Open Thread

This is a page for your use, to try out html tags and see what they look like, to post new ideas, to pass along interesting information, to suggest future topics for discussion, to reach out and contact me directly, the floor is yours.

w.

 

690 thoughts on “Open Thread”

  1. Hi Willis
    Last century, I used to avidly follow science journalism. Then I got busy with building my home, raising my kids, career, etc., and somewhat lost interest when it went political and dumbed down (“it’s got electrolytes!). I discovered WUWT when I started looking for waterfront property and wanted to assess the risk of sea-level rise (I ended up buying a place north of Tampa 8.5′ above the high tide line, BTW). Do you have any favorite blogs you would like to share?

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  2. Well Willis, I believe I have the longest non stop record of all the climate data on one plot. Not that it is some kind of goal but it keeps me off the streets.

    I have come up with a new instrument. It measures the heat generated by the sun rays hitting a target and reads out in temperature. It is sorta like having an amplifier for seeing the energy producing heat in a closed container. I won’t elaborate here. You have my email address so drop me a line and lets start a discussion on how the above can be used.

    Gerry Lee Osburn

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  5. Willis,
    You are one for whom I have unmitigated admiration as I’ve read what you have written since almost the beginning of WUWT. I wrote this and generally thought for a city councilman or police chief but mostly for myself. I owe you a copy as you have been such a positive influence in my life and, I might add, my writing style. It also helps to be married to an English major for 40 years. Anyway:

    The evening of February 3rd Gillette Police officers were called by the Spectrum area manager and quickly arrived to throw me out of its store on Boxelder. They rose to the task and did their job. Glad to see that it was recorded on the officer’s equipment and I openly voice recorded the half hour albeit for a different reason. I wanted that in order to listen later with my wife and try to dope out what was said. We finally settled down to do that and I was appalled. I was listening to a stupid, defeated old man. While I am no doubt that, there is something else; my hearing is abysmal and speech discrimination even worse. I cheat by watching people talk but still it’s difficult to keep a grasp on a line of conversation. I’m not giving an excuse but it is a factor, and in my life, a constant and isolating one. In the end I’m the prince of non-sequitur.

    When the first officer arrived I was across the room and the new phone that needed attention was four sneeze guards away from the work station the associate was using. But this wasn’t about health or risk; the officer told me it was about policy and rights of a business and her threat to charge me criminally.

    By the police department’s involvement in this you changed the dynamic of the whole situation. The area manager who had ignored me to that point, opened with an ultimatum and a threat to expel me. He was and I wasn’t wearing a health mask at that time. The service for the old phone had been stopped and the new one is just a fancy brick. He had no interest to get the phone going so I could get going. I’d been working through the problems sequentially for five hours much of it on hold or dealing with call centers from Bombay to Bangor. The police show up, give me a number to call and threaten arrest. The area manager smiles(you can tell by the eyes). He won.

    Please indulge me. A man pays up front for a new car in Gillette. He goes to the store and the car sits on the lot with four flat tires. The area manager schools the customer that the car is fine and it’s a Firestone problem so take the car and get off the lot or the police will come. While the customer is sorting this out the cops arrive, give him a miracle phone number to call and order him to move it or be charged and arrested. The customer walks away and stops payment for the merchandise. Ya, this is a parable; couldn’t happen.

    The Spectrum area manager and the police defeated the dumb old guy but won a Pyrrhic victory. Spectrum lost the sale of two new Apple products and four new services. That happened because the area manager got tunnel vision on forcing me to bend to his will. That was an expensive distraction for him as business gets leaner for another Gillette store front. I could have been satisfied and out the door in a few minutes if he used his claimed expertise and chosen to help me. Instead he saw it as a power struggle with the city police providing the muscle. That would not happen if the City of Gillette did not frame this as a law enforcement issue.

    How do the police come off with this? In the short term you are going to need more cops as you aggregate more and more social interactions to the law enforcement paradigm. In the longer term you are changing the generally positive public perception we carry for police. It changes from cops verses robbers to cops against everybody. There are other cities that are much further in this continuum than is Gillette. They are less happy places. I will add that it is the politicians not the people in uniform who establish the dynamic.

    I asked for but never was shown a policy at Spectrum. The Americans With Disabilities Act does require businesses to make reasonable accommodation to help us. HIPPA keeps a person’s medical situation personal. You may think I just don’t understand how dangerous and deadly life has become in the new Age of the Corona Virus and all that’s needed is to splane it to me again. I am a Certified Safety Professional and a professional member of the American Society of Safety Engineers. Right, I understand the lingo.

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  6. G’day Willis,

    Thank you for recently putting up a list of your prior posts at “Watts Up With That”. I’ve been reading several, and the comments made on them. “We have met the 1%, and he is us” (Jan 13, 2013) took 4 1/2 hours. “AltUSNatParkService” (Jan 25, 2017) I managed to finish in just 2 1/4 hours. Over 900 posts – I may never get to all of them. (Born: 1941)

    I especially related to the “1%” article. Spent six years in the 1960’s working for United Geophysical, a seismic oil exploration company. Lived and/or worked in Australia, Papua – New Guinea, Singapore and Indonesia, and offshore in the Java Sea, plus three months in the US training on new equipment in ’67. For a young single man, an education. Moved to the US in 1970.

    Stories from way-back-then? The crew on Borneo lived on house boats. The second day I was there I borrowed a company canoe and paddled upstream to the nearby village. The first store I came to had access from the river and the bank. I selected the fishing gear I wanted and placed it on the counter. I had no Indonesian and the store owner had no English. He reached into the cash drawer and laid out four pieces of colored paper – I matched them. We both smiled.

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  7. Willis – long a fan on WUWT. I would like to make 25 -30 copies of your “Bright Green Impossibilities” posting to distribute to family and friends but can’t get it to print from WUWT. Is there a way I can get a copy?
    C. Adams – Springfield IL

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    • Let me see what I can do … hang on …

      OK, here’s what I did. I selected the whole document from the title to the end and copied it. I pasted it into Microsoft Word. Then I cleaned up the formatting and saved it to my Dropbox, where you can access it here.

      I also saved it as a PDF file for those who don’t have word. It’s here. However, because it’s a PDF the links to other documents are not active.

      I’ve added it to the head post as well.

      My best to you,

      w.

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  9. Hi Willis
    We have been watching ducumentaries about the Phoenicians, Sumerian, etc and of their development of agriculture etc What I found curious was that their decline was caused by climate change ie ever increasing dryness. This caused me to think about why. One thought – what was the earth’s axial tilt at that time? If the Middle East was the closest face to the sun fwould that cause dryness? Very simplistic, I know. But?

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    • Old Woman, always good to hear from you. The truth is that all of the fates the climate alarmists warn us about have been here forever—droughts, floods, storms, the whole enchilada.

      As to what caused these things in any given era, I fear we have only the most rudimentary understanding. Which is a complex way to say … we just don’t know.

      w.

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      • Thanks, Willis.
        I guess knowing where the earth was, 4000 + years ago, in its orbit is asking a bit much, even of a curious chap like you!

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        • Oh, dear lady, I can answer that, including the eccentricity of the orbit and such, to as near as you’d like. Been there, done that.

          But there’s no way to know if that affected the Sumerians or not …

          w.

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  10. Hi Willis,
    I read your post on WUWT “There Are Models And There Are Models”. I am your age and in about 1966 in college, a couple of friends of mine and I embarked on a project to write a program to find a knight’s tour of the chessboard. Using punchcards, Fortran and the IBM 360 computer available to us we ran up against the 1 minute of computer time allowed. (the program didn’t finish). Another friend had a part-time job at ATT with access to a timeshare computer. We converted the program to “Basic” and .he took it to his workplace in Okla City over a weekend and started the program. He got up to get coffee and started to get worried as he was about 20 minutes into the mission on a computer that cost $100 per minute of time. The computer was in Ohio as I recall. Just as he was about to pull the plug the answer popped out. Success!

    Thought you might get a kick out of this!
    Tom

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  11. Hi again Williis,
    We never found out what actual computer processing time was used as it was a timeshare setup. Being on the weekend it is likely that a good bit of the ~20 minutes was ours! What I do know is that none of us got in trouble!
    Another program we wrote to find all ways 8 queens could be placed on a chessboard without any 2 being able to attack another finished well within the 1 minute of computer time allowed on the IBM 360. There were a surprising number of solutions but my memory as to how many is foggy.
    Tom

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  12. Mr. Eschenbach,
    In one of your blog entries (and, regrettably, I cannot recall or find the date or the exact piece), you made the following assertion:

    “There are only three ways to produce wealth—you can extract it from nature (fishing boats, mines, etc.), you can grow it (farms, aquaculture, etc.), or you can manufacture it (car factories, bottle-making plants, etc.). That’s it.

    All the rest are services—important services, critical services some of them, but still services.

    Note that I am making a clear distinction between money (a medium of exchange) and wealth (real stuff like food, clothing, houses, things that we need for life).

    Take barbers as a good example. If you get your hair cut twenty times, you don’t end up any wealthier than when you started. Whether the government provides the haircuts or a private barber doesn’t matter—it’s still a service, and as such, it has nothing to do with socialism. Socialism is about the means of production of wealth, not about services.”
    ______________________________________

    As one trained in economics and who has spent a professional career investing capital, I was intrigued and greatly interested in your definition. In fact, you and I have had one previous exchange about it.

    Quite obviously, I continue to think about and reflect on your definition and I pose the following question to you:

    Is technology (i.e., “know how”) a form of wealth?

    It seems to me that the knowledge of how (as separate and distinct from the actual activity) to transform rock (i.e., minerals) into useful products is a form of “wealth.”

    It seems to me that it was technology that enabled and continues to enable humanity to surpass Malthusian limits. It is human ingenuity in the form of technology that created the Industrial Revolution that has so immensely benefited humanity.

    Submitted with respect, thanks and great admiration for your work in the struggle against the forces of stupidity and mass delusion.

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    • Thanks, John. To start the discussion, let me ask if you’ve read “How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor.” If so, let me know, and we’ll take it from there.

      If not, I strongly suggest that you do so, as it is the clearest exposition of the question of wealth that I know of.

      My very best to you,

      w.

      PS : It’s available as a used paperback for $1.48 on Amazon …

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      • Mr. Eschenbach,
        Thank you for the response.

        I have not read that book. I will get a copy from the library (I no longer buy books because this place is full of them and I’ve run out of room to store them).

        My “to-be-read” stack is several volumes high; I’m way behind, so bear with me. It may be a while before I’m able to reply with a “Yes, I’ve read it.”

        All the best.

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  13. Hi Willis,
    I was researching an aspect of Mediaeval England when I went down the proverbial rabbit hole. I popped out in Pliny’s Natural History. I was looking for his writings on the mineral Marl when as if by magic I spied the word: Climate (in the sense of change); that’s right – from 2000 years ago. I thought of you immediately and thought you’d find it interesting. So:

    PLINY – NATURAL HISTORY, V, LIBRI: XVII-XIX, BOOK XVII.iii.39-iv

    Click to access L371.pdf

    P21 bottom quarter of the page.
    ……………….. All matters contain some deeply hidden mysteries, which each person must use his own intelligence to penetrate. What of the fact that changes often occur even in things that have been investigated and ascertained long ago? In the district of Larisa in Thessaly the emptying of a lake has lowered the temperature of the district, and olives which used to grow there before have disappeared, also the vines have begun to be nipped, which did not occur before; while on the other hand the city of Aenos, since the river Maritza was brought near to it, has experienced an increase of warmth and the district round Philippi altered its climate when its land under cultivation was drained. …………

    Pliny the Elder, b. AD23 d. AD79

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  14. Willis, I recently did a presentation for the WV Chamber of Commerce in which i used a number of your graphs and charts from a WUWT post you did, demonstrating the lack of harm from global warming. I’ve been asked whether I can provide my PowerPoint slides to attendees. I thought I would check with you before agreeing to do so. Probably should have done that before the presentation, but frankly I just didn’t think about it til now. I’ll try to avoid compounding any offense by checking with you now to see if you have objections. My apologies.

    Dave Yaussy

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    • David, I throw my thoughts on the electronic winds in the hope that someone like you will carry them further … so please, distribute them as widely as possible. And in future be clear, you are free to use anything that I post.

      My best to you and yours,

      w.

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  15. Willis:

    I came across a discussion on the Patriot Post today that referenced your Tweet of May 18, 2021, regarding the electric power generating capacity that would be required to replace all fossil fuel powered vehicles with all electric vehicles by the year 2035. Your Tweet stated:

    “Idiocy. First, they say no fossil fuel cars after 2035. In the US we drive 3.2 trillion miles per year. Electric cars use ~0.3 kwh/mile. We’ll need to build a 1 GW nuclear plant every three weeks starting tomorrow JUST for the extra electricity to charge the cards.”

    I was able to find references validating 3.2 trillion miles per year and ~0.3 kwh/mile, leading to an energy demand of 960 GW-hours/year, but I have been unable to duplicate your calculations for the need to build 1 GW of new power plants every three weeks to meet the 2035 zero carbon goal. I’m just a retired civil engineer, so electrical calculations are not my speciality, but I think I understand that such calculations would have to factor in the assumed charging to driving time ratios. Or perhaps you have made some other critical simplifying assumptions. Could you show your calculations for me, please?

    I’ve enjoyed reading your posts and articles discovered since my query sent me on a hunt through the internet to find a way to contact you. Thanks for you efforts to educate the ignorant.

    – Marcus

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    • Marcus, first 3.2e+12 miles times .3e+3 kwh/mile = 960 terawatt hours (TWh) per year, not GWh.

      Since we need an additional 960 TWh/year, we divide by 8,760 hours per year to get the generation needed. That gives us 109 GW of additional generation needed. However, that’s average generation. We need to double that for peak usage plus an allowance for outages and maintenance. So we need 218 GW of new generation capacity.

      There are 709 weeks from now to January 1st, 2035. So we need to build a 1 GW plant about every three weeks to get there.

      My best to you, welcome to the blog.

      w.

      PS—You might also be interested in my post entitled “Bright Green Impossibilities” …

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  16. Hello Willis,

    After reading this brief article on the “American Thinker” website I thought I might impose upon your statistical chops to take a quick look. The article starts: “It appears that the election of Los Angeles County District Attorney, George Gascón, on November 3, 2020, was engulfed in substantial, and perhaps irrefutable, fraud. To determine this, I applied standard statistical fraud identification tools to the election data…”

    He sounds plausible but I don’t know stats…”Benford’s Law”(?).

    Is his conclusion credible?

    https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/06/was_george_gascn_elected_by_fraud_.html

    Jack

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    • Good question, Jack. I’ve never investigated that … hang on …

      OK, I just got the data, took a look, and I couldn’t replicate his results. Turns out there’s a problem I hadn’t thought of with using Benford’s law with election results. To illustrate it, suppose we have two candidates, fairly evenly matched. And suppose every precinct has say 1000 voters.

      How many precinct-by-precinct vote counts for candidate A will start with a “1”? Benford’s Law would say 30%.

      But in fact, almost none of them will start with the digit “1”. The precincts will be reporting lots of votes like 461 to 539, fewer votes like 372 to 628, and very, very few precincts will be reporting something like 156 to 844.

      So in fact, we can’t use Benford’s law directly as the author has done.

      Now, as is my habit, I do my research first and then search the literature second … that way I’m not misled by what “everyone thinks” …

      However, in this case I find things like a link from Reuters: Fact check: Deviation from Benford’s Law does not prove election fraud.

      It contains the following statement from a professor:

      “It is widely understood that the first digits of precinct vote counts are not useful for trying to diagnose election frauds,” he writes.

      So there you have it …

      w.

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      • Thank you Willis. That makes sense. In the comment section to the ‘American Thinkers’ article I asked the author if he was familiar with the Reuters analysis you found. He hasn’t replied yet.

        Best..Jack

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  17. Hi Willis, …. I thought this might interest you…
    https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2021/06/13/askoy-ii-wordt-varend-erfgoed/ (in Flemish/Dutch but the visuals are easy to understand..)
    A couple of years ago we exchanged a few e-mails about Askoy II (after you had posted about your adventures on WUWT).
    You will be pleased to hear that Askoy II has now been officially recognized as “nautic patrimonium” in Belgium 😉 . She should return to the seas in 2022.

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  18. Hello Willis,

    I have a podcast called ‘Facts Are What Matter’ where I present the facts on current topics and debunk the media narrative. My next episode will be about the facts of alternative energy sources. I would love to have a telephone discussion with you on that episode and discuss your “Bright Green Impossibilities” article. I love your articles on climate change as well. Great stuff!

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  19. If you find this interesting, I suspect others would too. I don’t know if there is really anything to discover but then that is the general purpose of looking at the data, isn’t it?

    In the mid 1980’s there was an analysis published. I believe the author’s last name was Schiff, or something like, that but I don’t recall the publication. He claimed to have used the US census data from the very first to the then most current one to investigate life expectancy in the country. I think he was ignored by almost everyone.

    The interesting finding, as claimed, is that the great increase in average life span since the founding of the country came almost entirely from the reduction in infant mortality. In particular, if one looks at the life expectancy of an individual either 60 or 65 (I don’t recall which age he used) there has been no change at all since official national records began. Of course there are a great many more older people than there used to be but not, so he claimed, as a percentage of people successfully reaching his starting age.

    This, if true, puts the usual boasts about improved life span in the light of propaganda rather than reporting. Would such an analysis be difficult to do?

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    • That’s somewhat true. The greatest improvements have been in drugs and vaccinations to treat “childhood diseases”. However, said drugs and vaccines also treated the same diseases in adults. So no, I wouldn’t say that makes it “propaganda”, unless you think that the deaths of children are unimportant …

      Good to hear from you, welcome to the blog,

      w.

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      • Apparently my question was not clear;
        “ So no, I wouldn’t say that makes it “propaganda”, unless you think that the deaths of children are unimportant …”
        isn’t at all the issue.
        The data, not opinions, should answer the question of whether or not individuals are living longer vs the fact that the average life span has increased.

        The average could have increased considerably because of factors such as reduced infant mortality or any additional medical factors, but the bare statement “people are living much longer” could be not true for the significant percentage of individuals that have always survived the obstacle courses of the first years of life.

        It may be true that a greater percentage of the population is reaching 90 years of age, 100 years of age, or any other particular figure beyond middle age or it may only be that a larger number of people are reaching those ages simply because there are so many more people: the percentage of people living to any age greater than some standard, such as 60, may not have changed at all.

        If the later is true, it is never mentioned. If it is true but never mentioned, it may be most reasonable to believe there are political/religious reasons (there are few differences between the two), thus “propaganda”. Or it may be such an “existential” question that too many people are afraid to consider its implications. Or it may just be too boring to bother stating the obvious facts that everyone but myself already understands.

        As I acknowledged, this may not be interesting to most people. To me, it seems like an interesting data question, regardless of its utility or lack thereof, but unfortunately I don’t have the skills to obtain and analyze the data. I thought, by putting the question out there, someone might be motivated to look into it.

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          • I’m guessing, because there is no specific information and I can’t think of any other likely explanation, that the intervals 60-69, 70-79, … on the graph are about counts of people who died at various ages during those years (e.g. died between the beginning of 1960 and the end of 1969). Thus, re the yellow line, people who died at age 85 were born some time between 1885 and 1894 inclusive.

            The fact that more died when older for the later periods does not address the question of whether the life expectancy today of, lets say people at age 65 , is greater than the life expectancy of people who reached the age of 65 in 1790. There are too many confounding factors.

            There seems to be evidence that better hygiene and better medical care gives a significantly large percentage of people a chance to reach middle age. Many people who reach middle age live still longer. The older people represented on that graph were born from about 1874 to 1920. Apparently there have been medical advances during and since that time. That could result in a greater percentage of people reaching the age of 65.

            If so, then the numbers of those living to 75, 80, 85, or older is likely to be larger, thus the total percentage larger, because the age 65 pool is larger – even with a life expectancy, at age 65, that is no greater than during any other time in the past few hundred years, or few thousand years. It could be, from that data, that the probability is no greater now than before for any single individual who lives to age 65 to then live to be 75, 85, 95, etc.

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    • My experience with life expectancy . . . I’m 84 (born 1936) and probably survived childhood thanks to penicillin. At age 59, I had a coronary bypass surgery which undoubtedly extended my life; at 84 a pacemaker. Two of my male cousins have had similar medical interventions. At age 51, my wife had a double mastectomy; at 73 she had stents. A sister had cancer at age 67 with normal life expectancy of 5 years. With new treatments, she’s still cancer free about 10 years later. Another sister, age 78, collapsed with a blood clot and was revived at least twice on way to the hospital. I have several family members who are alive today because medical advances saved their lives after age 60. So yes, reducing infant mortality is a big contributor, but the advances of medicine in treating heart disease, cancer, etc., vaccines, access to emergency services, and the widespread availabilty of clean water, a cleaner environment and air conditioning has certainly helped increase life expectancy. (If we could stop teenage and 20-something boys and men from murdering each other, that too would increase our life expectancy calculation.)

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  21. WE – Regards your upcoming trip to Northern Florida, I live in Palm Coast and if you’re in the area my wife and I would love to meet up. Thanks, Tony

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  26. Hi Willis, If you’re heading thru colorado way I-70 we are located in Colorado Springs just west of Garden of the Gods. Would love to me you, offer you a meal & hospitality.

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  27. Willis, and the exact words are Capacity Factor for Wind power generation.
    Sir, sorry to interrupt you as I know your time is important, and I have no way to contact you other than at this Open Thread, so I apologise up front for what may seem a long comment here.
    I live here in Australia, and I write at a U.S. Blog, PA Pundits International (https://papundits.wordpress.com/) and I have been doing that since early 2008, mainly on electrical power generation in all its forms with a concentration on how the renewables of choice cannot replace coal fired power, and perhaps my Bio explains that better. (https://papundits.wordpress.com/views-expressed-by-writers-are-their-own-and-do-not/tonyfromoz/) I now have more than 2600 separate Posts on my subject of choice.
    I was directed to your Post at WUWT (from a Comment at the JoNova site where I comment regularly under my screen name of TonyfromOz) about the real cost of wind and solar, especially the part about Capacity Factor with respect to Wind power generation, something I have always had to explain in detail across all these 13 years now.
    I always used the CF figure of 30%, and when questioned about that being so low, I was ‘flamed’ for using that low percentage.
    Even though that figure was backed by years of ‘doing’ this, I wanted some detail as to the efficacy of using that figure,
    I wrote a series of daily posts on Base Load power (starting in August of 2017) from all the coal fired sources for Australia, detailing power generation from those coal fired plants at the Base Load figure, that daily low point for all power consumption/Generation. (https://papundits.wordpress.com/2017/07/15/base-load-electrical-power-introduction-and-the-permanent-link-to-the-data-for-australia/) That daily series lasted a little more than a year.
    Following that I wrote a series on all the power generation in Australia from every source, also on a daily basis as well, staring in May of 2018. (https://papundits.wordpress.com/2018/05/13/australian-daily-electrical-power-generation-data-introduction-with-permanent-link-to-daily-and-weekly-posts/) That also lasted more than a year.
    Following that I then wrote specifically on wind generation, and that was mainly to verify that CF figure I used of that 30%. (https://papundits.wordpress.com/2019/10/01/australian-daily-wind-power-generation-data-introduction-with-permanent-link-to-daily-posts/)
    That series (started in October of 2019) has now been continuing on a daily basis for just under two years. I also include in this the data from the previous year on ALL power generation, using the wind generation data, so, now I have detailed data for wind generation for 145 weeks.
    Now, with respect to CF during that time, many new wind plants have been added to the grid in that time and the Nameplate has grown from 5301MW to now at 8587MW, As each new wind plant comes on line, I adjust the CF data to include that new Nameplate from that day forward.
    What I have found is that even though new wind plants of better technology have been added, that CF percentage is not rising, and in fact, the rolling CF for the most current 52 weeks (year) is actually lower than the Long term 145 week average CF. Both percentages are stuck firm under 30% in fact, with the 145 week long term average at 29.57%, and the 52 week average at 29.21%.
    So, those newer and better tech wind plants are not resulting in a higher CF at all.
    Now, here, I understand that the whole of the Australian grid may only be a small one, but I am now certain that it is indicative for wind generation as a whole.
    Again Sir, I know this has been long, and with a number of links, and I apologise for that, but I needed to show some context for all of this.
    I have no idea if this is even of any use to you, but I thought I would just bring it to your attention to add to what you already do.
    Thank you.
    Anton Lang (TonyfromOz)

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  28. Willis – just finished reading your post re: LCOE. I live in Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island and would love to buy you and your beautiful ex-fiance a beverage or 2 of your choice. If you have not been to Fernandina Beach, you will be in for a treat. It is a charming little town with a very interesting history. Regardless, safe travels and enjoy your trip.

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    • I’d drive up to Fernandina to join the group of that makes things easier. Would be a pleasure meeting everyone. Oh, and as Barnes stated – Fernandina is a great little town. Tony

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  30. Hello Willis! I’m in Viera, not really northern Florida but near your old stomping grounds of Cape Canaveral. There’s a cool restaurant in Cocoa Beach called 4th Street Filling Station you might enjoy. I would certainly love to meet you!

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  31. I’m not in Florida at the end of June, unlike the past many months, but if you are in Orlando:
    A couple great places that are inexpensive and local:
    Johnny’s Filling station (and other side)
    Fish on Fire
    Both also have live music

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  32. Willis,
    I live in the northwest part of the state (Pensacola area). If you find yourself in that are or a bit east near Navarre, drop me a line. Would love to get an opportunity to buy you a beer 🙂

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  33. I see that you are flying so that eliminates the option of dropping by my neck of the woods. I’m a few hours north of your destination but south of the Mason-Dixon line. Have an airport close by but I doubt a commercial flight would alter route for a social visit. But I cook a mean steak and boston-butt and the beer is cold!

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  35. Hi Willis!

    I have been working on drivers of Klamath County droughts. This county is at the top of number of droughts recorded in Oregon and has data back to 1895.

    I did a seat of the pants comparison of 6mo or greater significant drought periods from 1950 to the present in order to compare it with the Arctic Oscillation Jan, Feb, Mar seasonal mean.

    In my facebook page “Klamath Basin Weather”, I have written up my first stab at the correlations I have found.

    Would you take a quick look at this and give me your opinion? It looks like there is something here and that it could be significant, almost capable of partially reconstructing the AO back to 1895 in terms of drought extremes. I am also going to do wet extremes.

    Thanks,
    Pam Gray

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  36. Hi Willis. always enjoy what you write pretty sure I don’t understand that much but such is life.

    One observation I have made is that the Hadley and Feral cell looks like the key driver of heat movement from equatorial regions to poles. More specifically the width of the Hadley Cell, as the climate warms and cools.
    I live in New Zealand latitude 36 so each year the divergent zone moves up and down over us, but subject to wobbles. So in aggregate the location of the tropical convergent zone and the Hadley cell width decide our summer and winter conditions.
    Can you in the data plot the divergent and convergent zones through time its just a thought I had.
    Your home latitude is not so different but often strongly continental, us not so much, we get the wash of the more homogeneous oceans.

    Regards and be well
    Bill

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  37. Willis,
    I seem to recall a report years ago claiming that specific humidity in the upper atmosphere was decreasing instead of increasing per AGW dogma. Have you ever tried to correlate that to cloud cover data? Seems to me that decreasing humidity could have a huge impact on cloud cover and, conversely, surface temperatures.

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  39. Willis, October 19, 2021
    I am an avid top fan of your writings, both scientific and personal history. I love reading all your WUWT articles but I especially enjoy the SERIOUS scientific pro/con comments that follow. You endear me with your civil and precise responses and your lack of suffering of the occasional “Fools” that engage you. At age 88 I will probably be spared the pain it would bring me to find you “going silent”.
    When I saw the announcement of the WUWT Essay Topic: Is there really a climate crisis?, I immediately thought of how nice it would be if you wrote one of your iconic styled articles centered around the simple (simpleton?) idea that from an AVERAGE person’s “feeling” viewpoint, even if the IPCC predictions came true, the AVERAGE person would not notice the AVERAGE predicted increase even if it all happened tomorrow at the AVERAGE LOCATION. I have certainly noticed the frequent scorn found on WUWT for the use of a world-wide AVERAGE ANOMOLY to be their simple description of the warming catastrophe (although I don’t recall the suggested alternative units of measure). Anyway, the IPCC has set the standard so it seems reasonable to counter that prediction using their own choice for unit of measure, i.e., AVERAGE TEMPERATURE CHANGE. Since I propose the essay be written for the General Public (where it is most needed), I would avoid the term “anomaly” (What is that anyway? A new Sci-Fi title?) or Celsius (Hell, this is the US of A). Somehow I might be looking for an AVERAGE LOCATION and AVERAGE PERSON to judge the size and significance of the predicted AVERAGE catastrophe.
    Living in Boulder County, Colorado I was tempted to use Denver as the AVERAGE location (of course Denver is not the AVERAGE LOCATION) and compare the IPCC predicted AVERAGE temperature increase at century’s end (to be felt all at once) to the AVERAGE TEMPERATURE felt between XX AM and YY AM in Denver. Since my Google source shows the AVERAGE difference between the AVERAGE yearly daily high and low in Denver as 28 degrees (F), my simple engineer’s brain figures that this AVERAGE daily change cycles through the AVERAGE 24 hour day with 12 hours of increasing temperature and 12 hours of decreasing temperature. Again using my engineering “close enough” tolerances, that translates to 1.7 degrees (F) per hour. In reality the actual change probably follows something like a sin wave that resembles the daily temperature plot I see on the nightly TV weather forecast. (Max daily temperature always seems to be not at noon, rather, more likely around 3 PM. Since a plot of my simple AVERAGE hourly change looks more like a “saw tooth” than a sin wave, I note that it always understates the maximum hourly change (rate) indicated by a sin wave plot, therefore it is a conservative comparison.
    The predicted UN forecast of 2.9 degrees F by 2100??? (Don’t recall what their latest number really is but I use 2.9 to illustrate my point) would be equal the AVERAGE temperature felt in Denver between 9 AM and 10.42AM on the Average day in Denver. I do not think the AVERAGE person would consider THAT as a catastrophe worthy of giving up their current living standard…. whatever it might be.
    Of course Denver is NOT the AVERAGE location but I am sure a mind like yours would have no trouble of developing an AVERAGE Location (of course altitude adjusted) for an AVERAGE American or for the AVERAGE World citizen. Of course a table listing 20 location around the world may be “close enough”. I suspect if it were weighted to consider where the population of the AVERAGE feeling person is, the differences wouldn’t obscure the lunacy of the predicted Global Warming Catastrophe.
    I am sure this is not an original thought. I recall you once used the difference (in miles) of latitude to display the minuscule nature of some warming anomaly.
    Given the vastly different lives we have lived (me very, very Midwestern traditional) most people would think us a world apart in our thinking, values and politics, but they would be wrong!!! Anyone who owns and knows how to use a farm jack is my kind a guy!!!
    Regards,
    Don Bunker
    PS The closest thing I did in my life to yours was retire at age 57 (I know of you advice about retiring early!!) so I could spend my summers building my DREAM cabin on a very remote Canadian island. I have a website with too many pictures and some stories about this adventure. https://www.bunkerfamily.net/canada-cabin/2002
    PPS In the early 1960s I worked as Arthur A Collin’s (Collins Radio Founder) aide-de-camp during the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo Era… but I am not a Ham radio guy by hobby as I think you are.

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  40. Hello Willis
    I don’t have a link to any paper or research yet.
    This is a recent discovery and I haven’t found anyone to help me write it down.
    Anyway, when we measure/calulate the solar insolation, we use TSI (1360,8 W/m2 Kopp & Lean) and it would be correct for a planet without atmosphere, but for a planet with atmosphere this value is higher due to atmospheric refraction. You can say the atmosphere is like a lens redirecting radiation towards the center of the earth. It’s not much but even small angles will change the Earth Energy Budget.
    Do you understand?

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    • Thanks, Torbjörn. Let me try to estimate the amount of difference this might make.

      Suppose that 100% of the sunlight hitting the troposphere is bent down and hits the surface. It doesn’t, but let’s assume so for the sake of argument.

      The radius of the earth is 6,378 km. The troposphere averages on the order of 12 km. So the increase in absorption will have a maximum of (6390/6378)^2, as that will be the increase in the intersected area. That’s ~ 1.004.

      So the difference will be about four-tenths of one percent … small enough to be lost in the noise.

      And that’s why it’s not considered in any but the most extremely detailed of analyses. It certainly doesn’t make any difference to any of the type of analyses that I do.

      My best to you, and keep questioning. That’s what science is all about.

      w.

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      • Thanks Willis
        There are two things you get wrong.
        The atmosphere is higher then 12km, I think they use 100km.
        And that it is too small and gets lost in noise

        But anyway, I’ll try and put it in other terms. 50,46 % of surface on earth is hit by sunshine at every given moment.
        When using the Solar Constant (1361 W/m2) you only accont for 50% and not 50,46%.
        When adding those 0,46% the new value will be 1367 W/m2, a difference by 6 W/m2 at the top of the atmosphere.
        At surface level this will give approx. 0.8 W/m2.

        That’s adding 6 W/m2 to Earth energy budget, at the TOA

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  41. I did not say that the atmosphere is 12 km. I said that the troposphere is only 12 km. Above that the air is very thin, with very little refraction.

    But in any case, let’s use your numbers. 6 W/m2 at the TOA is only 1.5 W/m2 in the normally measured way, as a 24/7 average. And for the kind of analyses that I do (and most people do), this is what I call “a difference that makes no difference”. This is particularly true because it is an unchanging constant.

    That means that it will not affect any trends or any accelerations or decelerations of any of the climate variables.

    Here’s an example of how little difference that it makes. This is available solar after albedo reflections, both with (red) and without (black) your suggested change for atmospheric refraction.

    As you can see, the difference is trivial, and there’s no change in the trend (an increase of 0.08W/m2 per year in available solar in both cases).

    My best to you,

    w.

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    • I never claimed that it would change the trend.
      But if there are 1.5W/m2 extra at TOA, something else must be 1.5W/m2 lower.
      It can be the albedo or the absorption by atmosphere or the ”back radiation” from greenhouse gases, maybe all af them.
      So it will still affect every model.
      GI-GO

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      • You know how sometimes you sit up in your bed because you remembered something? What I remembered last night is that the amount of sunshine in watts per square meter is proportional to the sine of the height of the sun above the horizon. This is because at low sun angles the surface is tilted so much that each square meter gets very little energy.

        In practice, this means that when the sun is 1° above the horizon, it is providing only about 3% of the average sunlight hitting the planet.

        And as a result, rather than an excess of 1.5 W/m2 from the atmospheric refraction, the excess is only about four hundredths of a watt per square meter.

        Best regards,

        w.

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        • You are forgetting that there is refraction at every angle, exept 0

          ” In practice, this means that when the sun is 1° above the horizon, it is providing only about 3% of the average sunlight hitting the planet.”

          This is true for all sizes

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  42. Hi again Willis
    I couldn’t reply, so I will continue here

    You are both right and wrong.
    ”In practice, this means that when the sun is 1° above the horizon, it is providing only about 3% of the average sunlight hitting the planet.”

    Yes, but then you have to calculate from the total of the recived energy, not an average per square meter, also all other angles will also have different values, since the total energy is larger.

    Since 1360.8 W/m2 is an average, it will be increased with 0.004%, and the new value will be 1367 W/m2

    Do you understand the difference?

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    • Torbjörn, I agree with you that part of the sunlight wraps around the edge of the planet.

      But which part?

      For example, it’s not the part directly below the sun. Nor is it the part halfway between there and the terminator. While those get diffracted, all that does is move them over a bit.

      The only part of the incoming sunlight that wraps around the edge of the lighted part of the planet is that part that is just grazing the terminator. And the amount of sunlight there per square metre is VERY small, because the sun’s rays are nearly parallel to the ground.

      I suspect that part of the problem is that you have an incorrect mental picture of the earth. Here are two circles—a black circle with a radius of 6,378 km like the earth, and a red circle which includes the average height of the top of the stratosphere (50 km), which includes about 98% of the atmospheric mass.

      I’m sure you can see the problem … you can hardly see the difference. Compared to the earth, the atmosphere is a very thin skin.

      Now, the net effect of refraction is to bend the solar rays downwards toward the earth. As a result we end up with a situation like this, a closeup of the graphic above …

      Brown is the earth, blue is top of the stratosphere, dotted line goes through earth center, red is sun’s rays.

      As you can see, the only rays that wrap around the edge of the earth as viewed from the sun (the phenomenon you are pointing to) are at a very low solar angle. And as a result, per square meter irradiation is very, very small.

      And because it is so small, far less than a W/m2, it is ignored in virtually all analyses of e.g. the earth’s energy budget.

      Hope this helps,

      w.

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      • Dear Willis
        ” As you can see, the only rays that wrap around the edge of the earth as viewed from the sun (the phenomenon you are pointing to) are at a very low solar angle. And as a result, per square meter irradiation is very, very small”

        Yes, I understand that, but the refraction occurs for every angle except Zenit (0⁰) redirecting energy towards the center of earth.

        The TSI is an average value for the energy hitting an area, with the highest value of the average (1360,8 W/m2) will hit the centerpoint (we can call it Zenit or 0⁰) and at low solar angle it´s much lower and hence the lowest value of the average (1360,8 W/m2)

        If we use the numbers in your example
        Radius Earth 6378 km will give a cross section area (A = π r²) of 127796483 km2
        Radius Earth 6378 km with 50 km of atmosphere will give a cross section area of (A = π r²) 129808045 km2
        The difference in areas receiving energy (average 1360,8 W/m2) is increased with 127796483 -129808045 = 2011562 km2 = 2,01×1012 m2

        The extra energy received is 2,01×1012 m2* 1360,8 W/m2 ≈ 2,7x1015W
        This energy is spread over the cross section area of earth 127796483 km2 = 1,28×1014 m2 and adds to the average with (2,7×1015 W / 1,28×1014 m2) ≈ 21 W/m2 and the new value for average received energy (TSI) will be (1360,8 W/m2 + 21 W/m2) 1381,8 W/m2 (1,5% higher than 1360,8 W/m2)

        This is obviously too much, but the way you calculate it is correct.
        If we choose a different height of the atmosphere 29 km, we will get an extra received energy with 12,4 W/m2 and if we choose 12 km we will get 5,1 W/m2 extra, changing the average value from 1360,8 W/m2 to (1360,8 + 12,4) = 1373,2 W/m2 or (1360,8 + 5,1) = 1365,9 W/m2

        If you just add 0,1% (6,378 km) to the earth radius (6378+6,378) you will get an extra (average) 2,7 W/m2 to the TSI at the Top Of Atmosphere

        Another way to look at it, is to compare the umbra (shadow) behind the earth,it is in a shape of a cone, with the cross section of earth as base and the tip like a focalpoint (height).
        When adding an atmosphere both the base (gets larger) and the focalpoint changes (gets smaller), but the area of the “shadow” increases, that´s why a planet with an atmosphere will receive more energy than a planet without atmosphere

        Did this make it any clearer?

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  43. Dear Willis, October 28, 2021
    I have “sharpened my pencil” a bit on my original post of October 19 and find that more accurate estimates of the assumptions I used yields even more stunning results that an average person might relate to. My guess of the IPCC predicted temperature rise by century end was originally 2.9 F. Curry used 2.6 F in her recent speech in New Jersey as the most likely prediction.
    My assumption of 12 hours of warming and 12 hours of cooling per day was not too good. As a duck hunter I should have know better. On examining the daily warming/cooling cycle, it appears that 9 hours of warming with 15 hours of cooling is more typical in the mid latitude US cities I sampled .
    Adjusting those two assumptions yield the following results for the average time it takes to warm the air on an average day as much as the IPCC predicts the average earth temperature will rise in the next 79 years: Akron Ohio = 64 minutes, Carroll Iowa (near where I grew up) = 64 minutes, Fresno California = 56 minutes. WOW! What a RED ALERT this is!!!
    It appears the difference in maximum vs minimum temperatures is some what variable, being less at locations; (1) near the ocean, (2) in lower/higher latitudes. My small sample: Regina, Sask =12 F. Panama City = 7.7 F. Just another complexity of our weather but adequately handled by making calculations for specific location.

    Regards,
    Don Bunker

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  45. Dear Willis,
    As usual, almost anytime one looks at the posts on WUWT, there appears many complaints about how inappropriate it is for many scientist to use an “average global temperature” to indicate the trend of warming or cooling of the world. I don’t recall ever seeing an alternative measure being offered. This seems inconsistent with what I have historically believed to be “fair play”, i.e., if you don’t like an idea, you should be willing to put forth a better idea. As I contemplated what this measure might be I recognized how unqualified I was to even contemplate a better measure. This brought into clear focus the fact that I and I suspect many WUWT readers probably have no clue to the actual method used to calculate the “average global temperature” that we all follow and argue about. The “real” story of most things is in the details and the details of how the “average global temperatures” are calculated are probably not well understood by many WUWT readers (or am I the only one in the dark?).
    It seems that a comprehensive explanation of how the various temperature data sets are derived would be of interest to many WUWT readers besides myself. What data sets should be considered? What part of the world do they represent? Where does the data come from? What kind of instruments are used? What is their accuracy? How is the data “adjusted” both routinely and historically. How appropriate or inappropriate are these adjustments? What assumptions are made and how valid are these assumptions? And many, many more questions arise as the details unfold. And finally, is there a better measurement to indicate the “‘average global temperature” trend?
    Your articles are always so logical, easy to follow and well received that I of course thought you as the most qualified to shed light on this knowledge gap in our quest for a better understanding of “Climate Change”. Perhaps this effort has already been done and done well? I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on this subject!
    Don Bunker

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    • Per the NREL, average 24/7/365 delivery from grid-scale solar farms is on the order of 8.3 W/m2.

      100 miles x 100 miles is 25.9 billion square metres.

      So that’s ~ 1.89 petawatt-hours per year.

      Total US primary energy consumption = 26.3 PWh/year

      US electric consumption ~ ~4.0 PWh/year.

      And of course, production at night is zero …

      w.

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  47. Hi W, I enjoy your writing immensely. As the global lockdown unfolded Q2 2020 I thought scientists had been gifted a CO2 experiment that could never have been simulated and Mauna Loa would record a pause and climate scientists would direct the worlds attention to The Great Pause – but that never happened. I awaited a explanation from the climate community but that never came to pass either. Today I stumbled across @EthicalSkeptic and he has a hypothesis and I’d humbly like your thoughts.

    https://theethicalskeptic.com/2020/02/16/the-climate-change-alternative-we-ignore-to-our-peril/

    All the best!
    Martin

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    • Martin, your link starts out by saying:

      “Yes, it is generally acknowledged by mainstream science and society at large that our planet’s oceans are heating very fast. The result of this warming is an increasingly unhealthy environment for our ocean’s flora, fishes, microbiota, mollusks, crustaceans, and fauna. To varying degrees, this emergent condition threatens everything which lives on planet Earth.”

      I disagree with all three of these statements.

      First, the top layers of the ocean have heated SLIGHTLY, and not “very fast”. The globe warmed more and faster from 1700-1800 than it has recently, and the ocean didn’t even die.

      Next, the warmest areas of the ocean haven’t warmed at all. Natural processes prevent any part of the open ocean from an annual average over 30°C. And since there are ocean creatures happily living at every temperature from the benthos at 4°C to the Pacific Warm Pool at 30°C, the idea that this is an “increasingly unhealthy environment” for ocean creatures doesn’t make any sense.

      Finally, there is not a “threat to all life on earth”. That’s hyperbole.

      Next, he says “The vast preponderance of scientists agree that we are well underway on the sixth mass, or what could be reasonably titled, Anthropocene Extinction.”

      Hogwash. There’s no “Sixth Mass Extinction” going on. Read my peer-reviewed paper here on the subject.

      Next, he claims the heat is coming from beneath our feet, which is falsified by studies of hundreds of boreholes. It’s alo falsified by things like snow sticking on the ground and building up. If there were significant amounts of heat coming from below, that wouldn’t happen.

      I didn’t finish the rest. The guy is making no sense at all.

      Sorry,

      w.

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      • Ok then, let’s set aside the hogwash;)
        CO2 measured at Mauna Loa increased unabated as if industrial output has no affect on on the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. How do you explain it?
        Thanks again,
        Martin

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        • Actually the trend has dropped, about as much as expected. Remember that less CO2 emissions by no means indicates no CO2 emissions. And because of the time lag in the exponential decay of airborne co2 due to sequestration, even if emissions permanently went totally flat it would take about 30+ years before airborne ppmv leveled off.

          w.

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  48. Hi Willis

    The chart above looks to have a roll over that’s quite encouraging give the emissions of CO2 have risen a bit over the last years or at least not fallen.
    Do you have a feel for the likely terminal CO2 level if they were to remain at current levels?

    is there sufficient data, from my memory of the 70’s, the purported final levels were north of 1000ppm and our emissions are higher than was expected due to China and India exploding with economic growth.

    My hope is that a picture of less than 600ppm would be the number and that would be hard to build a catastrophe on, maybe a little to hopeful not regarding the CO2 but the Catastrophers.

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  49. Central Australia, mid-1960’s. Seismic oil exploration. Had to get a refraction shot, the last of a series. The recording spread of geophones and the shot point were six miles apart. Gain on the amplifiers – flat out. Any wind at all was too much. After about 36 hours of wind I told the boss, “There’s generally a lull around sunrise.” “Do it.” The ‘shooter’ and I spent the night in the field. We were lucky, a calm about 20 minutes before sunrise. We got the shot. (2000 lbs of Geophex on the surface.) Then, pick up 24 strings of geophones and two quarter mile cables. (Normally had three or four ‘jug-hustlers’ for ‘labor’.) Back in camp about 1000.

    I had no idea at that time just why there would/could be a lull at sunrise and sunset. Your explanation in one of your autobiography articles told me why. Thank you. As my dad said many times, “The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.”

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