Michael Hart is a former official in Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and now emeritus professor of international affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, where he has taught courses on the laws and institutions of international trade, Canadian foreign policy, and the politics of climate change.

He held the Fulbright-Woodrow Wilson Center Visiting Research Chair in Canada-U.S. Relations and was Scholar-in-Residence in the School of International Service, Senior Fellow at American University in Washington, and is the founder and director emeritus of Carleton University’s Centre for Trade Policy and Law. In addition, he has taught courses in several other countries. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of more than a dozen books and several hundred articles.

Two papers published by an assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside and several collaborators explain why the universe has enough energy to become transparent.

The study led by Naveen Reddy, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UC Riverside, marks the first quantitative study of how the gas content within galaxies scales with the amount of interstellar dust.

This analysis shows that the gas in galaxies is like a “picket fence,” where some parts of the galaxy have little gas and are directly visible, whereas other parts have lots of gas and are effectively opaque to ionizing radiation. The findings were just published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Russian meteorologists are finding out just how well polar bears are doing in the harsh Environment of the Arctic. Five scientists are trapped on a remote Russian island because of a surplus of polar bears roving around their habitat. The Lords of the Arctic have surrounded the Russian weather station and don’t appear to be leaving anytime soon. That can be a real problem if your instruments are outside and you can’t reach them. 

Located a long way from Moscow, the weather station is on a remote island in the Arctic circle. The scientists have since run out of flares to scare off the ursine creatures, and it’s against Russian law to kill or shoot a polar bear unless it’s self-defense. The station chief, Vadim Plotnikov, said that without the flares there’s no other way to scare off the bears.

DENVER — The University of Colorado professors who shut down climate change debate in class have landed on the radar of a top school official, who says he wants to make sure students are being “educated, not indoctrinated.” 

John Carson, a member of the University of Colorado Board of Regents, said he plans to make inquires Thursday about an email from three University of Colorado at Colorado Springs professors who advised students to drop the class if they dispute climate change.

“I have a lot of questions after reading this reported email sent to students,” Mr. Carson told The Washington Times. “We should be encouraging debate and dialogue at the university, not discouraging or forbidding it. Students deserve more respect than this. They come to the university to be educated, not indoctrinated.”

Title of the peer-reviewed paper is “Carbon Fibre Masculinity: Disability and Surfaces of Homosociality” by Anna Hickey-Moody in Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities.  

By “carbon fibre” she means carbon fiber; actual fibers of carbon. She says, “Contemporary cultural economies of carbon fibre are, in part, a late capitalist (Jameson) technology of hegemonic (or dominant) masculinity”. It takes a man to make carbon fiber.

It has by now become common practice for just about any and every unusual weather occurrence, extreme temperature anomaly,  or seismic event to be somehow, someway linked to the human practice of using energy derived from fossil fuels.   No hurricane, flood, drought, storm, wildfire … is spared from potential anthropogenic implication. 

Last week, a named hurricane (Hermine) that ultimately devolved into a tropical storm landed along the Florida coast — the first landfall in 11 years.  As expected, the usual suspects  reflexively blamed the storm on humans.

Most people understand that our green planetary oasis in the immense universe is highly unusual in terms of the favorable conditions it offers for life on Earth. But from a long-term perspective, there are some troubling signs. The Earth’s internal temperatures are gradually cooling and less carbon dioxide is being naturally emitted into the atmosphere from sources within the Earth. Ice ages are becoming more severe with lower temperatures and declining levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂). 

These signs of an aging planet are troubling because they indicate Earth is very gradually becoming less accommodating for life. Fortunately, humans have come along and are capable of helping out–but only if they can understand the clues and take helpful actions based on them.

A new paper under open review for Earth System Dynamics finds Holocene climate change can be explained on the basis of lagged responses to changes of solar activity. According to the author,

This paper analyzes the lagged responses of the Earth’s climate system, as part of cosmic-solar-terrestrial processes. Firstly, we analyze and model the lagged responses of the Earth’s climate system, previously detected for geological and orbital scale processes, with simple non-linear functions, and we estimate a correspondent lag of ~1600-yr for the recently detected ~9500-yr scale solar recurrent patterns. 

Secondly, a recurrent and lagged linear influence of solar variation on volcanic activity and carbon dioxide (CO2) has been assessed for the last millennia, and extrapolated for future centuries and millennia. As a consequence we found that, on one side, the recent CO2 increase can be considered as a lagged response to solar activity, and, on the other side, the continental tropical climate signal during late Holocene can be considered as a sum of three lagged responses to solar activity, through direct, and indirect (volcanic and CO2), influences with different lags of around 40, 800 and 1600 years. 

Note the ~1600 year lag of response to solar activity is essentially the same as the well-known ~1500 year “never-ending climate cycle” identified by numerous peer-reviewed, published papers.

Note also the paper explains CO2 levels on the basis of a lagged function of solar activity, due to variations in solar heating of the oceans, and ocean in-gassing and out-gassing of CO2, not as a result of the ~4% CO2 contribution from mankind.

The paper shows the (noisy) 1600-year climate cycle in the ice core 10Be proxy of solar activity of the past 1800 years peaked in the 1900’s. The orange lines are modeled on the basis of a function of three lagged compenents of solar activity cycles and is currently on a downswing until ~2100, indicating potentially cooler Earth temperatures ahead.

According to the author, “we propose the global ocean circulation processes, that include the well known meridional overturning circulation, and the thermohaline circulation, as a global mechanism capable of explaining the lagged forcing (volcanic activity & CO2) and continental tropical climate responses to solar activity variations.”

 

The Earth’s climate system recurrent & multi-scale lagged responses: empirical law, evidence, consequent solar explanation of recent CO2 increases & preliminary analysis

Jorge Sánchez-Sesma

Received: 18 Aug 2016 – Accepted: 31 Aug 2016 – Published: 07 Sep 2016

Abstract. This paper analyzes the lagged responses of the Earth’s climate system, as part of cosmic-solar-terrestrial processes. Firstly, we analyze and model the lagged responses of the Earth’s climate system, previously detected for geological and orbital scale processes, with simple non-linear functions, and we estimate a correspondent lag of ~1600-yr for the recently detected ~9500-yr scale solar recurrent patterns. Secondly, a recurrent and lagged linear influence of solar variation on volcanic activity and carbon dioxide (CO2) has been assessed for the last millennia, and extrapolated for future centuries and millennia. As a consequence we found that, on one side, the recent CO2 increase can be considered as a lagged response to solar activity, and, on the other side, the continental tropical climate signal during late Holocene can be considered as a sum of three lagged responses to solar activity, through direct, and indirect (volcanic and CO2), influences with different lags of around 40, 800 and 1600 years. Thirdly, we find more examples of this ~1600-yr lag, associated with oceanic processes throughout the Holocene, manifested in the mineral content of SE Pacific waters, and in a carbon cycle index, CO3, in the Southern Atlantic. Fourthly, we propose the global ocean circulation processes, that include the well known meridional overturning circulation, and the thermohaline circulation, as a global mechanism capable of explaining the lagged forcing (volcanic activity & CO2) and continental tropical climate responses to solar activity variations. Finally, some conclusions are provided for the lagged responses of the Earth’s climate system with their influences and consequences on present and future climate, and implications for climate modelling are preliminarily analyzed.

Read more at hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk

Summer’s end is on the horizon, and the arrival of autumn will be heralded by a Harvest Moon on Sept. 16, when there will also be a penumbral lunar eclipse.

The term “Harvest Moon” refers to the full moon that falls nearest to the autumnal equinox, which will take place on Sept. 22. This full moon will also be a penumbral lunar eclipse, although the effects may not be visible to the naked eye.

Overview: It has long been widely accepted that the sun is absolutely critical to all weather and climate here on Earth and yet there are still some aspects of this connection that are not too well understood and even controversial.

For example, there has been the belief by many atmospheric scientists that cosmic rays which penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere from outer space can play a significant role in the formation of clouds which, in turn, has a direct impact on climate.  Solar activity has a direct impact on the ability of cosmic rays to actually reach the Earth’s atmosphere.  A just published study has confirmed the notion that cosmic rays can indeed be an important player in Earth’s weather and climate and the role of the sun is critical.

A U.S. energy company just discovered a “world class” oil and gas resource in west Texas, out on the fringes of the already prolific Permian basin. The WSJ reports on Apache Corp.’s encouraging new find:

The discovery, which Apache is calling “Alpine High,” is in an area near the Davis Mountains that had been overlooked by geologists and engineers, who believed it would be a poor fit for hydraulic fracturing. It could be worth $8 billion by conservative estimates, or even 10 times more, according to the company. […]  

The company has begun drilling in the area and says the early wells, which produce more natural gas than oil, are capable of providing at least a 30{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} profit margin at today’s prices, including all costs associated with drilling. Some are so prolific that they can break even at a price of 10 cents per million British thermal units, according to the company. Natural gas futures closed Tuesday at $2.72. […]The new play is a short distance from extensive drilling operations and is likely to stoke the speculative fever that has recently engulfed the Permian, a vast swath of geology in West Texas and New Mexico that has been gushing oil and gas for almost 100 years. The Permian has become popular again because producers have found ways to use newer technologies to extract oil from the area at a profit, even at current below-$50-a-barrel prices.

Diurnal Temperature Range (DTR) is the difference between the maximum and minimum temperatures over a period typically a 24 hour period. The alarmists regard DTR as an essential part of AGW. Karl Braganza, a prominent alarmist at the BoM, for instance describes DTR as afingerprint of AGW. Braganza says:

greater global warming at night and during winter is more typical of increased greenhouse gases, rather than an increase in solar radiation.

A slim and near-forgotten but altogether fantastic 1991 book by Denise Shekerjian titled Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas Are Born (public library | IndieBound) synthesizes insights on creativity from conversations with 40 winners of the MacArthur “genius” grant — artists, writers, scientists, inventors, cultural critics.

I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.

Principia Scientific International (PSI) is ostensibly a scientific news site which allows readers to comment upon what they read.  But if you read what it is about, its objective is to return the practice of science to that founded by Galileo with the support of Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler.

And to that of Sir Isaac Newton who built on the new intellectual foundation prepared by the efforts of these three men.  But before Galileo there was Nicholaus Copernicus who dared question the wisdom of Aristotle which had been accepted for nearly 2000 years.