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Faulty Hypothesis? NASA ERB Measurements Don’t Show Significant Radiative Budget Differences

By P Gosselin on 28. February 2021

NASA earth radiation budget measurement from satellite data don’t support global warming claims.

Analyst blogger Zoe Phin downloaded and analyzed 10 gigabytes of NASA instrumental data on the earth’s radiation budget (ERB) fully covering the years 2003 to 2019 [site] [data].

High clouds should be warming the planet, and low clouds cooling it, NASA says. Yet 16 years of their own satellite measurements don’t support the claim. Image: NASA.

The idea is to see the effect of clouds at the surface, especially the so-called Upwelling Longwave Radiation (LW_UP).

High clouds supposedly warm the planet

But first, NASA tells us high clouds are much colder than low clouds and the surface and so they radiate less energy to space than low clouds do. And because high clouds absorb energy so efficiently, they have the potential to raise global temperatures. In a world with high clouds, much of the energy gets captured in the atmosphere. High clouds make the world a warmer place. If more high clouds were to form, more heat energy radiating from the surface and lower atmosphere toward space would be trapped in the atmosphere, and Earth’s average surface temperature would climb.

Low clouds said to cool the planet

NASA also adds that low stratocumulus clouds – on the other hand – act to cool the Earth system because they are much thicker and not as transparent. This means they do not let as much solar energy reach the Earth’s surface. Instead, they reflect much of the solar energy back to space (their cloud albedo forcing is large).

NASA adds that stratocumulus clouds radiate at nearly the same intensity as the surface and do not greatly affect the infrared radiation emitted to space (their cloud greenhouse forcing on a planetary scale is small). The net effect of these clouds is to cool the surface.

But 16 years of satellite measurements tell different story!

Zoe looked at 4 different types of observed LW_UP: All, Clr, AllNoAero, and Pristine. All is normal observed sky. Clr (clear) is no clouds. AllNoAero is All minus aerosols. Pristine is Clr minus aerosols.

Since clouds are said to play an important role in Earth’s supposed greenhouse effect, and this effect leads to a supposed serious warming at the surface, we should see a very large difference between all these 4 scenarios.

Very little difference

But when looking at the results, Zoe finds there is very little difference. The difference in surface LW_UP between a Pristine sky (no clouds, no aerosols) and All sky is just 0.82 W/m², she finds.

“I would even argue it might be ZERO. It’s only not zero because a satellite can’t measure the same scenario in the same place at the same time. They can only measure some place nearby or same place at another time,” reports Zoe. “Even if I’m wrong on this, this value is still very unimpressive.”

Hardly changes outgoing surface radiation

Next the former Wall Street analyst looks at downwelling longwave radiation (LW_DN) and longwave radiation at the top of the atmosphere (TOA_LW):and compares the averages side by side for all 3:

Series               Average

clr_toa_lw_up        262.503
all_toa_lw_up        237.889
pristine_toa_lw_up   262.979
allnoaero_toa_lw_up  238.168

clr_sfc_lw_dn        317.924
all_sfc_lw_dn        347.329
pristine_sfc_lw_dn   316.207
allnoaero_sfc_lw_dn  346.359

clr_sfc_lw_up        397.445
all_sfc_lw_up        398.167
pristine_sfc_lw_up   397.387
allnoaero_sfc_lw_up  398.129

“Clearly not the case”

According to the greenhouse gas theory, infrared absorbing gases are supposed to be preventing radiation from reaching space, thus causing warming at the surface.

“Well we clearly see that’s not case. If clouds (water vapor + aerosols) hardly changes outgoing surface radiation, then the whole hypothesis is in error,” Zoe concludes. “Less top-of-atmosphere outgoing radiation doesn’t cause surface heating and thus more radiation from the surface, despite the increase in downwelling radiation.”

See Zoe’s article on this.

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Posted in CO2 and GHG, Misc. | Leave a response

Doomsday AMOC “Tipping” Claimed In ‘Nature’ Already Refuted…New Study: AMOC “Shows No Decline”

By P Gosselin on 27. February 2021

A recent study appearing in Nature, “Current Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation weakest in last millennium“, authored by Caesar et al, hints at a global climate system on the verge of tipping out of control.

According to their findings, the weakening of the so-called Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current (AMOC) in the 20th century is “unprecedented”, and likely because of man-made climate change.

The paper claims that there was “a long and relatively stable period” that was then followed by “an initial weakening starting in the nineteenth century, followed by a second, more rapid, decline in the mid-twentieth century.” The AMOC has since reached “the weakest” level in recent decades.

Rahmstorf’s doomsday scenario

Also not surprising: one of the authors of the doomsday-like paper is climate über-alarmist researcher Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Climate Institute in Germany.

According to Rahmstorf, the Gulf Stream “passing its tipping point” would lead to significant northern Atlantic sea level rise, a regional cooling and “massive effects on the entire ecosystem in the North Atlantic”.

No consensus – contradicted even before release

But the paper’s claims were contradicted already six days before its release. So much for consensus.

A new paper by Worthington et al, “A 30-year reconstruction of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation shows no decline“, tells us there’s been no decline, let alone a “weakest state”.

Image Source: Worthington et al., 2021

The study, appearing in the journal Ocean Science, finds that although a decline in Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) strength was observed between 2004 and 2012 and persisted until 2017, “direct observations are sparse prior to 2004, giving only ‘snapshots’ of the overturning circulation.”

Previous models ignored deep circulation changes

The Worthington study also finds that previous studies used linear models based on upper-layer temperature anomalies but that they ignored “changes in the deep circulation that are beginning to emerge in the observations of AMOC decline”.

The authors led by Worthington say they used a higher-fidelity empirical model of the AMOC variability based on many more factors and created an AMOC time series extending from 1981 to 2016.

“No decline”

They found that their more comprehensive time series shows no overall AMOC decline. “Our model has not revealed an AMOC decline indicative of anthropogenic climate change (Stocker et al., 2013) nor the long-term decline reported in sea-surface-temperature-based reconstructions of the AMOC (Caesar et al., 2018).”

Nor that of Caesar et al 2021, for that matter.

Guess which results the media jumped on.

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Posted in Oceans | 4 Responses

Antarctica Has Been COOLING Over The Past Quarter Century, NASA’s Surface Station Data Show

By P Gosselin on 26. February 2021

NASA mean annual temperature data going back a quarter century show no warming over Antarctica

By Kirye
and Pierre Gosselin

Where’s the warming and ice melt? Today we revisit 13 critical stations located on and around the Antarctic Peninsula.

They are important because alarmists like to tell and scare us that the ice mass on the Antarctic Peninsula is threatening to melt down – which would cause sea level to rise up to six meters globally- think of your suffering children and grandchildren.

To examine the trends at these crucial stations, we plot the data from NASA going back to 1996, i.e. a quarter century. The following map shows their respective station locations:

Figure 1: Map of plotted stations. Image: NASA.

Six of six island stations cooling

First we examine six stations located on the South Orkney or South Shetland islands:

Data source: NASA GISS, Version 4 unadjusted.

All six stations located on the South Orkney or South Shetland islands show a cooling trend when looking at the mean annual temperature since 1996. Here we see no signs of warming at all.

7 of 7 peninsula stations cooling

Next we plot the NASA mean annual temperature for seven stations located on the Antarctic Peninsula. Remember: alarmists like making the public think the sea ice there will melt and cause sea levels to rise some 6 meters – soon!

Data: NASA Version 4 unadjusted data

All seven stations at the Antarctic Peninsula show cooling, or no trend at all.

In total, that’s 13 of 13 stations showing a cooling trend since 1996 in that particular region. Where’s the warming?

No trend across Antarctica in three decades

Last year we looked at 19 stations scattered across Antarctica and found no unusual climate trends had taken place there over the past 31 years.

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Posted in Antarctic | 2 Responses

Yet Another Model-Based Claim Of Anthropogenic Climate Forcing Collapses

By Kenneth Richard on 25. February 2021

High-resolution climate models have projected a “decline of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) under the influence of anthropogenic warming” for decades (Lobelle et al., 2020). New research that assesses changes in the deeper layers of the ocean (instead of “ignoring” these layers like past models have) shows instead that the AMOC hasn’t declined for over 30 years.

The North Atlantic has been rapidly cooling in recent decades (Bryden et al., 2020, Fröb et al., 2019). A cooling of “more than 2°C” in just 8 years (2008-2016) and a cooling rate of -0.78°C per decade between 2004 and 2017 has been reported for nearly the entire ocean region just south of Iceland. The cooling persists year-round and extends from the “surface down to 800 m depth”

Image Source: Bryden et al., 2020

Image Source: Fröb et al., 2019

Those who favor an anthropogenic explanation for these rather inconvenient cooling trends have leaned on the climate models that say the ocean’s dominant heat transport mechanism – the AMOC – has been declining in response to anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing.

But now a new study (Worthington et al., 2021) throws cold water on this claim too.

Image Source: Worthington et al., 2021

Reconstructing over 30 years of AMOC variability (1981-2016), the authors use a “higher-fidelity empirical model of AMOC variability” that, unlike past assessments, does not “ignore changes in the deep circulation”.

The authors do indeed find there was a brief dip in the AMOC from 2004-2012. But even this temporary decline was dominated by internal variability rather than being associated with anthropogenic forcing.

In fact, Worthington and colleagues have determined that there has been “no overall AMOC decline” since monitoring began in 1981. This contradicts the results of high-resolution climate models.

Image Source: Worthington et al., 2021

Consequently, the cooling in the North Atlantic can no longer be dismissed as a response to an anthropogenically-weakened AMOC.

Something else is driving the cooling.

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Posted in Cooling/Temperature, Models, Natural Oceanic Oscillations | 5 Responses

NASA Vegetation Index: Globe Continues Rapid Greening Trend, Sahara Alone Shrinks 700,000 Sq Km!

By P Gosselin on 24. February 2021

Looking at NASA’s Vegetation Index data, the news is good: the globe has greened 10% so far this century.

That’s good news because we know this ultimately means greater crop production area and forest expansion. Ironically, what many “experts claim to be a huge problem (CO2) is in fact one of the major reasons behind the greening.

Zoe Phin has a post on this topic at her site which really warrants attention.

Global Vegetation Index surges 10% in 20 years

Zoe downloaded all of NASA’s available 16-day-increment vegetation data from 2000 to 2021. Here’s her result:

NASA’s Vegetation Index has risen from 0.0936 to 0.1029, which is a 9.94% increase. Chart by Zoe Phin

“10% global greening in 20 years! We are incredibly fortunate!” Zoe comments on the results. “I just wish everyone felt that way. But you know not everyone does. To the extent that humans enhance global greening is precisely what social parasites want to tax and regulate. No good deed goes unpunished.”

Been greening 30 years!

This is not unexpected news to cool-headed climate realists. In August, 2019, we reported on a German study showing how the globe had been greening for 3 decades. Based on satellite imagery, German Wissenschaft reported, “Vegetation on earth has been expanding for decades, satellite data show.”

Sahara shrinking, becoming greener

Also not long ago a study by Venter et al (2018) found the Sahara desert had shrunk by 8% over the previous three decades. This is profound because the Sahara covers a vast area of some 9.2 million square kilometers. Eight percent means more than 700,000 square kilometers more area that’s become green – an area almost as big as Germany and France combined.

So in terms of vegetation, the planet probably hasn’t had it this nice in about 1000 years.

70% driven by CO2

And there’s more good news if you think CO2 is a problem as a greenhouse gas (it isn’t).

Last August, NTZ weekly contributor Kenneth Richard cited a study by Haverd et al, 2020), and wrote that “about 70% of the Earth’s post-1980s vegetative greening trend has been driven by CO2 fertilization” and that this greening will offset 17 years (equivalent) of the Earth’s anthropogenic CO2 emissions by 2100.

There are many more studies underpinning the good news of the greening planet – thanks in large part to mankind. It’s not as bad as the crybaby activists and media depict it to be. Not even close.

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Posted in Drought and Deserts, Fire | 19 Responses

Cooling Winters…January Mean Temperatures Have Been Mysteriously Falling At A Number Of Locations

By P Gosselin on 23. February 2021

By Kirye (photo, right)
and Pierre

Why has January, the dead of winter, been cooling at so many locations over the recent decades? End of warming?

Looking at the data for mean January temperature for a number of places shows something we would not expect in a warming world: the mid winter month has been cooling over the recent decades.

For example, some days ago we looked at January mean temperatures in Scandinavia and Finland, and found there’s been nom warming there.

The same is true for Ireland and Austria, and even Tokyo.

Germany as well has seen the month of January getting colder, according to the data from the nearly 2000 stations across the country operated by the DWD German national weather service.

Moreover, the northern hemisphere has been seeing snow cover increasing over the recent decades, this according to data from the University of Rutgers.

United Kingdom and Northern Ireland

Today we look at the mean January temperature data from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) for the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. Again we examine the stations that have complete data going back to 1988 – a total of 14 stations.

Data: JMA

Above the chart shows that 12 of 14 stations have been cooling or showing no warming trend. Why has mid winter been cooling over the past 30 years? Does it have something to do with the 60-year Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) or perhaps the low solar activity of the past decade?

Icelandic January cooling

Looking at Iceland, we find the same thing going on: January has been cooling:

Data: JMA.

Even the annual temperatures in Iceland have not warmed this century:

Data: JMA.

While the media hollers about a warming world, the data are starting to tell us a different story. In fact some panicked alarmist scientists have acknowledged the cooler trend, and are now suggesting it’s all part of global warming. In the alarmist world of climate junk science, cooling now means warming!

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Posted in Cooling/Temperature | 4 Responses

New Study Finds A 79% Rise In Polar Bear Sightings Since 2005 As Their Arctic Habitat Dramatically Expands

By Kenneth Richard on 22. February 2021

Research on polar bear sightings using a systematic “regional marine mammal sightings programme” during 2005-2018 reveals there were 1,433 polar bears sightings from 2005-2011 compared to 2,569 during 2012-2018 around Svalbard.

The perspective that polar bears are endangered by global warming because reduced sea ice limits their seal-hunting opportunities is again contradicted by real-world observations.

New research (Bengtsson et al., 2021) suggests marine animals and polar bears have both been far more active and abundant in recent years compared to the past as their habitat expands around Svalbard. Not only have seal and walrus sightings risen by 50-100% since 2005, but polar bears were nearly 80% more likely to be spotted by observers during 2012-2018 when compared to sightings from 2012-2018.

Image Source: Bengtsson et al., 2021

The expanded range and rise in sightings should not be surprising. Polar bears’ worst body condition – when they’re at their thinnest – occurs during the months of the year when sea ice is thick: April and May. Polar bears’ best, well-fed body condition occurs during the months when sea ice is at its thinnest, or after the seasonal ice break-up occurs: August to October (Galicia et al., 2020).

Image Source: Galicia et al., 2020

Other observational research (Bourque et al., 2020) shows polar bears were consuming no fewer seals in 2016 than they did in 2004, indicating the reduction in sea ice hasn’t limited polar bears’ feeding practices.

Image Source: Bourque et al., 2020

Empirical estimates have affirmed Chukchi Sea polar bear populations have been “productive in recent years” and their “body condition and reproduction…did not decline between 1986-1994 and 2008-2011” (Regehr et al., 2018).

Image Source: Regehr et al., 2018

Thriving polar bear populations have even become a problem for residents who share their geographical area. Inuit have for years reported there are too many polar bears in the Arctic now, and this consequently puts humans in danger.

But activist scientists – who don’t live in the region but who nonetheless think they know better – claim polar bears are endangered and their populations shrinking due to sea ice decline.

Political activism seems to have supplanted real-world scientific observation.

Image Source: CTVNews (Canada)

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Posted in Arctic, Sea Ice | 5 Responses

Sea level Rise Review. Rate Of Rise Depends On Who You Ask. Most Say: “No Alarm”

By P Gosselin on 21. February 2021

In the latest video, German climate science site Die kalte Sonne here presents a review of sea level rise.

No one disagrees that sea level is rising. But there’s plenty of disagreement on how fast it’s really rising.

Tide gauges

According to the direct tide gauge measurements, sea level rise has been modest and the rate of rise has changed very little over the past decades.

Since 1990, the rate of rise as measured by tide gauges has increased modestly, but overall the rate of rise as been steady at a rather tame 2.09 mm/year. Note these are direct measurements, made where people actually live.

Satellite measurement

According satellite altimetry, whose sensor measurements have to be computed, the mean sea level (MSL) rise has been rising faster, at about 3.3 mm/yr and accelerating somewhat:

Because satellites don’t measure directly and use a complex computation to reach a result, the figure is fraught with uncertainty, says Die kalte Sonne.

Rahmstorf

In December 2020, Potsdam Climate Institute climate alarmist Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf reported in Spiegel that the rate of sea level rise has more than doubled over the past 30 years – going from 2.1 mm/year to 4.8 mm/year:

The reason for the accelerating rise, according to Rahmstorf, is manmade climate change.

But Ramstorf “vehemently contradicted” by Hamlington et al.

Yet, in 2020, a paper by Hamlington (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and Fredrikse and others “vehemently contradicted Rahmstorf”, reports Die kalte Sonne,

“Over the past decades, sea level rise rate has in fact increased in some regions, for example in the western Pacific, but in other regions sea level rise has shown no acceleration,” says Die kalte Sonne. The western Pacific sea level rise acceleration is due more to the PDO 60-year oceanic cycle.

Die kalte Sonne: “When this natural component gets deducted, there is today still no recognizable unusual acceleration of global sea level.”

Only 1.5 mm/year

In 2018, Frederikse et al published a paper whose results found sea level rise in the South Atlantic Ocean was only 1.5 mm/year between 1958 and 2014.

In summary, when data are analyzed objectively, spectacular sound sea level rise rates – like those of Stefan Rahmstorf in Spiegel magazine – are outliers that cannot be taken too seriously.

40 papers on 2020 tell us not to worry

Recently, Kenneth Richard published a post here at NTZ showing that in 2020 alone 40 papers were published and they tell us there’s no sea level alarm today.

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Posted in Sea Levels | 12 Responses

Climate Scare Story Gets Doused…Global Wildfires Have Declined Since NASA Began Recording Data

By P Gosselin on 20. February 2021

Despite media claims of increasing wildfires across the globe, data show the opposite is in fact the case: wildfires have been trending downwards since NASA started recording data.

Two days ago Kenneth wrote about how paleoclimatological findings suggested wild fires in Australia and the northwestern US raged with greater frequency and regularity until 500 to 900 years ago, when fire records rapidly declined to the present.

Next, reader Zoe here added that this has been the case as well in recent history as well.

Alarmists avoid question: “More fires or less fires?”

At her site, Zoe writes how alarmist researchers seem obsessed with the length of the fire season, warmer temperatures, greater evaporation etc., yet avoid the question: “Is there more or less fire?”

So Zoe plotted the data on active fires that NASA has collected daily since 2000. Here’s the result:

Global wildfires have been trending downwards so fat this century. Chart: Zoe Phin Data: NASA

Zoe writes: “Now it all makes sense. Climate scammers need to cherrypick locations and seasons in order to distract from the empirical truth that global fires have been decreasing. Disgusting.”

Far lower threat today

Digging a bit further, we also find data from an AGU publication going back to 1901, tweeted by Danish statistician Björn Lomborg:

Wildfires globally were certainly a much scarier threat back 100 years ago than they are today.

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Posted in Drought and Deserts | 6 Responses

Junk Grade Models: Even Short-Term Climate And Weather Modelers Get It All Wrong

By P Gosselin on 19. February 2021

Many climate policies are based on scenarios generated by models. Depending on what these models churn out, actions and costly regulations get enacted to mitigate the worst consequences. So we hope that the modelers get it right. Unfortunately they are still shooting in the dark. Even short term models are failing miserably.

TWC forecast a basket case

It turns out most models are junk grade when it comes to forecast quality. For example, The Weather Channel here not long ago issued it’s winter outlook up through March:

The area of the US now being hit by one of the most vicious cold waves in the last 100 years was indeed forecast to be “way above normal” or “much above normal”. So far the exact opposite has happened. They never saw it coming.

We have to wonder what it takes to be issued a license to practice weather forecasting nowadays, and we have to feel sorry for those businesses and industries that relied on these botched forecasts.

Yet, these are the type of outlooks that policymakers insist we need to heed and so take immediate (costly) action.

Potsdam Institute’s El Nino debacle

Another example of short to midterm forecasting involves the El Nino events, which have a global impact. Having the ability to predict these events accurately would be a very valuable tool.

And not long ago the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany claimed to have developed a model that could predict the events with 80% probability. A PIK November 2019 press release in fact boasted that its team of renowned researchers had developed a new, far better model – which in November 2019 said was capable of forecasting a late 2020 El Niño event a year in advance.

Today in February, 2021, the results are in and they are ugly: The equatorial Pacific 3.4 region is near La Nina conditions, thus in complete contradiction to the warm forecasts of the Potsdam Institute. The “pioneering” PIK model, which in part was developed by Prof. Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, is a complete failure and totally wrong:

The ECMWF graph above shows ENSO forecasts for the period July 2020 to January 2021 (many thin red lines) compared to measured SSTA in Nino area 3.4 (blue dotted line).

The ECMWF forecasts were on average about one degree Celsius too warm. There have been La Niña conditions since August 2020 with measured values of -0.5°C deviations and colder.

“Model rubbish”

“The ‘pioneering’ PIK model produced model rubbish and disgraced German ‘climate science’ worldwide. Moreover, it currently looks as if the cold La Niña wants to cool us down further until 2022,” reported Schneefan here.

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Posted in Stupid Predictions | 10 Responses

More Evidence Surfaces That Fires Are Far Less Common Today Than In The Past

By Kenneth Richard on 18. February 2021

Two new studies suggest fires in Australia and the northwestern US raged with great frequency and regularity until 500 to 900 years ago, when fire records rapidly declined to the present.

In the Northern Territory of Australia the highest fire incidence ~4600 to 4000 years before present co-occurred during a time of “high effective precipitation”. There has been a precipitous decline in fires in the last 900 years.

Rehn et al., 2021 (full paper)

“The Marura palaeofire record comprises three main phases: 4600–2800 cal BP, 2800–900 cal BP and 900 cal BP to present. Highest fire incidence occurs at ~4600–4000 cal BP, coinciding with regional records of high effective precipitation, and all fire proxies decline from that time to the present. 2800–900 cal BP is characterised by variable fire intensities and aligns with archaeological evidence of occupation at nearby Blue Mud Bay. All fire proxies decline significantly after 900 cal BP. The combination of charcoal and pyrogenic carbon measures is a promising proxy for relative fire intensity in sedimentary records and a useful tool for investigating potential anthropogenic fire regimes.”

Image Source: Rehn et al., 2021

Another new paper suggests the fire history in northwestern United States has experienced a rapid decline in the last 500 years, with no regional fires at all in the last 150 years.

Rushton and Walsh, 2021

“Results show low fire activity from ca. 9870 to 6000 cal yr BP, after which time fire increased and remained frequent until ca. 500 cal yr BP. A woodland environment existed at the site in the early Holocene, with the modern coniferous forest establishing ca. 6000–5500 cal yr BP. A mixed-severity fire regime has existed at the site for the past ~6000 years, with both higher- and lower-severity fire episodes occurring on average every ~80–100 years. However, only one fire episode occurred in the Long Lake watershed during the past 500 years, and none within the past ~150 years.”

There has been a continued decline in not just regional but global-scale fire since the 21st century began (Earl and Simmonds, 2018) and during the last century (Yang et al., 2007).

Image Source: Earl and Simmonds, 2018

Image Source: Yang et al., 2007

Posted in Fire | 8 Responses

Green Folly: Berlin’s City E-Buses Leave Passengers Out In The Cold…Diesel Buses To The Rescue.

By P Gosselin on 17. February 2021

Germany’s capital Berlin was forced to replace some of its electric buses with diesel buses due to range problems associated with the cold weather.

Berlin. Germany’s fleet of e-buses had a hard time coping with the recent cold weather as dozens had to be replaced by diesel powered buses. Photo by Robert Radke, CC BY-SA 4.0

The cold weather worldwide is exposing the weakness of green energies and transportation systems based on them. For example Texas has seen millions of people impacted by rolling blackouts due to solar panels being covered by snow and wind turbines being frozen still.

The extremely cold weather has also led to transport disruptions all over Germany. One example is Berlin, Germany’s fleet of electric city buses.

23 e-buses had to be taken out of service

The Berliner Morgenpost reported some of the green electric buses operated by the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) had been taken out service due to range problems in the extremely cold weather. Up to 23 electric buses had to be replaced by diesel-powered buses last Monday. Ultimately the German capital plans to convert its entire fleet to electric by 2030.

Hat-tip. Die Welt

According to internal memos provided to the Berliner Morgenpost daily, the very cold temperatures were too much for the electric buses’ batteries because so much power was needed for heating. A portion of the electric buses were substituted by diesel buses overnight because they no longer had enough power to complete their planned routes.

BVG spokeswoman Petra Nelken confirmed that the twelve-meter-long Solaris e-bus was not able to cope well with the cold. “According to the procurement contract and the specifications, they are supposed to be able to drive 130 kilometers even at minus 10 degrees Celsius, but not all of them made it,” she said.

The inadequate e-buses were replaced by diesel powered buses, which can reliably travel hundreds of kilometers before needing to be refueled.

Altogether 23 buses of the 123 electric bus fleet were taken out of service, thus creating delays and forcing passengers to wait out in the cold at bus stops.

When asked by WELT, Nelken also emphasized that the buses were often not completely out of service, but only had to return to the depot (and to the charging) earlier than usual.

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Posted in Alternative Energy | 5 Responses

"Not here to worship what is known, but to question it" - Jacob Bronowski. Climate and energy news from Germany in English - by Pierre L. Gosselin

NASA mean annual temperature data going back a quarter century show no warming over Antarctica

Image Source: Bryden et al., 2020

Image Source: Fröb et al., 2019

Image Source: Worthington et al., 2021

Image Source: Worthington et al., 2021

Research on polar bear sightings using a systematic “regional marine mammal sightings programme” during 2005-2018 reveals there were 1,433 polar bears sightings from 2005-2011 compared to 2,569 during 2012-2018 around Svalbard.

Image Source: Bengtsson et al., 2021

Image Source: Galicia et al., 2020

Image Source: Bourque et al., 2020

Image Source: Regehr et al., 2018

Image Source: CTVNews (Canada)

Two new studies suggest fires in Australia and the northwestern US raged with great frequency and regularity until 500 to 900 years ago, when fire records rapidly declined to the present.

Image Source: Rehn et al., 2021

Image Source: Earl and Simmonds, 2018

Image Source: Yang et al., 2007

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