Global Temp Changes

[gowlerk 2,198]

brenthutch

Snow has a much higher albieto than sea ice, a greater wintertime extent and occurs at a lower latitude reflecting much more energy. If you are worried about global warming (I'm not), you would want to trade sea ice for snow pack all day long.

If you are counting on the albedo effect of the snow, think again. The warm weather has already melted most of it.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[billvon 2,997]

>If you are counting on the albedo effect of the snow, think again. The warm
>weather has already melted most of it.

That's not the warm weather melting the snow; that's those Chinese with their hair dryers again, trying to make the US non-competitive.

[kallend 2,027]

2017 was second warmest year since records began:

www.silive.com/news/2018/01/2017_second_warmest_year_on_re.html

Only the el Nino year 2016 was warmer.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

kallend

2017 was second warmest year since records began:

www.silive.com/news/2018/01/2017_second_warmest_year_on_re.html


Only the el Nino year 2016 was warmer.

So what you are saying is that we are clearly on a downward trend and global warming ended in 2016.....

[billvon 2,997]

Good article on the growth of climate change understanding within the republican party. (Also a good example of why education can be a problem for climate change deniers.) Excerpted from a Grist article:

================
There’s also a broader, national effort to target American conservatives. RepublicEn, for instance, is a coalition of more than 4,000 conservatives and libertarians pushing for environmental action. The organization hopes that, generations from now, the eco-right will be remembered for leading the United States out of the climate crisis and into the clean energy revolution.

Alex Bozmoski is the director of strategy and operations at RepublicEn. It’s a job he’s well-suited for — he used to be a climate denier himself.

As an undergrad at Georgetown, Bozmoski enrolled in a climate science class as a joke, planning to heckle the professor. But when challenged to justify his skepticism, Bozmoski found he had drawn erroneous conclusions fueled by conservative radio shows and Fox News. He cast around in his network of fellow Republicans and conservatives for people he could discuss his newfound understanding of climate change with, but he kept coming up empty.

Bozmoski found that, despite a long legacy of environmental leadership in the Republican Party, most modern-day members weren’t even thinking about our overheating planet, let alone figuring out how to address the problem.

Environmental issues weren’t always this polarizing. President Nixon set a firm national precedent when he created the EPA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 1970. The Senate passed the Clean Air Act that same year, 73 votes to 0.

Fast-forward to the 2012 presidential election, when multiple Republican candidates advocated for abolishing the EPA. Two years later, just one of all the 107 Republicans running for Senate mentioned climate change.

It’s no wonder Bozmoski felt betrayed by his party and ill-equipped to apply his conservative thinking to the issue. Yet he could still understand why his fellow conservatives didn’t care.

“When you don’t trust anyone talking about climate change, when you don’t see your tribe talking about solutions that fit with your worldview, it’s really easy to cope with the problem by ignoring it or denying it,” he said. Bozmoski did neither.

He went hunting for like-minded Republicans and found Bob Inglis, a former U.S. representative from South Carolina who came out swinging against global warming in 2010 (a position that likely cost him his seat in the House). Bozmoski tracked the ousted politician down in 2012, and they started a project called the Energy and Enterprise Initiative. RepublicEn grew out of that project. They popularized the term “eco-right.”

RepublicEn hit the road in 2014, traveling across the country to persuade conservatives that their principles and values can be applied to curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Since then, RepublicEn has held 300 events across America, mostly for expressly conservative audiences. Bozmoski estimates that the organization has reached more than 26,000 Americans. He gets people to listen by reminding them that they have power.

“You are the most important environmental champions on planet Earth,” he tells them. “Republicans won’t lead without first being led by their constituents. You have an outsized influence on our ability as humanity to deal with this problem.”

RepublicEn hopes to generate conservative support for a revenue-neutral carbon tax. “It’s the only solution that’s effective enough to address climate change and fits with conservative principles,” Bozmoski said.

A carbon tax is pragmatic and relatively simple: Put a rising fee on the use of fossil fuels, forcing companies to curb their emissions. To make it revenue neutral — and more acceptable to conservatives — the money generated by that fee goes back to Americans through checks or by cutting payroll or sales taxes.

A carbon tax in any form is unlikely to make it through today’s highly partisan Congress, so, in the meantime, RepublicEn advocates for a level playing field for wind and solar energy, less leaky oil and gas infrastructure, and nuclear power.

http://grist.org/article/climate-change-isnt-just-for-democrats-anymore-meet-the-eco-right-republicans/
================================

[kallend 2,027]

SkyDekker

***2017 was second warmest year since records began:

www.silive.com/news/2018/01/2017_second_warmest_year_on_re.html


Only the el Nino year 2016 was warmer.

So what you are saying is that we are clearly on a downward trend and global warming ended in 2016.....

I'll let someone else interpret it that way.

Meanwhile Arctic sea ice continues its downward trend:
nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2018/01/Figure3-1-350x270.png

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[normiss 801]

Nobody likes seals or polar bears anyway.
/s

[Stumpy 284]

Renewables costs dropping quickly. This is only going to get better, unlike the extraction of fossil fuels which tends to get more expensive over time.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/16/16895594/colorado-renewable-energy-future

Never try to eat more than you can lift

[Phil1111 1,149]

Trump admin weighing aid for some coal plants: report 02/09/18
Bloomberg reported that officials at the Department of Energy are weighing whether Energy Secretary Rick Perry should invoke emergency authority to stop FirstEnergy Solutions power plants from closing.

The authority, which is meant for major emergencies, war and similar situations, would let the company charge high enough rates for its coal plants to stay open and not close due to competition from cheaper sources.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/373151-trump-admin-weighing-aid-for-some-coal-plants-report

I guess clean energy solar panels are not the same thing as subsidies for coal so it can compete.

[billvon 2,997]

"Bloomberg reported that officials at the Department of Energy are weighing whether Energy Secretary Rick Perry should invoke emergency authority to stop FirstEnergy Solutions power plants from closing.

The authority, which is meant for major emergencies, war and similar situations, would let the company charge high enough rates for its coal plants to stay open and not close due to competition from cheaper sources."

Going to mean a lot of rate hikes for ratepayers. But as long as it keeps dirty coal plants open I guess it's worth it. After all, if you build more cheap renewables, Hillary Clinton wins.

It's going to be very expensive though:

===========================================
Forbes
Dec 18, 2017
Utilities Closed Dozens Of Coal Plants In 2017. Here Are The 6 Most Important.

Utility coal power closures driven by market economics were a regular occurrence throughout 2017. While President Donald Trump’s “Energy Dominance” agenda gave the false impression that federal efforts could revive coal, 27 coal-fired plants totaling 22 gigawatts (GW) of capacity were announced for early closure or conversion in 2017 – roughly one every 15 days since Trump’s election.

U.S. electricity generation economics have completely reversed. Building new coal is more expensive than building new renewable energy across the U.S. , and in many parts of the country, keeping existing coal plants open is more expensive than building new wind turbines (and solar, in some places). From 2007 to 2016, 531 coal units representing 55.6 GW of capacity were retired across the U.S., at an increasingly rapid pace.
Kleinman Center for Energy Policy

Retired coal generation in U.S. from 2007-2016

The coal plants announced for early closure in 2017 are younger in age and larger in size than ever before, and utilities are replacing shuttered capacity with clean energy. The reasons why utilities are choosing to close coal plants are just as informative as how they’re choosing to replace them. Six specific closures show why this trend will continue into 2018 despite Trump’s bluster.
=================================================

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

So, once more Trump and his minions ignore reality to promote their agenda and support their masters.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[BIGUN 1,317]

You convinced me almost 11 years ago to the day. Why are we still having this discussion?

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2704433#2704433

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[gowlerk 2,198]

Not to worry Bill. Scott Pruitt has a handle on the problem. He has adopted the brenthutch plan. Too bad he's not here to celebrate!

http://time.com/5139589/scott-pruitt-climate-change-epa/?xid=homepage

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[billvon 2,997]

That's type III denial - "OK maybe the climate is changing, and maybe we had something to do with it - but it won't be bad!" Which is better than type I or type II, because it at least indicates he understands some of the science.

However, I have a feeling he will switch right back to Type I or Type II as soon as it is politically expedient. Political correctness must be obeyed.

[jimay 0]

kallend

2017 was second warmest year since records

Doesn't matter. Most people aren't even willing to deflate their ego enough to come together an resolve more imminent threats.

People just aren't willing to save themselves if it costs them something. . .

[billvon 2,997]

This is pretty remarkable. It's still 24-hour darkness at the North Pole in the dead of winter - no light until mid-March. And they are still seeing a record breaking heatwave; 27F above normal.

Even now, in the middle of winter, Greenland glaciers are melting.

=======================================
Arctic temperatures surge in the dead of winter
By Kara Fox and Brandon Miller, CNN

Updated 4:08 PM ET, Tue February 27, 2018

Although it is shrouded in the darkness of a 24-hour polar night, temperatures in the Arctic have soared well above freezing this week, marking the hottest temperatures recorded in the region during winter, according to scientists from the Danish Meteorological Institute.

Calculations from Cape Morris Jessup, the world's northernmost land-based weather station, show that temperatures from February in eastern Greenland and the central Arctic are averaging about 15°C (27°F) warmer than seasonal norms.

And although the Arctic has seen temperatures climbing for decades, the past few years have seen the most extreme changes, according to Martin Stendel, a climate scientist at DMI. For the past 20 years, temperatures above freezing in February have only been recorded three times -- first in 2011, then in 2017 and now.

"For years, absolute values of temperatures have become higher and higher, but if you look a couple years back it's not so interesting whether the temperatures were minus 10 degrees C or minus 5 degrees C because the temperature was still well below zero," Stendel said.

But this month's unusual rises are interesting -- and unprecedented -- and have continued for a record nine days in a row.

. . .

So what's causing the Arctic's "heat wave"?

It's a combination of warm weather patterns coming into contact with retreating sea ice and rising and warmer sea levels, said Robert Graham, climate scientist at the Norwegian Polar Institute.

Although powerful storms have brought warm winds to the Arctic in the past, a fortress of sea ice would typically cool them down as they traveled north. But the Arctic's shrinking sea ice has moved those barriers farther north, where southerly winds have been able to travel for longer stretches without being cooled. And as ocean levels and temperatures continue to rise, those warm southern winds are finding comfortable refuge across the Arctic Sea as they make their way toward the North Pole.
In the past, it was not unusual for the Arctic to see days where temperatures would peak above minus 10 C (14 F), but what we are seeing now is different. Those peaks are becoming more frequent and long-lasting.

More worryingly, the warming weather pattern is producing a circular affect.

The warmer the air and water, the less sea ice there is. And the less sea ice there is, the warmer the air and water can get (and stay warm). This, in turn, leads to less sea ice -- and the vicious cycle continues.

For example, in Alaska, residents of the island village of Diomede are baffled at the open ocean water this February. There, residents are seeing the scientific findings in the Arctic play out in their own backyards. February should be the height of the sea ice season -- but instead, crashing waves are changing their town's coastline. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's head of Arctic research, Jeremy Mathis, told CNN that in many years of Arctic research, 2017 marked the first time that he and his group of researchers spotted no ice in the seas off Alaska.
=====================

[kallend 2,027]

Global sea ice is at a record low.

nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

Well, Wisconsin isn't the Arctic, but we saw a pretty unusual winter here.

We had 3 separate January thaws. That is, a day or two with high temps above freezing, then back to cold.

One isn't unusual, but doesn't normally happen each and every year (or at least it didn't used to happen every year).
Three is pretty unusual.

The "fun" part of it is that the freeze/thaw cycle melted a lot of the snow, but much of it refroze into ice. This ice isn't melting very easily, and is creating all sorts of problems with melt runoff.
Not on a large "flooding the neighborhood" level, but in a "my backyard isn't draining the way it's supposed to and now my basement is flooding" kind of way.
Big pain.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[kallend 2,027]

Arctic sea ice record lows continue. Antarctic ice continues at way below normal levels.
From NSIDC:

A warm approach to the equinox
March 6, 2018
As temperatures at the North Pole approached the melting point at the end of February, Arctic sea ice extent tracked at record low levels for this time of year. Extent was low on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the Arctic, with open water areas expanding rapidly in the Bering Sea during the latter half of the month. On the other side of the globe, Antarctic sea ice has reached its minimum extent for the year, the second lowest in the satellite record.

And sea level rise is accelerating:

www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/02/06/1717312115

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[DJL 235]

kallend

Arctic sea ice record lows continue. Antarctic ice continues at way below normal levels.
From NSIDC:

A warm approach to the equinox
March 6, 2018
As temperatures at the North Pole approached the melting point at the end of February, Arctic sea ice extent tracked at record low levels for this time of year. Extent was low on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the Arctic, with open water areas expanding rapidly in the Bering Sea during the latter half of the month. On the other side of the globe, Antarctic sea ice has reached its minimum extent for the year, the second lowest in the satellite record.

And sea level rise is accelerating:

www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/02/06/1717312115

I'm looking at a business model for a shoreline protection and erosion control company. I live on the Chesapeake and there will be loads of work in that field in the next 50 years.

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[JerryBaumchen 1,365]

Hi folks,

Quote

Global Temp Changes

It looks like some companies are looking to the future:

http://www.king5.com/article/tech/microsoft-makes-largest-corporate-solar-deal-in-us-history-buying-315-megawatts/281-531035886

'Microsoft makes largest corporate solar deal in U.S. history, buying 315 megawatts'

Jerry Baumchen

[billvon 2,997]

And others are planning to install big batteries, so that that cheap solar can be stored for use at nighttime and during periods of high demand:

=================
Tesla bids for a new world’s largest Powerpack battery system in Colorado
Electrek

Mar. 14th 2018 12:48 pm ET

Earlier this year, we reported on Xcel Energy, an electric utility company operating across the Midwest, Colorado and several other states, requesting bids for major renewable energy and storage projects in Colorado.

Some of the bids for standalone battery systems as well as batteries with solar and wind installations were among the best seen to date.

Now, Xcel has confirmed the companies placing the bids on the projects, including Tesla and NextEra Energy for standalone battery projects.

Tesla refused to comment on the project since it’s just in the proposal phase at this point, but Xcel’s documents show that it would become the biggest Powerpack project in the world if the electric utility decides to greenlight the proposal.

In South Australia, Tesla’s 100MW/ 129MWh Powerpack project is known as “the most powerful battery system in the world” and while this proposal in Colorado would not be as powerful with a power capacity of 75 MW, it would be able to run for 4 hours, which would require a much bigger energy capacity of 300 MWh.
====================
A British Billionaire Wants to Nab the Title of World’s Biggest Battery From Elon Musk

JULIAN SPECTOR GTM
MARCH 21, 2018

Elon Musk set a record with his massive South Australia battery last year. Now it's a target for another ambitious billionaire.

British businessman Sanjeev Gupta plans to build a 120-megawatt/140-megawatt-hour battery complex in the same region where Tesla completed its 100-megawatt/129-megawatt-hour system late last year.

Gupta runs Liberty House, a commodities business that in recent years made a run of buying up old steel manufacturing assets. Last year, it purchased Arrium, an Australian mining and metals company, which gave Gupta control of the Whyalla steelworks in South Australia.

The new battery project will connect with a solarplant that Gupta is building to power the industrial site.
========================

[Bob_Church 7]

JerryBaumchen

Hi folks,

Quote

Global Temp Changes

It looks like some companies are looking to the future:

http://www.king5.com/article/tech/microsoft-makes-largest-corporate-solar-deal-in-us-history-buying-315-megawatts/281-531035886

'Microsoft makes largest corporate solar deal in U.S. history, buying 315 megawatts'

Jerry Baumchen

And yet, people deliberately waste electricity to create bitcoins.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/17/bitcoin-electricity-usage-huge-climate-cryptocurrency

"Bitcoin’s electricity usage is enormous. In November, the power consumed by the entire bitcoin network was estimated to be higher than that of the Republic of Ireland. Since then, its demands have only grown. It’s now on pace to use just over 42TWh of electricity in a year, placing it ahead of New Zealand and Hungary and just behind Peru, according to estimates from Digiconomist. That’s commensurate with CO2 emissions of 20 megatonnes – or roughly 1m transatlantic flights."

and

"Burning huge amounts of electricity isn’t incidental to bitcoin: instead, it’s embedded into the innermost core of the currency, as the operation known as “mining”. In simplified terms, bitcoin mining is a competition to waste the most electricity possible by doing pointless arithmetic quintillions of times a second."

[billvon 2,997]

Quote

Burning huge amounts of electricity isn’t incidental to bitcoin: instead, it’s embedded into the innermost core of the currency, as the operation known as “mining”. In simplified terms, bitcoin mining is a competition to waste the most electricity possible by doing pointless arithmetic quintillions of times a second.

Yep. Bitcoin mining is a competition in terms of who can spend the most compute cycles on the calculations. And since each calculation takes a specific amount of energy, that translates to energy (assuming unlimited or nearly unlimited hardware.)

But since there is nothing time critical about bitcoin mining, it's also a perfect fit for intermittent renewables. Lots of sun or wind? Run at full speed. Clouds? Drop servers offline and/or reduce processor speeds to match power supply. Night? Shut down and wait until morning.

[Phil1111 1,149]

billvon

"Bloomberg reported that officials at the Department of Energy are weighing whether Energy Secretary Rick Perry should invoke emergency authority to stop FirstEnergy Solutions power plants from closing.

The authority, which is meant for major emergencies, war and similar situations, would let the company charge high enough rates for its coal plants to stay open and not close due to competition from cheaper sources."

Going to mean a lot of rate hikes for ratepayers. But as long as it keeps dirty coal plants open I guess it's worth it. After all, if you build more cheap renewables, Hillary Clinton wins.

It's going to be very expensive though:

===========================================
Forbes
Dec 18, 2017
Utilities Closed Dozens Of Coal Plants In 2017. Here Are The 6 Most Important.

Utility coal power closures driven by market economics were a regular occurrence throughout 2017. While President Donald Trump’s “Energy Dominance” agenda gave the false impression that federal efforts could revive coal, 27 coal-fired plants totaling 22 gigawatts (GW) of capacity were announced for early closure or conversion in 2017 – roughly one every 15 days since Trump’s election.

U.S. electricity generation economics have completely reversed. Building new coal is more expensive than building new renewable energy across the U.S. , and in many parts of the country, keeping existing coal plants open is more expensive than building new wind turbines (and solar, in some places). From 2007 to 2016, 531 coal units representing 55.6 GW of capacity were retired across the U.S., at an increasingly rapid pace.
Kleinman Center for Energy Policy

Retired coal generation in U.S. from 2007-2016

The coal plants announced for early closure in 2017 are younger in age and larger in size than ever before, and utilities are replacing shuttered capacity with clean energy. The reasons why utilities are choosing to close coal plants are just as informative as how they’re choosing to replace them. Six specific closures show why this trend will continue into 2018 despite Trump’s bluster.
=================================================

"FirstEnergy Corp. said it will close three nuclear power plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania, citing tough market conditions and insufficient government policies to support them.

FirstEnergy Solutions, the FirstEnergy unit responsible for competitive generation, said it plans to close the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbor, Ohio, in 2020; the Beaver Valley Power Station in Shippingport, Pa., in 2021; and the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Perry, Ohio, in 2021."
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/380788-utility-to-close-3-nuclear-power-plants

Gee stranded nuclear and coal power plants because of cheap renewables. Perhaps the voters in trump country around these power plants can focus thoughts on clean energy.