explains how the World Energy Council is an international association of the energy industry and that it surveys its members on a regular basis. “The current survey questioned experts in 35 countries, 20 of which were from Europe.”

The World Energy Council writes at its site here that about 60% of the experts who were surveyed say that industrial customers in their countries reject higher electricity prices, also even if they contribute to protecting the climate. About 50% of the experts believe that private households would accept slightly higher energy prices.

On whether the German model is feasible in other countries, 82% do not see the economic and technical conditions being at hand for a German-type Energiewende in their own countries.

FOCUS cites the President of the German Committee of the World Energy Council, Uwe Franke:

Foremost the fear of a considerable worsening in supply stability is worrisome. ‘We have to take the fears of our neighbors very seriously,’ Franke demands. ‘The supply reliability for electricity depends foremeost on the quality of the technical infrastructure.’“

Right now as it is, the quality of the renewable energy supply infrastructure is gravely lacking, as there exists no national transmission line to take power from Germany’s offshore wind parks to industry located inland in southern Germany. Moreover no economical technology exists for storing surplus energy nor is any in sight.

 

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