Analysis finds electric cars depreciate much faster than conventional cars

Depreciation hits electric cars hard

Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY

December 26, 2013

Plug-ins are worth less compared to their original value over five years than conventionals



STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Plug-in cars are projected to depreciate more off their list prices than conventional cars
• Kelley Blue Book projected residual values over five years
• Pure electric cars take a bigger hit than plug-in hybrids

Plug-in electric cars may be cutting-edge technology, but an analysis suggests that most will depreciate more dramatically over five years than their conventional counterparts.

Some of the biggest value gaps involve 2014 models powered only by batteries, entirely without gas engines, according to the analysis performed by Kelley Blue Book at the request of USA TODAY. Examples:

•Chevrolet Spark EV. The little electric is projected to be worth 28% of its $28,305 list price in five years, while a comparable conventional version of the same car will retain 40% of its value.

•Ford Focus Electric. The compact will be worth 20% of its initial $35,995 list price, while a well-outfitted conventional Focus Titanium with an automatic transmission will still command 36%.

•Nissan Leaf. Even the best-selling pure electric car is projected at having a residual value of 15% for the 2013 model. A similar Nissan Sentra SL compact would retain 36%.

"Pure electrics have been slow to catch on in the resale market," says Eric Ibara, director of residual consulting for Kelley Blue Book. Customers "have been willing to buy a new one, not a used electric vehicle."

Indeed, three electric cars — Leaf, Fiat 500e and Smart Fortwo electric — topped the list of models projected by KBB to have the highest depreciation among all cars and trucks for the 2014 model year.

...
As bad as that sounds, there are some mitigating factors. In particular, many buyers are given sales incentives packages and don't pay anywhere near the list price. Some of the biggest discounts come on leases. And many electric cars qualify for a federal tax credit of up to $7,500, plus state or local incentives. Big discounts on new cars hurt residual values.

Plug-in hybrid cars, those with backup gas engines, fair better, KBB reports. For instance, Porsche's new Panamera E-Hybrid has a predicted resale value of 37%, compared with 41% for the conventional model. Toyota's Plug-In Prius has a resale of 35%, only 2 percentage points less than for the conventional version.

Nissan officials note the electric car, or EV, revolution is still in its infancy. The market for used electric cars is yet to develop.

"We expect to see a similar adoption curve for used EVs as we have for new EVs, and we are just now reaching the point where there are used EVs on the market," says Erik Gottfried, director of marketing for Nissan Leaf. "EVs are one of the most active and fast-moving segments of the automotive market."

US 2013 oil boom is biggest ever, data shows

2013 oil boom is biggest ever, data shows

Posted on  December 26, 2013 at 10:00 pm by Simone Sebastian

HOUSTON — The United States’ average daily oil production is on track to surge by 1 million barrels per day this year, the biggest one-year jump in the nation’s history, according to federal data.

The country has pumped an average of 7.5 million barrels of crude per day in 2013, up from 6.5 million barrels per day in 2012. That breaks last year’s record, when oil production jumped by 837,000 barrels per day between 2011 and 2012.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that oil production will jump by another 1 million barrels per day in 2014, largely buoyed by drilling activity in Texas’ Eagle Ford Shale and Permian Basin regions, as well as North Dakota’s Bakken Shale.

The Gulf of Mexico also is seeing a boost, with oil production expected to grow to 1.4 million barrels per day in 2014, up by 100,000 barrels.

The hockey stick of US oil production

The data is evidence of the astonishingly rapid turnaround in the nation’s energy story. Oil production declined in 29 of the 40 years between 1971 and 2011. In total, oil production fell by about 40 percent during that time, from 9.5 million barrels per day in 1971 to 5.6 million barrels per day in 2011.

While the U.S. oil boom has sparked conversation of energy independence, Americans consume about 18 million barrels of liquid fuels per day, far more than is produced domestically.

Still, the production surge has caused oil imports to drop considerably. The nation shipped in an average of 7.9 million barrels per day of crude in September, the most recent period for which import data is available. That’s a significant drop from the peak in 2005, when the nation imported an average of 10.1 million barrels per day.

New paper finds globe was warmer, sea levels rose faster & higher during the last interglacial

A paper published today in the Journal of Quaternary Science notes that during the last interglacial, "global temperatures were 2 °C higher and rates of sea-level rise [greater than 5.6mm/year], leading to sea levels 6.6–9.4 meters [22 to 31 feet] higher than present. The source(s) of this sea-level rise remain fiercely debated."

Thus, during the last interglacial, the globe was naturally 2 °C warmer, sea levels rose 5 times faster than at the present, sea levels were up to 31 feet higher than the present, and Antarctic sea ice was much less than the present, all with "safe" levels of CO2. There is no evidence that climate change within the present interglacial is any different, unprecedented, unnatural, unusual, or due to man-made CO2.

Testing the sensitivity of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet to Southern Ocean dynamics: past changes and future implications 

CHRISTOPHER J. FOGWILL et al

The stability of Antarctic ice sheets and their potential contribution to sea level under projected future warming remains highly uncertain. The Last Interglacial (135,000–116,000 years ago) provides a potential analogue, with global temperatures 2 °C higher and rates of sea-level rise >5.6 m ka−1, leading to sea levels 6.6–9.4 m higher than present. The source(s) of this sea-level rise remain fiercely debated. Here we report a series of independent model simulations exploring the effects of migrating Southern Hemisphere Westerlies (SHWs) on Southern Ocean circulation and Antarctic ice-sheet dynamics. We suggest that southerly shifts in winds may have significantly impacted the sub-polar gyres, inducing pervasive warming (0.2–0.8 °C in the upper 1200 m) adjacent to sectors of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS), which due to their geometries and connectivity to the Southern Ocean are highly sensitive to ocean forcing. We conclude that the EAIS potentially made a substantial, hitherto unsuspected, contribution to interglacial sea levels, and given 21st-century projections in the Southern Annular Mode and associated SHW migration, we highlight how pervasive circum-Antarctic warming may threaten EAIS stability.

New paper finds Arctic sea ice extent has increased over the last few centuries

A new paper published in Quaternary Science Reviews finds that reconstructed Arctic sea ice extent has increased over the last few centuries. According to the authors, the only sea ice proxy "records having a resolution suitable to document sea ice cover variations over the last centuries" find that "all records show an increase of the sea ice cover over the last centuries" and "a distinct trend for an increased sea ice cover towards modern values over the last centuries."

Excerpt:

"Records having a resolution suitable to document sea ice cover variations over the last centuries have  been obtained from the Mackenzie slope, the Beaufort Sea (Richerol et al., 2008; Bringué and Rochon, 2012; Durantou et al., 2012), and the Chukchi Shelf (core B5; de Vernal et al., 2008; Kinnard et al., 2011). At the Beaufort Sea sites, the variations are of limited amplitude and the estimates are close to “modern” observations, but all records show an increase of the sea ice cover over the last centuries. At the Chukchi site, the record shows large amplitude variations with a distinct trend for an increased sea ice cover towards modern values over the last centuries."

Dinocyst-based reconstructions of sea ice cover concentration during the Holocene in the Arctic Ocean, the northern North Atlantic Ocean and its adjacent seas

Anne de Vernal et al

Sea ice cover extent expressed in terms of mean annual concentration was reconstructed from the
application of the modern analogue technique to dinocyst assemblages. The use of an updated database, which includes 1492 sites and 66 taxa, yields sea ice concentration estimates with an accuracy of 1.1/10. Holocene reconstructions of sea ice cover were made from dinocyst counts in 35 cores of the northern North Atlantic and Arctic seas. In the Canadian Arctic, the results show high sea ice concentration (>7/10) with little variations throughout the interval. In contrast, in Arctic areas such as the Chukchi Sea and the Barents Sea, the reconstructions show large amplitude variations of sea ice cover suggesting millennial type oscillations with a pacing almost opposite in western vs. eastern Arctic. Other records show tenuous changes with some regionalism either in trends or sea ice cover variability. During the mid-Holocene, and notably at 6 0.5 ka, minimum sea ice concentration is recorded in the eastern Fram Strait, northern Baffin Bay and Labrador Sea. However, this minimum cannot be extrapolated at the scale of the Arctic and circum-Arctic. The comparison of recent observations and reconstructions suggests larger variations in the Arctic sea ice cover during the last decades than throughout the Holocene.

UK taxpayers spent $49 million this year for wind farms to sit idle

£30 million for wind turbines that don't work when it's windy: Cost is £25 million higher than last year and paid for by household bills

• National Grid is unable to cope with extra power produced
  
• At the start of September, around 40 wind farm firms were paid £2.4 million
• Another windy weekend in August saw £3.1 million handed over
• 
  

By TAMARA COHEN

PUBLISHED: 17:31 EST, 25 December 2013 | UPDATED: 10:56 EST, 26 December 2013  THE DAILY MAIL

Wind farms have been paid a record £30 million this year to stand idle in bad weather.

The cash, which comes from household bills, is paid when the National Grid is unable to cope with the extra power produced during high winds, or during periods of low demand.

The ‘constraint payments’ have reached £30,424,169 this year, compared with last year’s £5million.

Wind farms have been paid £30million this year to shut down in bad weather 

In just one weekend at the start of September, around 40 wind farm firms were paid £2.4million to switch off. The energy they would have produced in that time could have powered up to 10,000 homes.

Another windy weekend in August saw £3.1million handed to energy firms for doing absolutely nothing. Up to 30 wind farms were paid.

John Constable, of the Renewable Energy Foundation charity, which compiled the figures from official data, said: ‘The scale and pricing of wind power constraints in 2013 clearly shows that the full system cost of wind power is much higher than government is willing to admit.

‘Unfortunately, there are no cheap solutions, and, ironically, paying wind farms not to produce energy may actually be cheaper than building more grid.

‘At some point government will have to face the fact that wind power is simply too expensive to provide more than a minor share of UK electricity.’

Under EU law, Britain’s energy consumption from renewables needs to reach 15 per cent by 2020 – meaning thousands more wind turbines may be built. There are already 4,000 on land and a further 1,000 at sea.

Onshore wind farm turbines next to the coal fired Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire

Wind farms – especially those offshore – are heavily subsidised, with ministers saying turbines need public support to help them ‘scale up’.

But Peter Lilley, a Tory MP on the Commons energy and climate change committee, said: ‘Paying wind farm operators not to produce electricity adds insult to injury. It’s an added problem that enthusiasts for wind farms tend to ignore and will increase proportionally the greater the number of wind turbines we subsidise by taking money from the pockets of poor people to subsidise rich landowners.’ 

National Grid said the payments had been higher than in previous years, partly due to weather conditions, but those paid to wind farms only made up a small proportion of all constraint payments.

A spokesman said: ‘National Grid balances the country’s demand and supply minute by minute, and it transports electricity from where it is generated to where it is needed. It can ask generators to come on or off the grid to manage constraints and keep the system balanced.

‘National Grid has a number of tools at its disposal to do that and is incentivised to keep balancing costs down. 

‘The number and relative value of constraint payments made to wind farms is small compared to overall constraint payments made to generators of all types.’

New paper finds Antarctica had much less sea ice during the last interglacial

A paper published today in Climate of the Past finds Antarctic sea ice extent was much less than the present during the last interglacial period ~120,000 years ago. According to the authors, "During the last interglacial, the [sea ice proxy at 2 sites in Antarctica] are only half of the Holocene levels, in line with higher temperatures during that period, indicating much reduced sea ice extent in the Atlantic as well as the Indian Ocean sector of the Southern Ocean."

Prior research has also shown that Antarctic sea ice has markedly increased over past 7000 years since the Holocene Climate Optimum, when temperatures were significantly higher than the present. 

During the last interglacial, sea levels were 31 feet higher than the present, sea ice extent much less than the present, and Greenland was 8C warmer than the present, all with "safe" levels of CO2. There is no evidence the current interglacial is any different. 

Top graph shows temperature proxy from 2 drilling sites. Horizontal axis is thousands of years before the present. Temperatures were higher than the present during the interglacial ~120,000 years ago. Bottom 2 graphs show a proxy for Antarctic sea ice was only about half of Holocene levels. 

Clim. Past, 9, 2789-2807, 2013 www.clim-past.net/9/2789/2013/ doi:10.5194/cp-9-2789-2013 High-resolution mineral dust and sea ice proxy records from the Talos Dome ice core

S. Schüpbach^1,2,3, U. Federer^1,2, P. R. Kaufmann^1,2, S. Albani⁴, C. Barbante^3,5, T. F. Stocker^1,2, and H. Fischer^1,2
1Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
²Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
³Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics Department, University of Venice, Venice, Italy
⁴Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
⁵Institute for the Dynamics of Environmental Processes – National Research Council, Venice, Italy

Abstract. In this study we report on new non-sea salt calcium (nssCa²⁺, mineral dust proxy) and sea salt sodium (ssNa⁺, sea ice proxy) records along the East Antarctic Talos Dome deep ice core in centennial resolution reaching back 150 thousand years (ka) before present. During glacial conditions nssCa²⁺ fluxes in Talos Dome are strongly related to temperature as has been observed before in other deep Antarctic ice core records, and has been associated with synchronous changes in the main source region (southern South America) during climate variations in the last glacial. However, during warmer climate conditions Talos Dome mineral dust input is clearly elevated compared to other records mainly due to the contribution of additional local dust sources in the Ross Sea area. Based on a simple transport model, we compare nssCa²⁺ fluxes of different East Antarctic ice cores. From this multi-site comparison we conclude that changes in transport efficiency or atmospheric lifetime of dust particles do have a minor effect compared to source strength changes on the large-scale concentration changes observed in Antarctic ice cores during climate variations of the past 150 ka. Our transport model applied on ice core data is further validated by climate model data.

The availability of multiple East Antarctic nssCa²⁺ records also allows for a revision of a former estimate on the atmospheric CO₂sensitivity to reduced dust induced iron fertilisation in the Southern Ocean during the transition from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene (T1). While a former estimate based on the EPICA Dome C (EDC) record only suggested 20 ppm, we find that reduced dust induced iron fertilisation in the Southern Ocean may be responsible for up to 40 ppm of the total atmospheric CO₂ increase during T1. During the last interglacial, ssNa⁺ [sea ice proxy] levels of EDC and EPICA Dronning Maud Land (EDML) are only half of the Holocene levels, in line with higher temperatures during that period, indicating much reduced sea ice extent in the Atlantic as well as the Indian Ocean sector of the Southern Ocean. In contrast, Holocene ssNa⁺ flux in Talos Dome is about the same as during the last interglacial, indicating that there was similar ice cover present in the Ross Sea area during MIS 5.5 as during the Holocene.

California planning to run on battery power due to unreliable wind & solar energy

Costly renewable energy policies are already set to raise California power costs by $5 billion or 33 percent due to expensive and unreliable wind and solar energy. However, that may be only half of the additional cost, since the "California Public Utilities Commission has called on utilities and private companies to install about $5 billion worth of batteries and other forms of energy storage to help the state power grid cope with the erratic power supplied by wind and solar energy." 

Thus, in total, new renewable sources and the battery capacity necessary to provide reliable electricity may cost $10 billion by 2020, representing about a 66% increase in electricity rates.

Obama: My Plan Makes Electricity Rates Skyrocket

Could Big Batteries Be Big Business In California?

by RICHARD HARRIS NPR
December 23, 2013 3:24 AM

Morning Edition 5 min 18 sec Playlist Download

Strong gusts in Palm Springs, Calif., generate plenty of energy, thanks to turbine farms. But being able to store all that energy is just as important.

The California Public Utilities Commission has called on utilities and private companies to install about $5 billion worth of batteries and other forms of energy storage to help the state power grid cope with the erratic power supplied by wind and solar energy.

The need to store energy has become urgent because the state is planning to get a third of its electricity from renewable sources by the end of the decade. And the shift in strategy could open up some big opportunities for small startups, including one called Stem.

Stem is housed in an abandoned showroom in Millbrae, Calif., just across the highway from San Francisco International Airport. And the company's not just aiming to help the state's power grid.


Storage batteries made by Stem, a Bay Area startup, look like glitzy gym lockers.

"We make a product that reduces electricity bills for businesses," says Tad Glauthier, Stem's vice president for customer development.

In fact, Stem's first priority is to focus on individual businesses. To explain how this works, Glauthier walks over to a couple of large computer monitors hanging on the wall.

"The monitor on the right is showing the electric load from the carwash across the street," he says.

The graph is all over the place. There are lulls when the carwash is waiting for business — punctuated with big spikes when blowers, vacuums and other large pieces of equipment switch on.

"If you look at just the range within the last 15 minutes, that's an incredible amount of volatility," Glauthier says. "The utility has to serve them that electricity."

It turns out the car wash has to pay extra on its electric bill for those periods of high demand. All companies in California get billed for their peak use, as well as their total electricity consumption.

So if the carwash can shave off those power peaks, they can also shave this extra charge from their electric bill.

Here's how Stem does it: When demand spikes, batteries kick in so the company doesn't have to draw so much from the grid.

The battery packs they install in businesses look like glitzy gym lockers, and are controlled by a small computer, connected to the Internet. The computer's job is to decide when a company should be pulling energy from its batteries, rather than from the grid. When the company's energy demand is low, it can recharge the battery.

"With the Stem system, they're not using less power," Glauthier explains. "They're just using power in a more level way."

And by doing that, the company is reducing the part of its bill that's based on peak power usage.

So is Stem simply building a system that allows companies to "game" their electric bills? Glauthier says, no. "You absolutely help the [power grid] system," he says.

But Glauthier may be getting a little ahead of himself here.

"Right now, it does only help the customer," says Haresh Kamath, a battery expert at the Electric Power Research Institute in nearby Palo Alto.

Kamath says batteries will eventually help the state power grid deal with the ups and downs of electricity supplies from wind and solar. But it will take a lot of battery power to make a difference.

That's exactly why the California Public Utilities Commission has called for billions of dollars of energy storage to be installed between now and 2020.

"If you get a small energy storage system in every body's home, or every business, that could have a substantial impact on the grid as a whole," Kamath says. "Of course right now it's difficult to do that because it's a relatively expensive product."

Everybody's hoping that creating this huge demand for batteries will also help drive down the cost.

Batteries can help with short-term power fluctuations — like those created when a cloud passes over a bank of solar panels, for example, or when the air goes still at a particular wind farm. And they can help keep the power grid stable, as operators work to match supply and demand second by second.

Stem is planning to scale up its operations so it can play a role in stabilizing the grid. The grid operator actually pays for that service, so it could be another revenue stream for Stem.

Glauthier says the company has installed just 10 systems so far, but they have 150 more orders in the works. And once they reach a critical mass, they will be able to control all the batteries they install from one central location.

"It's taken us four and a half years to get here, and I think there's another three to four years to go before we're really blowing the doors off," Glauthier says.

And they do have competition, including Tesla Motors, which has teamed up with a solar energy company to get into this business as well.

The race is not simply to refine battery technology, but to invent business models that will make energy storage practical.

How climate models dismiss the role of the Sun in climate change [Part 4]

A paper published in Geophysical Research Letters finds another means by which climate models dismiss the role of the Sun in climate change. The paper notes that climate models consider total solar irradiance [TSI], but ignore the large shifts in wavelength distributions during solar cycles. The most energetic wavelengths from the Sun in the UV can vary up to 100% over solar cycles, and have significant effects on climate via stratospheric ozone.

According to the authors, "These findings need to be incorporated into Earth-climate [models] since the solar forcing induced by these differential trends are inherently different from the relatively flat spectral contributions employed in the IPCC assessments."

The authors find periods of low solar activity increase high-energy UV wavelengths, which would increase stratospheric ozone production. This has an inverse effect upon global temperatures, thus acting as a solar amplification mechanism. 

Figure from another paper showing the inverse relationship between ozone and global temperatures
Fig. 1. 

Time series of annual data of: Land air T anomalies (thin line with dots); CO₂ anomalies (squares); Arosa total ozone (dash-dotted line with diamonds) for period 1900–2010. The values of CO₂ anomalies are rescaled by the formula: CO₂=(measured−mean)/100. The thick continuous curves are smoothed values(11-year and 22-year running averages) of total O₃ and land air T.

Trends in solar spectral irradiance variability in the visible and infrared

Jerald W. Harder, Juan M. Fontenla, Peter Pilewskie, Erik C. Richard, Thomas N. Woods

The Spectral Irradiance Monitor (SIM) on-board the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) satellite provides the first multi-year continuous measurements of solar spectral irradiance (SSI) variability from 200–2400 nm, accounting for about 97% of the total solar irradiance (TSI). In addition to irradiance modulation from active region passage, the SSI values for wavelengths with a brightness temperature greater than 5770 K show a brightening with decreasing solar activity, whereas those with lower brightness temperatures show a dimming. These results demonstrate that different parts of the solar atmosphere contribute differently to the TSI with the behavior in the deep photospheric layers giving an opposing and nearly compensating trend to that in the upper photospheric and lower chromospheric layers. These findings need to be incorporated into Earth-climate assessments since the solar forcing induced by these differential trends are inherently different from the relatively flat spectral contributions employed in the IPCC assessments.

Notes: 5770 K corresponds to a peak wavelength of 502 nm in the blue portion of the visible spectrum, brightness temperatures higher than 5770 K have a shorter wavelength, e.g. UV wavelengths are at 350 nm and below

Related:

How climate models dismiss the role of the Sun in climate change [Part 3]

How climate models dismiss the role of the Sun in climate

Review finds plants will avoid extinction from climate change

A new paper from SPPI and CO2 Science reviews the literature on plant adaptation to rapid climate change and concludes, "Earth's plants have many ways of adjusting to changes in various climatic elements in addition to their ability to move from places of rising warmth to somewhat cooler habitats; and, therefore, they are likely to be around a whole lot longer than many climate-alarmist publications have predicted."

For the Full Report in PDF Form, please click here.

[Illustrations, footnotes and references available in PDF version]

Excerpts:

One of the great horror stories associated with predictions of CO2-induced global warming is that the warming will be so fast and furious that many species of plants will not be able to migrate towards cooler regions - poleward in latitude, or upward in elevation - at rates that are rapid enough to avoid extinction. This claim may sound logical enough ... but is it true?

If the Earth did warm by a significant amount, for whatever reason, the best thing that could possibly happen to the planet would be for the air's CO2 concentration to rise concurrently, because there would then be either little need for the vegetation of the planet to migrate to cooler regions, or the required rate of migration and/or distance of travel would be much reduced from what overly-simplistic coupled climate-biology models have suggested. 

Results demonstrated the tremendous capacity for Earth's vegetation to rapidly respond to climate change in dramatic ways that need not result in species extinctions, but that can lead to huge increases in ecosystem species richness, which is typically considered to be a desirable property of vegetative assemblages.

As a result of these findings, they concluded that "surprisingly rapid shifts in the distribution of plants can be expected with climate change." 

These results make it much easier to understand why - even in the face of significant 20th-century global warming - there have been no species of plants that have been observed to have been pushed off the planet, especially in alpine regions.

Clearly, it would appear from the findings discussed above that Earth's plants have many ways of adjusting to changes in various climatic elements in addition to their ability to move from places of rising warmth to somewhat cooler habitats; and, therefore, they are likely to be around a whole lot longer than many climate-alarmist publications have predicted. 

Public Bored And Disinterested By Climate Change Fear Stories

"Its called crying Wolf, repeatedly, the Greens simply don’t comprehend that after decades of failed predictions of looming environmental holocaust, people are bored of the CO2 wolf that never comes, instead the Green response is always more of the same, and sillier fear stories about a new study that has just found something we should all crap our pants about."

Reposted from Tory Aardvark:

Green NGO – Public Bored And Disinterested By Climate Change Fear Stories

DEC 16

Posted by Tory Aardvark

Climate Outreach and Information Network (COIN) – “civil society is exhausted by Climate Change fear stories”

As the Anthropogenic Global Warming boondoggle continues to collapse, the Greens and others complicit in the warming alarmist industry are busily looking for reasons for their failure to convince people of the validity of their message.

After more the 20 years of Mainstream Media outlets continually pumping out every bit of Green propaganda no matter how ludicrous, interest in the Global Warming has continued to decline, to the point where most people’s eyes glaze over at the mere mention of the topic.

The Climate Outreach and Information Network (COIN) based in Oxford specializes in propagating Green Fear stories, sometimes called climate change communication, and one of their co-founders George Marshall knows just how difficult it is to engage anyone in a discussion about the irrational fear of CO2:

Whenever he can, Marshall tries to engage people in conversation about global warming: he finds it a tough task.

“I’m always casual about it – after all, no one wants to find themselves sitting next to a zealot on a long-distance train journey.

“But I need not worry because, however I say it, the result is almost always the same: the words collapse, sink and die in mid-air and the conversation suddenly changes course…it’s like an invisible force field that you only discover when you barge right into it. Few people ever do, because, without having ever been told, they have somehow learned that this topic is out of bounds.”

Yet another reason to travel by car, the chances of finding a Climate Change zealot in the car is about as likely as one of Marshall’s Green Armageddon events happening.

In many ways being stuck next to a Climate Change zealot, is worse than being sat next to a Jehovah’s witness, they at least do have a day off.

Others in the business of communicating climate change will sympathise: they become used to eyes glazing over, people suddenly finding others to talk to or urgently expressing the need for a drink. It can be a lonely occupation.

COIN has just produced a report entitled Climate Silence, questioning why the interest of the public in global warming is still low – despite all the warnings about the threats being faced.

Its called crying Wolf, repeatedly, the Greens simply don’t comprehend that after decades of failed predictions of looming environmental holocaust, people are bored of the CO2 wolf that never comes, instead the Green response is always more of the same, and sillier fear stories about a new study that has just found something we should all crap our pants about.

“Civil society, exhausted by the disappointment of the Copenhagen climate change negotiations in 2009, has largely fallen silent. Scientists, cowed by personal attacks, have become increasingly reticent.

Climategate made the public aware of the scale of the deception that was being carried out by politically motivated science, and as for scientists cowed by personal attacks, they should grow a pair.

If you wanted personal attacks try being someone who never bought in to the AGW scam between 2008 – 2012, personal attacks and being trolled daily was normal as the warming alarmists vitriol was unleashed on all who did believe in the Church of Climatology.

But like all good scams and totalitarian ideologies the suppression of dissent and discussion was of a paramount importance to keep the public with the Green message:

“A door that was once firmly shut – to sceptical voices in the mainstream media – has been opened again…public interest has dwindled. The debate has become stale and fatigued.”

The Greens and warmists always knew that their story would never stand up to public scrutiny and debate which is why they worked so hard to suppress dissent and smear the opponents with labels like “Denier”.

The situation for Climate Religion is just as dire in the USA:

In the US there seems to be less public engagement in the issue. A survey this year by Yale University found that only 8% of respondents said they communicated publicly about climate change, while nearly 70% said they rarely or never spoke about it.

In the final analysis it is difficult to see how the Greens can ever change their message from crying wolf and peddling fear, their scam is not based on having a better tomorrow, but rather on something really, really bad will happen if you don’t do as we say.

The other problem totally ignored by COIN is that post COP19 the cat is out of the bag about wealth redistribution, always the major motivating force behind the AGW scam, and the voters in the western world are not up for this at all.

Even Barack Obama has realised that selling loss and damage to US voters is: politically impossible to present to domestic audiences.

New paper finds another mechanism by which the Sun controls climate

A paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters finds that solar activity modulates the natural ocean oscillations the Pacific Decadal Oscillation [PDO] and the North Atlantic Oscillation [NAO]. These ocean oscillations, in turn, have large scale effects upon global climate. 

The authors find when the PDO is in phase with the 11 year sunspot cycle, the pattern of sea level pressures and surface temperatures shift in comparison to when they are out of phase. The authors also find the NAO is amplified when it is in phase with the sunspot cycle. 

These effects may represent another solar amplification mechanism by which tiny 0.1% changes in solar activity can be amplified to large scale effects upon climate.

Interactions between externally-forced climate signals from sunspot peaks and the internally-generated Pacific Decadal and North Atlantic Oscillations
Harry van Loon, Gerald A. Meehl

Abstract

When the PDO [Pacific Decadal Oscillation] is in phase with the 11 year sunspot cycle there are positive SLP [sea level pressure] anomalies in the Gulf of Alaska, nearly no anomalous zonal SLP gradient across the equatorial Pacific, and a mix of small positive and negative SST [sea surface temperature] anomalies there. When the two indices are out of phase, positive SLP anomalies extend farther south in the Gulf of Alaska and west into eastern Russia, with a strengthened anomalous zonal equatorial Pacific SLP gradient and larger magnitude and more extensive negative SST anomalies along the equatorial Pacific. In the North Atlantic, when the NAO [North Atlantic Oscillation] is in phase with the sunspot peaks, there is an intensified positive NAO SLP pattern. When the NAO is out of phase with the peaks, there is the opposite pattern (negative NAO). The relationships are physically consistent with previously identified processes and mechanisms, and point the way to further research.

For global warming believers, 2013 was the year from Hell

Lawrence Solomon: For global warming believers, 2013 was the year from Hell

Lawrence Solomon | December 19, 2013 7:00 PM ET
More from Lawrence Solomon | @LSolomonTweets

A Druze man and woman clear snow from their door way in the Druze village of Beit Jann on Mt. Meron in the Galilee, northern Israel on Dec. 16, 2013, when a winter storm last week dumped rare snow across the region and caused heavy disruptions in Israel.

Almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong for the cause of global warming

2013 has been a gloomy year for global warming enthusiasts. The sea ice in the Antarctic set a record, according to NASA, extending over a greater area than at any time since 1979 when satellite measurements first began. In the Arctic the news is also glum. Five years ago, Al Gore predicted that by 2013 “the entire North polar ice cap will be gone.” Didn’t happen. Instead, a deflated Gore saw the Arctic ice cap increase by 50% over 2012. This year’s Arctic ice likewise exceeded that of 2008, the year of his prediction. And that of 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Weather between the poles has also conspired to make the global warming believers look bad. In December, U.S. weather stations reported over 2000 record cold and snow days. Almost 60% of the U.S. was covered in snow, twice as much as last year. The heavens even opened up in the Holy Land, where an awestruck citizenry saw 16 inches of snow fall in Jerusalem, almost three feet in its environs. Snow blanketed Cairo for the first time in more than 100 years.

2013 marks the 17^th year of no warming on the planet. It marks the first time that James Hansen, Al Gore’s guru and the one whose predictions set off the global warming scare, admitted that warming had stopped. It marks the first time that major media enforcers of the orthodoxy — the Economist, Reuters and the London Telegraph – admitted that the science was not settled on global warming, the Economist even mocking the scientists’ models by putting them on “negative watch.” Scientific predictions of global cooling – until recently mostly shunned in the academic press for fear of being labeled crackpot – were published and publicized by no less than the BBC, a broadcaster previously unmatched in the anthropogenic apocalyptic media.

The heavens even opened up in the Holy Land, where 16 inches of snow fell in Jerusalem

2013 was likewise bleak for businesses banking on global warming. Layoffs and bankruptcies continued to mount for European and North American companies producing solar panels and wind turbines, as did their pleas for subsidies to fight off what they labelled unfair competition from Chinese firms. Starting in 2013, though, their excuses have been wearing thin. China’s Suntech, the world’s largest solar panel manufacturer, has now filed for bankruptcy, as has LDK Solar, another major firm. Sinovel, China’s largest manufacturers of wind turbines and the world second largest, reported it lost $100-million after its revenues plunged 60%, and it is now closing plants in Canada, the U.S., and Europe.

While these no-carbon technologies get buried, carbon rich fuels go gung ho. Last month Germany fired up a spanking new coal plant, the first of 10 modern CO2-gushers that Europe’s biggest economy will be banking on to power its economy into the 21^st century. Worldwide, 1200 coal-fired plants are in the works. According to the International Agency, coal’s dominance will especially grow in the countries of the developing world, helping to raise their poor out of poverty as they modernize their economies.

But important as coal is, the fossil fuel darlings are indisputably shale gas and shale oil. This week the U.K. sloughed off the naysayers and announced it will be going all out to tap into these next-generation fuels. Half of the UK will be opened up to drilling to accomplish for the U.K. what shale oil and shale gas are doing for the U.S. – drastically lowering energy costs while eliminating the country’s dependence on foreign fuels. China, too, has decided to tap into the shale revolution – in a deal with the U.S. announced this week, it will be exploiting what some estimate to be the world’s biggest shale gas reserves, equivalent in energy content to about half the oil in Saudi Arabia.

2013 as well marks a turning point for the governments of the world. January 1, 2013, Day One of the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol, saw Kyoto abandoned by Canada and Russia, two fossil fuel powerhouses. With their departure Kyoto became a club for the non-emitters – the Kyoto Protocol now only covers  a paltry 15% of global emissions. At UN-sponsored talks on global warming in Warsaw last month, the Western countries of Europe, North America, and Australia refused to even discuss a proposal from developing countries that would limit emissions in the future.

2013 also saw Australia elect a climate-skeptic government in an election that was hailed as a referendum on climate change. Upon winning, the government promptly proceeded to scrap the country’s carbon tax along with its climate change ministry, now in the rubbish heap of history. Other countries are taking note of the public’s attitude toward climate change alarmism – almost nowhere does the public believe the scary scenarios painted by the climate change advocates.

2013 was the best of years for climate skeptics; the worst of years for climate change enthusiasts for whom any change – or absence of change — in the weather served as irrefutable proof of climate change. The enthusiasts fell into disbelief that everyone didn’t pooh-pooh the failure of the climate models to perform as advertised. That governments and the public would abandon the duty to stop climate change was in their minds no more thinkable than Hell freezing over. Which the way things are going for them, may happen in 2014.

An amazing fraud by an architect of US climate policies

John Beale's EPA

An amazing fraud by an architect of government climate policies.

WSJ.COM 12/19/13: Last month we told you about John Beale, the Environmental Protection Agency employee who bilked taxpayers out of almost $900,000 by pretending to be a secret agent. Telling EPA colleagues that he was a CIA operative, Beale was paid for long absences while on imaginary missions for "Langley." Now there is a disturbing new question about John Beale that goes to the heart of the EPA's mission. What was he doing when he actually showed up for work?

In September, Beale pleaded guilty to theft of government property and agreed to pay $886,186 in restitution and to forfeit another $507,207. On Wednesday he was sentenced to 32 months in federal prison.

The Beale affair is a classic story of government waste, fraud and mismanagement. But it is much more than that, because Beale was no low-level bureaucrat, unknown to senior officials and operating in the depths of the agency. He was among the EPA's most senior, most highly paid officials, one entrusted with formulating the agency's most controversial policies. Thus the consequences of his EPA tenure go far beyond the specific fraud for which he will now go to prison.

From 1989 until 2013, Beale was employed in the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation (OAR), which develops policies and regulations related to air pollution and climate change. It is the most powerful office within one of Washington's most powerful agencies, given the costs it can impose on American business and consumers. And for much of his time Beale was senior policy adviser. According to his plea agreement, his specific duties included assisting the head of OAR "in planning, policy implementation, direction, and control of EPA programs."


From 2009 until 2013, the head of OAR was Gina McCarthy, who is currently the EPA Administrator. So not only was Beale within view of senior managers as he pulled off his astounding fraud, he was directly managed by the woman who now runs the place. And if there was any doubt about how influential John Beale was in formulating key EPA policies, it seems to have been put to rest by the trade publication E&E News. Via a Freedom of Information Act request, E&E News obtained a collection of agency emails related to Beale.

At 10:44 a.m. EST on December 3, 2010, Ms. McCarthy wrote to her staff at OAR and reported: "I am pleased to let you know that John Beale will be resuming his role as the Immediate Office's lead for all of OAR's international work." She added: "Most of you know John well as he has been a very large presence in much of OAR's work for over 20 years. In addition to lead roles in the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, the early implementation of the Act, the development and negotiation of the National Low Emission Vehicle Program, and the 1997 [National Ambient Air Quality Standards] review, John served as OAR's lead for international work from 1990 thru [sic] 2005. Beginning in 1999, John managed OAR's work on climate change as well as all other international work."

Ms. McCarthy further gushed that "I am very excited to finally get the opportunity to work closely with him. In addition to the international work John will continue to work on various special projects for me."

There's more. In an odd conclusion to that December 2010 staff bulletin, Ms. McCarthy wrote that Beale "is supposed to be sitting in [office] 5426B of Ariel Rios North, but good luck finding him. We are keeping him well hidden so he won't get scooped away from OAR anytime soon." Few CEOs in private business could keep their jobs after lauding and entrusting with key responsibilities the perpetrator of a fraud against the company.

Beale's attorney John Kern says his client "has come to recognize that, beyond the motive of greed, his theft and deception were animated by a highly self-destructive and dysfunctional need to engage in excessively reckless, risky behavior." Mr. Kern adds that Beale was motivated "to manipulate those around him through the fabrication of grandiose narratives" because of "his insecurities."

Are we now supposed to believe that in contrast to his other lies, the work Beale chose to perform at EPA is the product of careful and honest analysis? What Congress needs to examine is whether the policies that the head of EPA says were shaped to a large degree by Beale were also based on fraud. Oh, and what Gina McCarthy knew or suspected, and why she so admired a fraudster.

Observations show IPCC exaggerates anthropogenic global warming by a factor of 7

A compilation of at least 30 published studies based upon satellite and ocean observations demonstrate climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 levels after all feedbacks is only about 0.5 C, which is ~7 times less than the 3.2C claimed by the IPCC AR5 modelled mean estimate.

Note: If the current rate of increase of 2 ppm/yr continues, CO2 concentrations would require about 200 years to double. These climate sensitivity estimates also assume the temperature increase was solely due to greenhouse gases and do not include natural influences from solar amplification, global brightening, ocean oscillations, etc. which can alone account for 95% of climate change over the past 400 years.

30 published peer-reviewed studies and 5 unpublished low estimates of climate sensitivity [updated]:

Lindzen & Choi [2011]: 0.7 C

Spencer & Braswell: 0.62 C

Bjornbom: 0.67 C

Eschenbach: 0.2 C 

Levitus 2012 = 0.39 C

Douglass & Knox [2012]: 0.16 * 1.3 = 0.21 C

Lindzen & Giannitsis: 0.67 C

Douglass et al [2005]: .22 * 1.3 = 0.29 C

Bogdanov: .41*1.3 = 0.53 C

Chylek: .385*1.3 = 0.50 C

Monckton: .12 * 3.7 * 1.3 = 0.58 C

Paltridge: .1 - .3 (based on NCEP trends, figure 10) (ave .2)*1.3 = 0.26 C

Schwartz: 0.3 * 1.3 = 0.39 C

UPDATES:

Bengtsson: 2C with lower bound 1.167C

The Hockey Schtick: 0.28C [to doubling of man-made CO2 emissions]

The Hockey Schtick [alternate method]: 0.25C [to doubling of CO2 levels]

Harde: 0.43C

Norden: 0.8 C

Lewis & Curry: 1.3C Transient Climate Sensitivity, 1.6C Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity

Irvine: 1.3C

Cederlöf: 0.32C mean, [0.23C to 0.32C range]

McLean: CO2 played little if any role in post-1950 warming, i.e. sensitivity << 1C

Skeie: 1.8C

LaTour: -0.12C

Brown: 2.62*log(2) = 0.79C

Schwartz: 2C [mean estimate]

All very similar [except Bengtsson at 2C, and Lewis & Curry at 1.6C, Skeie at 1.8C, Schwartz at 2C, but still significantly lower than IPCC AR5 mid-range modeled estimate of 3.2C] and averaging out to about 0.5 C climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 levels

Note: Equilibrium climate sensitivity [ECS] at the top of the atmosphere [TOA] has been determined from the above analyses assuming ECS is 130% of transient climate sensitivity [TCS] per Otto et al. 

UPDATE: Thanks to a comment below from 

Kenneth RichardSeptember 22, 2014 at 9:27 PM

Here are a few more not included on the list:

http://atlatszo.hu/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/article.pdf ---> +0.00 C
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412008001232 ---> +0.02 C
http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr/10//c010p069.pdf ---> +0.4 C
http://multi-science.metapress.com/content/3678681q807n8236/fulltext.pdf?page=1 ---> +0.51 C
http://multi-science.metapress.com/content/k76363u651167q65/ ----> +0.96 C
http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/8/4923/2012/cpd-8-4923-2012.html ----> +1.1 C
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13143-014-0011-z ----> +1.3 C
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1307.3706.pdf ---> +1.35 C
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00473.1 ---> +1.6 C