By Paul Homewood

h/t Patsy Lacey

The Government has established an environmental ‘nudge unit’ to work out how to persuade people into green behaviours such as driving less and cutting down on meat.

The team was set up in April this year because of a recognition that the next phase of decarbonising will require much more personal behaviour change.

The 45 per cent cut in emissions already achieved since 1990 has come mostly from the phase-out of coal and its replacement with renewable energy such as offshore wind.

Boris Johnson on Friday set the UK one of the world’s most ambitious targets to cut emissions, by 68 per cent within the next decade, up from a previous target of 61 per cent.

We’ve set a new target to cut emissions by at least 68% by 2030.
The fight against climate change is a global challenge and the UK is leading by example.
 https://t.co/D9y3OfTK5H pic.twitter.com/kpZ2dRb2xm

— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) December 4, 2020

The new ‘behaviour change and public engagement team’, which is working from inside the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy department, is focused on how to get public buy-in for further emissions cuts, which will be targeted at what we eat and how we travel and heat our homes.

BEIS will also work to ensure that green policies do not unfairly impact one area of society.

The Government has not made any calculations for how much reaching net zero will cost, but the NAO said it could ultimately reach hundreds of billions. The cost of inaction would be far greater.

The head of the unit is Gervase Poulden, a former environmental journalist and committed vegan.

Its existence was revealed in a report this week from the National Audit Office, which warned that the UK faced a “colossal challenge” in reaching its legally binding goal to be net zero by 2050.

The Government’s policies have so far been dismissed as inadequate. The 10-point green plan unveiled last month would leave emissions at 5 per cent below even the previous reduction target, according to analysis by energy consultancy Aurora.

One of the trickiest areas will be to improve energy efficiency and switch heating systems in the UK’s draughty homes.

Installing a heat pump is expected to cost between £8000 and £17000.  A £2bn Green Homes Grant to encourage insulation measures has so far had fewer than 300 successful applicants.

The widespread uptake of smart meters will also be needed to help handle increased electricity demand from heating and cars.

The 10-point plan included the ban of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 but experts, including figures from the car industry, this week warned there would also need to be a significant reduction in the amount of traffic on the roads.

Dr Steve Melia, senior lecturer in transport and planning at the University of the West of England told MPs on the Environmental Audit Committee that “if we are going to achieve these carbon budgets, we’ve got to be significantly reducing traffic.”

He pointed to targets of between 20-60 per cent reduction.  

Konstanze Scharring, director of policy and government affairs at the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders was asked whether traffic level reductions would be necessary.

She said: “I think absolutely we need to look at all methods of reducing the impact of road transport.”

Meanwhile, the NAO reported that there was an increasing recognition in Government that consumers would have to reduce their meat and dairy consumption.

Agriculture in the UK accounts for around 10 per cent of the annual emissions, and significant amounts of land will be needed for carbon sequestration including tree planting.

Ministers are also planning to outlaw deforestation in British supply chains, in the hopes of reducing the amount of imported meat that is detrimental to the environment.

Environmental Audit Committee Chairman, Rt Hon Philip Dunne MP, said “we will all be required to play our part”, including walking and cycling, recycling and home insulation. 

“But this may not be enough, and the Government must be realistic over what is possible – and the cost of measures such as improving energy efficiency in homes that appear to be underestimated by Government.

“The Government must send clear signals to business and consumers how it sees the path to net-zero that we can all get behind. We are already on course to fail the fourth and fifth carbon budgets, highlighting current low-carbon policies are not yet delivering.”

Government sets up secret ‘green nudge unit’ to persuade Britons to install smart meters, drive less and cut down on meat

Tip for Boris – the British public don’t like being lectured about what they should do, and the Nurse Nanny approach has usually failed in the past.

Thanks to the NAO though for having the gumption to point out that this will cost hundreds of billions at the very least. But where on earth do they work out that the cost of inaction will be far greater? Whatever the UK does will have no effect whatsoever on climate change.

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December 5, 2020 at 12:24PM

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

The Lancet, once a respected medico-scientific journal and now just another me-too mouthpiece for theusual suspects, ran an editorial this week on climate change – on which subject it has neither expertise nor a missio canonica to pronounce. Here is a letter to the editor in response:

Sir, – Your notion of a “climate crisis” (editorial, December 2), though fashionable among the classe politique, is misplaced. That notion sprang from an elementary error of physics perpetrated in the 1980s by climate scientists who had borrowed feedback formulism from control theory, another branch of physics, without quite understanding it. Interdisciplinary compartmentalization delayed its identification until now.

After correcting the error, anthropogenic global warming will be only one-third of current midrange projections, well within natural variability and net-beneficial to life and health. CO₂ fertilization (for CO₂ is plant food) has assisted in steadily increasing crop yields – this year’s global harvest has set yet another record – and in improving drought resistance (Hao et al., 2014) and greening the planet.

Your suggestion that warmer worldwide weather has caused net loss of life, particularly among the world’s fast-declining population of poor people, is fashionable but misplaced. Cold is a bigger killer than warmth. Research conducted three years ago for the European Commission found that, for this reason, even if there were 5.4 C° global warming from 2020-2080, there would be 100,000 more Europeans than with no warming at all.

However, now that nearly all major banks – citing “global warming” as their pretext – refuse to lend to developing countries for coal-fired electricity (dates from which they decided to abandon the poor are below), a billion people lack the capacity to turn on a 60 W lightbulb for just four hours a day (the International Energy Agency’s scarcely generous definition of “access to electricity”).

According to the WHO, 4 million annually die of particulate pollution from smoke in cooking fires because they lack domestic electrical power and, for the same lack, 500,000 women die in childbirth. These are just two of the many causes of death from lack of access to electricity that kill tens of millions annually. The chief reason why so many cannot turn on a light is not global warming but misconceived policies intended to address what is in reality a non-problem.

More than 90% of all new greenhouse-gas emissions (BP Annual Review of Energy, 2019) are in nations exempt from the Paris agreement, which, after correction of the error of physics, is in any event supererogatory.

You have said China must do more, but China – though it has its own space programme and continues to occupy Tibet by military force – is exempt from Paris on the ground that it is a “developing country”. It is not required to forswear its sins of emission.

Your advocacy of “low-carbon diets” is fashionable but misplaced. Like it or not, we have evolved over 2 million years to eat meat, which can provide all necessary energy, nutrients and vitamins. Yet ill-informed official guidelines on both sides of the Atlantic recommend low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets. Those recommendations have demonstrably been the chief cause of the surge in obesity and diabetes in both the UK and the USA. They were abandoned by court order a decade ago in Sweden at the instance of a brave doctor whom the medical authorities had attempted to prosecute because she cured all her diabetes patients by ignoring the guidelines and recommending a high-fat, low-carb diet.

Your advocacy of “renewable” energy is fashionable but misplaced. Using 14^th-century technology to address a 21^st-century non-problem would be silly enough in itself. What is worse, however, is that “renewables” have not only quadrupled the price of electricity but have also added to CO₂ emissions. The chief reason for this apparent paradox is that the more windmills and solar panels are connected to the grid the more grossly-inefficient, CO₂-emitting spinning reserve must be maintained in the often vain hope of preventing blackouts when the wind stops or the night falls.

Besides, the trillions that have been squandered on fashionable but misguided attempts to abate greenhouse-gas emissions have made no difference at all. The radiative forcing from anthropogenic greenhouse gases has increased in a fashion very close to a straight line (the dotted line above) for 40 years.

With respect, The Lancet should study more science and economics, however unfashionable, and peddle less totalitarian politics, however fashionable and profitable – and deadly.

Yours faithfully,

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December 5, 2020 at 12:23PM

Winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories have been issued for parts of  Connecticut,  Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine.

The heaviest snow will likely fall between Worcester, Massachusetts and Caribou, Maine, where 8 to 12 inches is forecast. Over a foot of snow is possible in  some areas, especially in Maine.

Snow could be heavy at times, falling at a rate of 2 inches per hour.  Wind gusts as high as 43 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 4, 6, 8, 10, even 17 inches of snow possible in some locations.

“Travel is not advised by late afternoon (Saturday) as the potential exists for heavy snowfall rates leading to dangerous conditions,” said the National Weather Service office in Portland, Maine.

Go to https://forecast.weather.gov/, then click on your location on the map for a more detailed forecast

See also:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/first-noreaster-of-the-season-could-turn-into-a-bomb-cyclone-in-new-england/ar-BB1bEo0B

The post Nor’easter to dump up 17 inches of snow on Northeast appeared first on Ice Age Now.

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December 5, 2020 at 11:31AM

New theory suggests Earth’s 60‐Year climate cycle may be driven by planetary oscillations directing micrometeors toward Earth, creating more dust – which change cloud cover.

A paper published in Geophysical Research Letters claims there is increasing evidence that Earth’s 60-year climate cycle may be driven by planetary oscillations. They claim a 60-year climate cycle is found in the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation, aurora sightings, rainfall, and ocean climatic records.

The paper says:

“…the orbital eccentricity of Jupiter presents prominent oscillations with a period of quasi 60 years due to its gravitational coupling with Saturn.” The authors propose that the planetary system modulates the interplanetary dust falling on Earth and modifying the cloud coverage.

The orbital eccentricity of Jupiter presents a strong 60‐year oscillation that is well correlated with several climatic records and with the 60‐year oscillation found in long meteorite fall records since the 7th century.

Since meteorite falls are the most macroscopic aspect of infalling space dust, we conclude that the interplanetary dust should modulate the formation of the clouds and, thus, drive climate changes.”

The paper and abstract:

A 60‐Year Cycle in the Meteorite Fall Frequency Suggests a Possible Interplanetary Dust Forcing of the Earth’s Climate Driven by Planetary Oscillations

Nicola Scafetta Franco Milani Antonio Bianchini First published: 14 September 2020 https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL089954

Abstract

One of the most famous climate oscillations has a period of about 60 years. Although this oscillation might emerge from internal variability, increasing evidence points toward a solar or astronomical origin, as also argued herein. We highlight that the orbital eccentricity of Jupiter presents prominent oscillations with a period of quasi 60 years due to its gravitational coupling with Saturn. This oscillation is found to be well correlated with quite a number of climatic records and also with a 60‐year oscillation present in long meteorite fall records relative to the periods 619–1943 CE. Since meteorite falls are the most macroscopic aspect of incoming space dust and their motion is mostly regulated by Jupiter, we propose that the interplanetary dust influx also presents a 60‐year cycle and could be forcing the climate to oscillate in a similar manner by modulating the formation of the clouds and, therefore, the Earth’s albedo.

Data Availability Statement

All data are available from references and public domain repositories: Figure 1 uses the ephemerides data of the orbit of Jupiter available, for example, from the NASA HORIZONS web interface (https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi); Figure 2 uses the temperature reconstruction of Ljungqvist (2010, https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo-search/study/9924); Figure 3 uses the HadCRUT4 record (Morice et al., 2012, https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/), the Indian summer monsoon record (Agnihotri & Dutta, 2003; Sontakke et al., 1993) (http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/SOURCES/.Indices/.india/index.html); and the G. Bulloides abundance variations data by Black et al. (1999, https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo-search/study/2532); Figures 4 and 5 use the record of meteorite fall in China from AD 619 to 1943 published in Yu et al. (1983).

---

A caveat: In the past, I have dismissed much of Scafetta’s work as being little more than “cyclomania”, i.e. finding spurious cyclic correlations in data where there really isn’t any.

That said, there is a bit of plausibility in this idea that the gravitation of Jupiter might herd more micrometeors into Earths orbital path, and it is plausible that with more meteor dust in Earth’s atmosphere, that could form more cloud nuclei. Changes in cloud cover would modulate sunlight over time, and thus climatic records.

Or, it may be just another spurious correlation. Either way, I thought it was worth discussing. – Anthony

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December 5, 2020 at 10:43AM

As noted in a previous post, alarms were raised over slower than average Arctic refreezing in October.  Those fears are now laid to rest by ice extents roaring back in November.  The image above shows the ice gains completed from October 31 to November 30, 2020. In fact 3.5 Wadhams of sea ice were added during the month.  (The metric 1 Wadham = 1 M km2 comes from the professor’s predictions of an ice-free Arctic, meaning less than 1 M km2 extent)

The Russian shelf seas on the left filled with ice early on.  On the CanAm side, Beaufort at the bottom center is iced over, Canadian Archipelago (center right) is frozen, and Baffin Bay is filling from the north (presently 57% of last March maximum).  Hudson Bay (far right) first grew fast ice around the edges, and is now 70% iced over.  A background post is updated below, showing that November 2020 has added 3.5 M km2, 67% more than an average November, more than offsetting October deficits, with the two months combined matching the 2019 recovery. 

The graph above shows November Arctic ice extents for the 13-year average and some other notable years.  Note 2020 started the month 1.5 M km2 below average, before making sharp gains over the first 3 weeks reducing the deficit to ~400k km2 down. After day 328 the recovery paused for a week before picking up again at the end.  SII and MASIE have been closely synchronized, with SII lagging behind lately, while MASIE 2020 is close to 2019. 

Updated Previous Post: Arctic October Pent-up Ice Recovery

Some years ago reading a thread on global warming at WUWT, I was struck by one person’s comment: “I’m an actuary with limited knowledge of climate metrics, but it seems to me if you want to understand temperature changes, you should analyze the changes, not the temperatures.” That rang bells for me, and I applied that insight in a series of Temperature Trend Analysis studies of surface station temperature records. Those posts are available under this heading. Climate Compilation Part I Temperatures

This post seeks to understand Arctic Sea Ice fluctuations using a similar approach: Focusing on the rates of extent changes rather than the usual study of the ice extents themselves. Fortunately, Sea Ice Index (SII) from NOAA provides a suitable dataset for this project. As many know, SII relies on satellite passive microwave sensors to produce charts of Arctic Ice extents going back to 1979.  The current Version 3 has become more closely aligned with MASIE, the modern form of Naval ice charting in support of Arctic navigation. The SII User Guide is here.

There are statistical analyses available, and the one of interest (table below) is called Sea Ice Index Rates of Change (here). As indicated by the title, this spreadsheet consists not of monthly extents, but changes of extents from the previous month. Specifically, a monthly value is calculated by subtracting the average of the last five days of the previous month from this month’s average of final five days. So the value presents the amount of ice gained or lost during the present month.

These monthly rates of change have been compiled into a baseline for the period 1980 to 2010, which shows the fluctuations of Arctic ice extents over the course of a calendar year. Below is a graph of those averages of monthly changes during the baseline period. Those familiar with Arctic Ice studies will not be surprised at the sign wave form. December end is a relatively neutral point in the cycle, midway between the September Minimum and March Maximum.

The graph makes evident the six spring/summer months of melting and the six autumn/winter months of freezing.  Note that June-August produce the bulk of losses, while October-December show the bulk of gains. Also the peak and valley months of March and September show very little change in extent from beginning to end.

The table of monthly data reveals the variability of ice extents over the last 4 decades.

The values in January show changes from the end of the previous December, and by summing twelve consecutive months we can calculate an annual rate of change for the years 1979 to 2019.

As many know, there has been a decline of Arctic ice extent over these 40 years, averaging 40k km2 per year. But year over year, the changes shift constantly between gains and losses.

Moreover, it seems random as to which months are determinative for a given year. For example, much ado has been printed about October 2020 being slower than expected to refreeze and add ice extents. As it happens in this dataset, October has the highest rate of adding ice. The table below shows the variety of monthly rates in the record as anomalies from the 1980-2010 baseline. In this exhibit a red cell is a negative anomaly (less than baseline for that month) and blue is positive (higher than baseline).

Note that the  +/ –  rate anomalies are distributed all across the grid, sequences of different months in different years, with gains and losses offsetting one another.  Yes, October 2020 recorded a lower than average gain, but higher than 2016. The loss in July 2020 was the largest of the year, during the hot Siberian summer.  The bottom line presents the average anomalies for each month over the period 1979-2020.  Note the rates of gains and losses mostly offset, and the average of all months in the bottom right cell is virtually zero.

Combining the months of October and November shows 2020 828k km2 more ice than baseline for the two months and matching 2019 ice recovery.

A final observation: The graph below shows the Yearend Arctic Ice Extents for the last 30 years.

Note: SII daily extents file does not provide complete values prior to 1988.

Year-end Arctic ice extents (last 5 days of December) show three distinct regimes: 1989-1998, 1998-2010, 2010-2019. The average year-end extent 1989-2010 is 13.4M km2. In the last decade, 2009 was 13.0M km2, and ten years later, 2019 was 12.8M km2. So for all the the fluctuations, the net loss was 200k km2, or 1.5%. Talk of an Arctic ice death spiral is fanciful.

These data show a noisy, highly variable natural phenomenon. Clearly, unpredictable factors are in play, principally water structure and circulation, atmospheric circulation regimes, and also incursions and storms. And in the longer view, today’s extents are not unusual.

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/LittleSpicyAmericanblackvulture-mobile.mp4

Illustration by Eleanor Lutz shows Earth’s seasonal climate changes. If played in full screen, the four corners present views from top, bottom and sides. It is a visual representation of scientific datasets measuring Arctic ice extents.

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December 5, 2020 at 10:25AM

Disaster was narrowly averted

Under 180 ppm atmospheric CO2 concentration, life on earth begins to die.

The earth came very close to that point not long ago during the Ice Ages (20,000 years ago). Then the planet warmed naturally, and an increase in atmospheric CO2 to over 200 ppm followed (new study here).

The earth saw CO2 levels of close to 8000 ppm in the past, i.e. about 20 times more than today. The following chart shows the earth’s atmospheric CO2 concentrations for the past 600 million years.

Today, thanks in large part to mankind, concentrations have risen to over 400 ppm, yet historically this remains at the very low end of the scale compared to the thousands of ppm seen naturally earlier in history.

Greening planet

Today, definitely a safer level would be near 1000 ppm. Studies unanimously show plant growth at these higher levels is far enhanced. Already today we see clear evidence the planet is greening Zhu et al. (2016), in part due to the fertilizations taking place through human emissions:

Figure 1: Trends in Leaf Area Index around the planet. Note the units are in hundredths (10^-2) of meters per square meter. An increase of 25 (Purple, right end of scale) is actually an annual change of .025 square meters per year. Note that the largest greenings are in fact over the South American, African, and Australasian tropical rainforests.

Greening across the world

German science magazine Wissenschaft reported not long ago: “Vegetation on earth has been expanding for decades, satellite data show.”

Some alarmists claim drought is spreading, but Wissenschaft magazine reports: “The opposite is the case: according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, satellite observations show a greening of vegetation over the past three decades in parts of Asia, Europe, South America, Central North America and Southeast Australia.”

“Although there are regions that would become browner, the bottom line is that there is a larger area on our planet that is greened than browned,” the German science magazine notes.

Thanks to CO2 fertilization

For the welcome trend, scientists attribute the surprising development on “a mixture of factors”, foremost the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, which plants thrive on and humans have been mislead into believing is a “pollutant”.

Also watch the following short video:

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December 5, 2020 at 09:38AM