Dutch government is discussing the possibility to stop sales of gas powered cars starting in 2025. (Electric).
After India evaluating a scheme for all its fleet to be electric by 2030,
now we learn that the Dutch government is discussing the possibility to
ban gas-powered car sales and only allow electric vehicle sales
starting in 2025.
Although the parliament is considering the possibility to implement
such a drastic law, the house is divided and the liberal coalition in
power does not see the rule being implemented any time soon. Hmmm..... the nanny state on steroids. Read the full story here.
$13 million wasted on windy last day of March: Ontario taxpayer pays to get rid of excess Hydro. (WindconcernOntario) By Parker Gallant
These spring windy days are costing you: Ontario’s Wynne
government pays millions for power it can’t use including wind,
produced exactly when we don’t need it.
More than $13 million wasted on windy last day of March
March 2016 left like a lion with the wind roaring mightily. Wind on March 31st
could have generated over 90% of its IESO posted capacity of almost
3,900 MW— but it didn’t.
Demand was relatively low in Ontario that
day, with users requiring only 359,000 MWh. That meant the IESO folks
were busy getting nuclear to steam off (about 26,000 MWh), spilling
hydro, and actively curtailing wind.
Curtailed wind generation on that day exceeded both Ontario’s net
exports of 31,400 MWh, and wind-generated electricity actually delivered
to the grid. Our exported surplus was sold at a negative average price of the HOEP (hourly Ontario energy price) as we paid New York, Michigan, Quebec, and others $1.71/MWh to take our excess power.
We also paid wind power generators in the neighbourhood of $120 per MWh to curtail an estimated 40,500 MWh.
Our production costs for the month of March are collectively
estimated at $117/MWh, suggesting the Global Adjustment (GA) will
average about $112/MWh and the HOEP will average around $5/MWh.
That
means the cost of the day’s full generation of 400,224 MWh (Ontario
Demand + exports) at an estimated $46.8 million. Included in
that figure are costs for net exports, steamed off nuclear, spilled
hydro, curtailed wind, and idling gas plants, needed to back up wind and
solar.
The one-day costs included in the $46.8 million are: an estimated
$1.5 million for Bruce Power to steam off nuclear; $3 million to pay
idling gas plants; $3.7 million to pay for our exported surplus; and
about $4.8 million for curtailed wind.
Without including costs for spilled hydro, the total costs for energy not needed for just one day
came to about $13 million. We should be grateful the sun wasn’t
shining too or we would have been paying for solar generation at even
higher prices.
We also saved about $15/MWh or $600,000 March 31st by curtailing wind generation or the $13 million daily cost would have been higher.
Now, try to imagine how that $13 million might have helped out our
health care system, perhaps by retaining nurses at many hospitals such
as Windsor, North Bay, etc., where recent staff reductions have
occurred. No wonder an Ontario Health Coalition study a year ago
stated: “we have been deeply disturbed at the devastating cuts we are
seeing to needed public hospital care all across Ontario.”
The money that should be earmarked for health care is finding its way
into the pockets of the mainly foreign wind turbine and solar panel
developers instead of actually helping out Ontarians.
Time to scrap the acquisition of more intermittent wind and solar
generation and earmark the money where it belongs. Ontarians don’t want
to see $13 million wasted daily, just to pretend wind and solar are
better than emission-free nuclear and hydro.
China - Shanghai coal imports jump in first two months to 1.94 million tonnes. (EyesOnChina)
Imports of coal and lignite through Shanghai in January and February
were up 150 percent year on year, the local customs authority announced
on Tuesday.
Shanghai imported 1.94 million tonnes of coal and lignite in the
first two months. The average price for a tonne of coal stood at 316
yuan (49 U.S. dollars), down 6.2 percent year on year, according to the
customs.
During the period, coal imports from Australia more than doubled year
on year to 566,000 tonnes, encouraged by tax cuts due to a
China-Australia free trade agreement that took effect in December.
Shanghai coal imports from ASEAN countries reached 1.2 million tonnes
in the first two months, up 90.5 percent year on year and accounting
for 62 percent of its total imports.
Increased power demand and China's dropping domestic coal inventory
contributed to the jump in imports, according to the customs. Hmmm........Will do wonders for the environment.
Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) Releases Ontario Pre-Budget Submissions. HT: Taxpayers. By Christine Van Geyn.
The CTF’s submission calls for an expedited and detailed
approach to a balanced budget, without increasing the tax burden on the
public. The CTF recommends:
Reducing program spending and freezing public sector wages;
Ending all spending on corporate welfare;
An immediate moratorium on over-priced renewable power capacity;
Boosting revenue by breaking up the government monopoly of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.
On the taxation side, the CTF’s submission also calls for:
Halting plans for the proposed 3.8 percent payroll tax, the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan; (See pic at top of the post).
Halting plans for a job killing and overly bureaucratic cap-and-trade carbon tax;
Reversing recent income tax hikes and ensuring all tax brackets are indexed to inflation.
The submission also makes a number of recommendations designed to
improve accountability in the province, including a restoration of the
Auditor General’s discretion in the review of partisan government
advertising, amending the political appointment process, and amending
the Police Services Act.
“Ontario was once an economic powerhouse, but with this government’s
reckless spending and borrowing we have become a drain on the Canadian
economy,” said Van Geyn. “By finally making the tough decisions that
should have been made nearly a decade ago, the government can steer
Ontario away from fiscal disaster.” Read the full story here.
Ontario’s skyrocketing electricity prices endanger domestic manufacturing. (GM). By Adam White.
As an advocate for some of Ontario’s largest manufacturers, we fear the province’s long-term electricity plan is placing too high a financial burden on industry.
Our manufacturers are currently paying excessively high electricity rates for power the system doesn’t need; this surplus energy is then sold to our competitors in neighbouring jurisdictions (Quebec, New York, Michigan, Illinois) for a heavily discounted price. The math just doesn’t make sense.
This trend results in two outcomes. They can close, further opening the door to suppliers south of the border. Or they can move to the United States or Mexico.
Electricity costs in Ontario are unlikely to ease.The cost, in multiple billions, will be borne by Ontario electricity customers.
As policy-makers in Ontario and elsewhere turn their attention to the energy sector, we need to make sure that they keep the interests of Canadians in mind.Read the full story here.
Adam White is the President of the Association of Major Power Consumers in Ontario
EU, US States And Can provinces push for 2050 ban on petrol and diesel cars. (Caradvice).
The European Commission’s push to have conventional petrol and diesel vehicles banned from dense city areas is building steam, with news this week that more regions will work towards the same goal.
In 2011, the European Commission proposed a commitment to massively transform Europe’s transport networks and needs, in a bid to cut overall carbon emissions by around 60 per cent.
The plan had initially been rejected by the UK, but this month’s international climate conference in Paris has seen 13 international members – including the UK – commit to accelerating the global adoption of zero-emission vehicles.
“The UK already has the largest market for ultra-low emission vehicles in the EU, and the fourth largest in the world and today’s pledge reaffirms our commitment to ensuring almost every car and van is a zero emission vehicle by 2050,” UK transport minister Andrew Jones said.
Members of the new International Zero Emissions Vehicle Alliance include The Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom in Europe; Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont in the United States; and Québec in Canada.
Jens Frølich Holthe, Political Advisor to Norway’s Minister for Environment, described the multi-region commitment as a positive step towards climate change control.
“We see working together with other proactive governments as a key to a global transition to an electric fleet. The problem of climate change is clearly global, and we see electric vehicles as one of the important global climate solutions.”
Hmmmm.....I presume Ontario is also included in this 'madness' since Wynne follows the California Model.Good luck with developing Electric trucks to transport all goods. Read the full story here.
China’s top climate change negotiator says keeping leaders away is key to climate talk success. (ET).
Keeping state leaders away from the negotiations will play a major
role in ensuring that crucial talks on a new global climate deal in
Paris next week proceed smoothly, China’s top climate change negotiator
said in an interview on Monday.
Representatives from nearly 200
countries will gather in the French capital to begin talks aimed at
thrashing out a new global deal to cut climate-warming greenhouse gases.
Xie
Zhenhua, China’s veteran climate chief, told Reuters in an interview
that he was confident there was now sufficient “political will” to
secure a new deal, and that changes to the “design” of the talks would
help avoid the failures of Copenhagen in 2009.
“No country wants
the situation in Copenhagen to be repeated,” he said. “Letting heads of
state try to resolve the problems rather than leaving it to the
negotiators was an error in the design and it led to an error in the
result.”
Xie said China proposed to the secretariat of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change at an early stage to try to
restrict the involvement of state leaders in order to ease the political
pressures on negotiators.
“They can speak at the opening ceremony, express hope about how the
meeting should go, and make requests to their delegations, but
afterwards, the specifics need to be resolved by the delegations,” he
said.
China has pushed rich nations to meet their commitments to mobilise
$100 billion of financing per year to help poorer countries mitigate and
adapt to rising temperatures, and the issue remained a fundamental part
of upcoming negotiations, Xie said.
While some have urged China
to contribute to the fund, Beijing remains adamant that the obligations
lie with rich nations. Xie said China was “willing to help developing
countries in accordance with our abilities” and had already set up
mechanisms to help poorer countries finance their fight against global
warming.
China, already believed to be the world’s biggest source
of greenhouse gases, pledged last year to bring its emissions to a peak
by “around 2030″.
But the country, which currently depends on coal for nearly two thirds
of its total energy needs, has come under pressure after approving large
numbers of new coal mines and coal-fired power plants this year. Hmmmm............Made in China thanks the 'Useful idiots' for their cooperation in killing their own economies. Related:
“It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.” Source.
New Alberta climate-change plans include carbon taxes for individual Albertans. (NAPO).
While the plan doesn’t set greenhouse gas emission targets with dates, the entire climate-change policy puts Alberta on track to reduce emissions by approximately 20 megatonnes in 2020 compared to what would be the case if no changes were made, and 50 megatonnes by 2030.
It will also cut methane emissions from flaring and leakage by 45 per cent from 2014 levels by 2025. Methane is roughly 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a heat-trapping gas.
The plan was hailed by energy and environmental leaders as a “game changer” that will make Alberta a global leader in fighting climate change. But it will also require Albertans to pay 4.7-cents more per litre of gas at the pumps in 2017, and 5.5 cents more per litre of diesel, plus an extra $320 to heat their homes in 2017, rising to $470 by 2018.
The $3 billion raised by these carbon taxes won’t go into government coffers, but will go back to Albertans through a rebate program and by building green infrastructure and public transit, the premier said.
— Alberta will phase out all pollution created by burning coal by 2030, and transition to more renewable energy and natural-gas generation. The province promises the plan will provide reasonable electricity prices for consumers and businesses.
— Within the next months, the government will set up a facilitator and negotiator to work with coal-plant operators to figure out how best to move forward, since the province’s 18 coal-fired electricity plants currently create 55 per cent of the province’s electricity.
— Two-thirds of coal-generated electricity will be replaced by renewables, mostly wind power.
— Renewable-energy sources will comprise up to 30 per cent of Alberta’s electricity production by 2030.
“Obviously, if I was the owner of a coal company, I would prefer that this announcement hadn’t been made, but we’re very committed to working with them in a collaborative way to ensure that they do not unduly bear the burden of the benefits that all Albertans will enjoy as a result of us phasing out coal,” Premier Rachel Notley said.
Germany generated 44 per cent of its electricity from coal last year, more than any other EU member state. That compares with 26 per cent from renewables and 16 per cent from its eight remaining nuclear plants.
Ms Merkel’s government had not reckoned with the power of the coal lobby. Plans this year to slap a levy on emissions from the dirtiest plants powered by lignite had to be abandoned after they met opposition from industry, unions and local politicians.
This coalition, led by RWE, Germany’s second biggest power provider and the operator of most of the country’s lignite plants, said the levy would threaten 100,000 jobs in industrial regions and would push up costs to industry and consumers.
Meanwhile......In China.
China is building one coal-fired power plant every 7 to 10 days, while Japan plans to build 43 coal-fired power projects to replace its shuttered nuclear units.
Japan is using climate finance funds for the projects since these new coal-fired plants are less polluting than older coal-fired plants and therefore qualify as clean energy. Japan believes that the promotion of high-efficiency coal-fired power plants is one of the “realistic, pragmatic and effective approaches” to deal with climate change.
China added 39 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity in 2014 — 3 gigawatts more than it added in 2013. That is equivalent to three 1,000 megawatt units every four weeks.[v] At the peak, from 2005 through 2011, China added about two 600-megawatt coal plants a week, for 7 straight years.
And, China is expected to add the equivalent of a new 600-megawatt plant every 10 days for the next 10 years. These new coal plants that China is constructing are more efficient and cleaner than their old coal-fired plants.[vi]
China consumes more than 4 billion tons of coal each year, compared to less than 1 billion tons in the United States and 600 million tons in the European Union. China surpassed the United States to become the largest global carbon dioxide emitter in 2007, and it is on track to double annual U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 2017. By 2040, China’s coal power fleet is expected to be 50 percent larger than it is today and these power plants typically operate for 40 years or more.[vii] Hmmmm.......I'm sure these failed now 'Canadian liberal' policies will stop 'Global warming' (Sarc).
Related: “It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.” Source.
China uses four billion tons of coal every year, 'tough battle ahead against smog'. (icrosschina).
Burning coal and industrial emissions,exacerbated by burning crops, have covered northern Chinese cities in heavy smog, prompting experts to warn of the tough battle ahead as heating season starts.
Smog shrouded Beijing starting on Monday and did not disappear until dispersed by rain on Thursday. Environment authorities have issued repeated health warnings, advising people to stay indoors.
Neighboring Tianjin municipality and several cities in Hebei province have also been cloaked by smog this week.
Beijing environment statistics show the October-to-December quarter suffers the worst pollution, with smog once every four days on average. Experts say the main culprit is still pollutants discharged by heavy industry, though burning crop residue and lack of wind also contribute.
Hebei issued a broad ban on coal burning and industrial discharge from late August to early September to ensure air quality for the parade in Beijing to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII.
Zhang Liang, an environment engineer in Hebei Provincial Environment Emergency and Heavy Pollution Warning Center, said pollution was cut by 60 percent during the period.
Air quality has improved in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area compared to last year thanks to consistent effort by the government. In October last year, northern China was hit by four heavy pollution outbreaks, while the number was reduced to two this year.
However, experts said reducing smog is getting harder as Hebei still relies heavily on industry, including steel, chemical, construction material and glass industries.
In 2015, Hebei required 9.8 billion cubic meters of natural gas for its industrial plants, but was still 3.3 billion cubic meters short. The gap in demand will expand to 10.7 billion in 2017, statistics show.
Several city environment chiefs told Xinhua that money is needed to fund coal-to-electricity and coal-to-gas switches at local plants. In addition, technological support is also in heavy demand.
"We have invested heavily to contain sulphuric emissions from steel plants, but even after upgrading, the emissions can not be sufficiently controlled," said Chen Enhui, environment chief of Chengde city.
China uses four billion tons of coal every year, half of which are used by power plants and others by metallurgy, cement and industrial furnaces, said Lu Guangjie, an expert of China Association of Environmental Protection Industry (CAEPI).
"Most of the emissions by power plants have reached national emission standards, but it is difficult for other coal-burning facilities to reach such standards, and thus they should switch to gas," he said. Enditem.
They think the reason far too many people continue to drive is because it doesn't cost enough and they're prepared to do something about it.
But, it already costs us plenty to drive as I explain in my report.
Those pushing a green agenda don't really care though because it costs them nothing to test out their useless theories even if it costs you everything.
1963 One of the Roughest Winters in Europe - History Newsreel
Britain & EU facing 'longest winter in 50 years' as Siberian swan arrives earliest since 1963? (AOL).
A Siberian swan has flown to the UK nearly a month early - and the earliest since 1963 - sparking fears Britain could be facing the longest and coldest winter in 50 years.
The arrival of the Bewick's swans at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, usually heralds the start of winter, with around 300 of the animals migrating every year.
The first bird arrived on Sunday 11 October, a month earlier than last year and the earliest for 50 years since records began in 1963.
Unusually cold weather is currently sweeping parts of western Russia and eastern Europe, with temperatures are 5C to 10C below average.
The low temperatures, snowfall and north easterly winds have encouraged Bewick's swans to press on with their westwards migration through Europe.
El Niño is underway in the tropical Pacific, prompting speculation that Europe is in for a long, cold winter.
And the early migration of Bewick's swans reflects that winter has kicked off earlier than usual in many countries, says WWT.
WWT's expert Julia Newth said: "Apparently there's a Russian saying that 'the swan brings snow on its bill', because they tend to move just ahead of the cold weather.
"Of course, we can't infer much from the arrival of a single swan but it's certainly exciting this bird has arrived so early.
Temperatures are currently five to 10 degrees below average in parts of western Russia and eastern Europe and are expected to drop to the minus 30s.
Spurred on by bitter north easterly winds, many of the swans are currently gathering in the Netherlands, with 45 on Lake Gooimeer and 80 on Lake Lauwersmeer.
Next Year, GM Employees Might Ride Autonomous Chevy Volts To Work, no word on the power to charge them. (Popsci).
Beginning in late fall 2016, if you’re lucky enough to visit the Warren Technical Center campus of General Motors, in Michigan, you might your shuttle quite intriguing: a 2017 Chevrolet Volt, driving itself.
The automaker plans to deploy a fleet of Volt extended range electric cars to drive people autonomously within the campus.
To use the service, employees would use a smartphone application, reserving the vehicle and then selecting a destination. Using autonomous technology under development, the vehicle would then pick up the employee, bring them to the destination, and then park the vehicle.
“The program will serve as a rapid-development laboratory to provide data and lessons to accelerate the company’s technical capabilities in autonomous vehicles,” said the automaker yesterday, in a press release accompanying a Global Business Conference Call.
The completely new, second-generation Chevrolet Volt makes its debut for the 2016 model year and will be arriving to dealerships very soon. In the 2016 Chevy Volt, which we've found a lot more refined as well as somewhat sportier and pleasant-driving, Chevy has boosted its all-electric range to 53 miles (83.6Km), while it gets 42 mpg (67.5Km/G) when running solely on power from the 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine. Hmmm.....Can't help but wonder where and how they'll find the power to charge a complete electric car park in the US, Not counting Alaska. Read the full story here.
Video - Is Climate Change Dangerous? HT: NoTricksZone.
In this must-see 49-minute video presentation – “Is Climate Change Dangerous?“-
Mr. Dilley, CEO and senior research scientist at Global Weather
Oscillations, Inc., explains why we need to focus on the real problem
of a coming cooling.
Dilley, who has forty-two years of professional experience in
meteorology and climatology, was with NOAA for twenty of those years.
The government wrong with its claims of a coming warming, says
Dilley, who accuses the federal government of fiddling with global
temperature data thereby producing a false picture of what is going on.
Here are the points he makes in the video:
1. The 18+ years temperature pause is real. (4.09)
2. Natural cycles are behind the current pause.
3. Ice cores show CO2 lags temperature. (5.00)
4. 7000 years ago there was 50% less Arctic ice. (8.20)
5. The 1000-year cycle is real. (9.20)
6. Planet has been cooling over past 10,000 years. (9.34)
7. Natural cycles are driving our climate. (10.04)
8. Shows cooling from 2023 to 2150.
9. Current warming is perfectly natural.
10. Milankovitch cycles driving large-scale cycles. (13.00)
11. Gravitational forces can bulge Earth’s core by 1.4 km (15.35)
12. Gravitational forces impact global temperature (17.20)
13. Warming and cooling both begin at the poles (17.48)
14. Arctic warming/melt was caused by warm ocean pulses (19.50)
15. “Now starting to see a dramatic cooling in the Arctic“. (22.50)
16. “Arctic is cooling rapidly now. Rapidly!” (24.06)
17. Both poles are cooling rapidly now. (25.05(
18. Poles don’t show signs of warming. (26.30)
19. Western drought and Eastern cold due to 26-year cycle. (27.55)
20. Polar vortices due to Arctic/global cooling. (29.25)
21. Lunar cycles correlated with warming/cooling cycles. (31.30)
22. Rapid global cooling by 2019. (32.00)
23. “Temperature fiddling…more political than anything”. (32.56)
24. “Could be the biggest scientific scandal ever”. (33.20)
25. IPCC using “estimated temperatures”. (34.00)
26. How the government manipulated, rewrote data. (36.00)
27. “This is temperature fiddling.” Not the truth. (36.45)
28. NASA, NOAA’s “politically driven press releases”. (37.00)
29. Met Office calls NOAA’s 2014 claim untrue. (38.00)
30. Major data fiddling, cheating by NOAA. (39.50)
31. “The 97% consensus is bogus”. (41.00)
32. John Cook cooked the consensus data. (41.30)
33. 85% meteorologists say climate change is natural. (42.20)
34. Global cooling is the real danger. (43.20)
35. Volcanoes and cooling often correlated. (44.00)
36. Crop failures from cooling “very likely”. (45.45)
37. “Extremely cold” from 2025 to 2050. (46.36)
38. Global cooling next 125 years. (47.00)
39. “The cooling is coming”.
'GloBULLwarming' - Climate change is UN-led hoax to create 'new world order' – Australian PM's adviser. (RT).
The Australian prime minister's chief business adviser says that climate change is a ruse led by the United Nations to create a new world order under the agency's control. The statement coincided with a visit from the UN's top climate negotiator.
Maurice Newman, chairman of Prime Minister Tony Abbott's business advisory council, said the UN is using false models which show sustained temperature increases because it wants to end democracy and impose authoritarian rule.
"It's a well-kept secret, but 95 percent of the climate models we are told prove the link between human CO2 emissions and catastrophic global warming have been found, after nearly two decades of temperature stasis, to be in error," he wrote in an opinion piece published in The Australian newspaper on Friday, without providing evidence.
"The real agenda is concentrated political authority. Global warming is the hook,” he said, adding that the UN is against capitalism and freedom and wants to create a “new world order.”
The adviser's inflammatory comments coincided with a visit from UN climate chief Christiana Figueres.
According to Newman, Figueres is “on record saying democracy is a poor political system for fighting global warming. Communist China, she says, is the best model.”
Figueres was in Australia to discuss practical climate change action, urging the country to move away from heavily polluting coal production. She also urged Australia to play a leading role at the climate summit in Paris in December.
But that call is unlikely to be heeded. During November's G20 meeting in Brisbane, Abbott warned that the Paris summit would fail if world leaders decided prioritize the cutting of carbon emissions over economic growth.
Abbott, who called the science behind climate change “crap” in 2009, also repealed a tax on carbon pricing and abolished the independent Climate Commission advisory body in Australia.
The prime minister has been reluctant to take part in climate change politics, trying but failing to keep it off the agenda at last year's G20 summit.
Both Abbott's office and the United Nations have so far declined to comment on Newman's statements.
A well-known climate change skeptic, Newman has made similar provocative comments in the past, calling the notion a “myth” and a “delusion.” Hmmmm......EPA anyone?
'GloBULLwarming' - U.S. Northeast endured snowiest winter since 1717, says meteorologist. (DC).
“Looking back through accounts of big snows in New England by the late weather historian David Ludlum, it appears for the eastern areas, this winters snowblitz may have delivered the most snow since perhaps 1717,”says meteologist Joe D’Aleo.
That year, “the snow was so deep that people could only leave their houses from the second floor, implying actual snow depths of as much as 8 feet or more,” says D’Aleo.
The New England Historical Society wrote that the so-called “Great Snow” of 1717 was so intense that “Puritans in Boston held no church services for two successive weeks” — and if you know anything about Puritans, you know they don’t take missing church lightly.
“Entire houses were covered over, identifiable only by a thin curl of smoke coming out of a hole in the snow,” the Historical Society noted. “In Hampton, N.H., search parties went out after the storms hunting for widows and elderly people at risk of freezing to death.” Sometimes snow would pile so high people would burn “their furniture because they couldn’t get to the woodshed.”
Related:
It has long been understood that low sunspot activity is associated with lower solar output and thus less energy available to warm Earth’s surface. Two periods of unusually low sunspot activity are known to have occurred within the Little Ice Age period: the Spörer Minimum (1450–1540) and the Maunder Minimum (1645–1715). Both solar minimums coincided with the coldest years of the Little Ice Age in parts of Europe.
Some scientists therefore argue that reduced amounts of available solar radiation caused the Little Ice Age. However, the absence of sunspots has not explained the brief cooling episodes that occurred in other parts of the world during this time. As a result, many scientists argue that reduced solar output cannot be the sole cause of the interval.Many scientists maintain that the Little Ice Age in Europe resulted from a reversal of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), a large-scale atmospheric-circulation pattern over the North Atlantic and adjacent areas. Source
'GloBULLwarming' - Huge ice cap on Lake Erie puts arrival of spring on hold. (BuffaloNews).
The large ice cap still encrusting most of Lake Erie would cover all of Long Island, Connecticut and Rhode Island combined.
It’s two feet thick in many places, and melting oh-so-slowly. Last year, it wasn’t completely gone until May.
The lake ice is the biggest, whitest sign that spring’s arrival is again delayed. And the temperature is not going to warm up any time soon. This will be the longest it has taken to reach 60 degrees since 1980.
Farmers have crops to plant. Boaters want to get into the water. There are fish to stock, buildings to fix and driveways to repair. All of this is delayed.
“As soon as they can, they’ll get out there,” said Rich Davenport, a North Tonawanda fisherman of his fellow anglers. “Some will dodge icebergs. I’m not one of them.”
A later-than-usual spring also means the ice boom will stay in longer again this year.
The boom, a fixture in the Buffalo harbor since 1964, is removed by April 1 under order of the International Joint Commission, but can be delayed if more than 250 square miles of ice remains in the eastern end of the lake. That’s an area about half the size of Niagara County.
“We’ll be waiting for the 250 square miles of ice,” Lou Paonessa, a spokesman for the New York Power Authority, said late last week.
The ice boom protects power production water intakes further downstream on the Niagara River from massive ice floes and prevents ice damming on the river, damage to shorelines and docks. It was taken out last year on April 29.
Fishing from a boat is impossible for now. When the ice finally starts to subside, it drifts eastward toward the ice boom. That opens up waters first near Barcelona and Dunkirk.
The calendar says it’s already time for farmers to plant corn and lettuce. But that’s going to have to wait.
“Every season is different,” said David Walczak, sales and operations manager for Eden Valley Growers Inc., as wet snow fell over plowed fields late last week along Route 62. “You deal with it.”
The ground in the fields was thawing out, but drowned in water and mud.
“They’ll keel,” it you put them into those conditions, Walczak explained.
“There’s still frost on the ground,” said Dan Henry, the vice president of nearby W.D. Henry & Sons growers in Eden. “That has to be thawed out and dried out.”
The slow transition from winter to spring isn’t worrying Walczak or Henry just yet. It’s still relatively early.
But if April starts looking like a dud, growers may start getting anxious. By the middle of April, cabbage, broccoli and other leafy greens should be planted. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to catch up,” Henry said.
“If we start a week or two weeks late, it doesn’t mean we’ll be a week or two weeks late come harvest time, it could be a couple of days,” Henry added. “It might mean instead of having sweet corn on the Fourth of July, it means having it on the 10th or 11th.”
The Henry farm – and many other local growers – are already limping out of the gate this year.
November’s double lake-effect snowstorm destroyed the massive warehouse at the Henry farm, along with a few of its greenhouses.
“Agriculture is challenging enough as it is,” Henry said. “It just makes what we do a lot more challenging.”
Grapes of winter’s wrath
Grape growers are also taking the brunt of another brutal winter.
Last year, vast percentages of wine grapes were wiped out by the bitter cold. This winter, extreme temperatures of up to 30 below zero killed off the buds in up to 60 percent of the hardier native Concord and Niagara grapes, according to Luke Haggerty, a specialist for the Lake Erie Regional Grape Program of the Cornell Cooperative Extension in Portland.
Bud loss affects grape production in the coming year. The real damage – death to the vascular tissues of the grape vines – won’t be known until later this year.
“It’s the coldest it’s been in this area for 80 years,” Haggerty said. “There’s a lot of anxiety as far as what to expect and what is coming.” “Our biggest concern with Concords and Niagaras is they are the bread and butter of what we grow here.”
Research by Terry Bates, the director of the extension’s Lake Erie office, found a correlation exists between the amount and length of time there’s ice on Lake Erie and the calendar date when grape vines first bloom.
“If it stays cold like they’re predicting, it’ll be late and it’ll be a shorter growing season,” Bates said, not just for grapes, but fruits and vegetables too. Hmmmm......I'm sure that if you would be crazy enough to start talking about 'globalwarming' to any farmer in North America ....you better start running for your life.Read the full story here.
Oooops ! Computer models used to predict global warming over-estimate future warming by a factor of three.(Heartland).
In recent weeks, Dr. Wei-Hock "Willie" Soon, a distinguished solar astrophysicist, coauthored with Christopher Monckton, Matt Briggs, and David Legates an important work of original scholarship in the Science Bulletin (previously titled Chinese Science Bulletin), a publication of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The article reveals what appears to be an error in the computer models used to predict global warming that leads models to over-estimate future warming by a factor of three. The article has been downloaded more than 10,000 times, a huge number for a peer-reviewed journal article.
You might expect environmentalists, policymakers, and reporters to celebrate this new finding, since it means a potential threat to the environment and human health has been found to be less likely than previously thought.
If the work of Soon et al. is confirmed by other scientists, the “global warming crisis” may need to be cancelled and we can all enjoy lower taxes, fewer regulations, and more personal freedom.
But this is not how environmentalists and others reacted. Instead, they denounced the article, often apparently without even having read it or understood it. Christopher Monckton, one of the article’s coauthors, ably defended the article from these criticisms. Having failed to refute the article, environmentalists turned to smearing the authors.
Forecast the Facts – a creepy front group created by the left-of-center Center for American Progress to attack meteorologists who don’t toe the environmentalists’ line on global warming – launched a petition to the Smithsonian Institution demanding that Dr. Soon be fired. They claim to have more than 20,000 signatures on it.
The claim that Dr. Soon lacks “climate credentials” is false and meant to harm his reputation. Dr. Soon is a distinguished astrophysicist with many published articles in peer-reviewed climate science journals. A bio at heartland.org/willie-soon lists many publications and awards and features this quotation from Freeman Dyson, one of the world’s most respected physicists: “The whole point of science is to question accepted dogmas. For that reason, I respect Willie Soon as a good scientist and a courageous citizen.’’
Forecast the Facts’ second lie is more serious, because alleging a violation of professional ethics is taken seriously in the academy. Dr. Soon and his coauthors told the editor of Science Bulletin, “None of the authors has received funding from any source for this work. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.” Hmmm......I'm sure Canadian and U.S. Farmers already figured that out by now.Read the full story
here.
