Los Angeles: The so-called Station Fire more than doubled in size as it burned out of control for a sixth day, charring 105,000 acres (42,500 hectares), up from 42,000 acres (17,000 hectares) late on Sunday, and sending up towering plumes of smoke that fouled the air for miles (km) around. Read more here.
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Global Cooling has Begun: Bob Foster
BIG things are happening Sun-wise. The longer Solar Cycle 24 is delayed, the weaker should it be. Thus, it is more likely day by day – while Cycle 24 remains in deferral – that we are entering the next Little Ice Age cold period (Landscheidt Minimum1).
In 2004, NASA predicted an extra-powerful Cycle 24 starting in 2006, far stronger than modest Cycle 23 – thus supplementing IPCC’s projected people-driven warming. As you might expect, there are very few people outside the ‘mainstream’ consensus policed by Royal Society, IPCC, NASA – and propagated by the great journals Science and Nature – with the expertise to challenge NASA on this esoteric topic. But happily, there are some.
The collective angular momentum of the giant outer planets drives the Sun’s highly-irregular orbit about the centre-of-mass of the solar system (as Newton knew); and the timing (albeit, not yet the magnitude) of consequential solar variability can therefore be predicted. By “variability” I don’t mean in total solar irradiance; because TSI varies only by fractions of a percent. I am referring to the outflow of magnetised plasma from the Sun – which can vary by orders of magnitude at timings from quotidian to millennial. [Read more…] about Global Cooling has Begun: Bob Foster
SPENCER WRONG NOAA Blunder Explains Claims of Warming Oceans?
SCIENTISTS at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center (CPC) appear to have made a blunder with a data adjustment and splice resulting in sea surface temperatures being warmer than they would otherwise be by about 0.175 degrees C over the last two decades.
Roy Spencer, from the University of Alabama, discovered the error just a few days ago which according to meteorologist Anthony Watts, accounts for 24% of the 0.74 deg C global warming claimed for 1905-2005.
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UPDATE: THE ERROR WAS ROY SPENCERS
To make a long story short, because the orbit boost caused the TMI to be able to “see” to slightly higher latitudes, the way in which individual latitude bands are handled has a significant impact on the resulting temperature anomalies that are computed over time. [Read more…] about SPENCER WRONG NOAA Blunder Explains Claims of Warming Oceans?
Big Drop in Price of Solar Panels
“For solar shoppers these days, the price is right. Panel prices have fallen about 40 percent since the middle of last year.” Read more from The New York Times here.
Hippos Roaming Free in Colombia
BOGOTA – African zoologists are in Colombia to advise local authorities on what to do with dozens of hippos roaming around the abandoned zoo of late drug lord Pablo Escobar in the north of the country. Read more here.
Electric Taxis for Tokyo
THE company promoting the mass adoption of electric cars, Better Place, has just received an award from the Japanese government to conduct a pilot project in Tokyo for the world’s first electric taxis with switchable batteries.
Not so long ago the company got some money to make Canberra Australia’s first city with an electric vehicle infrastructure.
The Tokyo electric taxi pilot will involve the construction of a permanent Better Place battery switch site in Central Tokyo. This project will allow for testing of battery switching duration, vehicle range, and vehicle battery life under heavy use operating conditions. [Read more…] about Electric Taxis for Tokyo
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.