What the planet can expect in the future and humans should be prepared for. A pulse starts some where when it is either cooler or warmer than the rest of the world. This temperature variant then pulses around the world until splat, it strikes a particular area with an unknown effect. Fire here, drought there, and a flood occasionally.

http://theenergycollective.com/josephromm/201816/weather-extremes-atmospheric-waves-and-climate-change

Weather Extremes: Atmospheric Waves And Climate Change

Authored by:

Joseph Romm

By Vladimir Petoukhov and Stefan Rahmstorf, via The Conversation

The northern hemisphere has experienced a spate of extreme weather in recent times. In 2012 there were destructive heat waves in the U.S. and southern Europe, accompanied by floods in China. This followed a heat wave in the U.S. in 2011 and one in Russia in 2010, coinciding with the unprecedented Pakistan flood — and the list doesn’t stop there.

Now we believe we have detected a common physical cause hidden behind all these individual events: Each time one of these extremes struck, a strong wave train had developed in the atmosphere, circling the globe in mid-latitudes. These so-called planetary waves are well-known and a normal part of atmospheric flow. What is not normal is that the usually moving waves ground to a halt and were greatly amplified during the extreme events.

Looking into the physics behind this, we found it is due to a resonance phenomenon. Under special conditions, the atmosphere can start to resonate like a bell. The wind patterns form a regular wave train, with six, seven or eight peaks and troughs going once around the globe (see graph). This is what we propose in a study published this week together with our colleagues of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

Planetary waves

Normally, an important part of the global air motion in the mid-latitudes of the Earth takes the form of waves wandering around the planet, oscillating irregularly between the tropical and polar regions. So when they swing northward, these waves suck warm air from the tropics to Europe, Russia, or the US; and when they swing southward, they do the same thing with cold air from the Arctic. This is a well-known feature of our planet’s atmospheric circulation system

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Well to be fair, they actually think it is going to be natural gas, but at least they mention solar.

http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Shell-Predicts-that-Natural-Gas-or-Solar-will-Become-the-No.-1-Energy-Source.html

Shell Predicts that Natural Gas or Solar will Become the No. 1 Energy Source

By Charles Kennedy | Sun, 03 March 2013

Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS.A) has just released new forecasts for its ‘New Lens Scenarios’ program, which aims to predict how current business decision and policies may unfold over time and affect the markets in the future.

Peter Voser, the CEO of Shell, explained that the scenarios “highlight the need for business and government to find ways to collaborate, fostering policies that promote the development and use of cleaner energy and improve energy efficiency.”

The scenarios take two different approaches: one considers the world with a high level of government involvement, and the other looks at the markets when they are given more freedom to develop naturally.

With high government involvement in dictating energy and policies, Shell believes that natural gas will flourish to become the number one energy source in the world over the next couple of decades, overtaking coal and helping to reduce carbon emissions.

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Go there and read. More later.

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Given the backward nature of American culture you did the best you could do. Tough job that nobody really wants.

Energy Secretary Chu Resigns Leaving Oil Markets in Turmoil

Raymond J. Learsy

Author, ‘Oil and Finance: The Epic Corruption Continues’

In his letter of resignation from the post of Energy Secretary, Chu characterized his Department as a “Department of Science, a Department of Innovation, and a Department of Nuclear Security.” He then goes on to point out the myriad achievements and initiatives during his tenure ranging from BioEnergy Research Centers, Wind and Solar Energy initiatives, nuclear safety, appliance efficiency standards and on. Not an unimpressive list of scientific and clean energy programs. Embedded deeply in his letter is his conviction that rising temperatures present a present and growing danger to the planet and need be addressed. His tenure at Energy addressed this issue relentlessly, and even with the $500 million Solyndra debacle, built a foundation for research, creativity, and with funding guarantees to a plethora of clean energy projects supporting manufacturing plants throughout the country.
Were this his exclusive mandate his four year tenure might well be termed a success. But the Department also has other fish to fry. They relate no only to the environment, but profoundly to the economy and to our national security. Energy, be it oil, natural gas, coal are core commodities to the functioning of our economic viability, and here the Department of Energy under Chu’s tutelage has approached disaster.

As example, within a month of Chu’s ascendency the price of crude oil hovered around $35/barrel (and gasoline prices well under $2.00/gallon). Today’s price is over $95/bbl even though our oil consumption is down some 2.4% from what it was four years ago and production from the Bakken and EagleFord Formations in North Dakota and Texas has increased our domestic production dramatically keeping our domestic oil market amply supplied (oil inventories are at or near all time highs). In a situation such as this it is the Department of Energy’s obligation to ask some hard questions just as Energy Secretary Bill Richardson did during his tenure during the Clinton Administration when he personally lobbied OPEC members only to be chastised, to his great credit, by the OPEC spokesman, “In the forty year history of OPEC there has never been the case of the Secretary of Energy calling OPEC in the middle of an OPEC meeting… We are upset and disappointed at external pressure. We don’t like it.

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Go there and read. More later.

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This is all happening much faster than I thought it would. In another 10 years we are going to be cooked.

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2013/01/14/an-assessment-of-climate-under-global-warming/

An Assessment of Climate Under Global Warming

Posted by Greg Laden on January 14, 2013

A Draft National Climate Assessment has been released by the “National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee.” You can download it here … warning: it is a PDF file way over 100 megabytes

The report affirms that climate is changing and that this change is primarily caused by human activities, mostly the release of fossil carbon into the atmosphere by burning fuels. The report notes an increase in weather extremes and that these extremes are being recognized by the relevant climate science as linked to these human-induced changes.

Details about the committee, the report, and the process, are as follows:

A 60-person Federal Advisory Committee (The “National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee” or NCADAC) has overseen the development of this draft climate report.

The NCADAC, whose members are available here (and in the report), was established under the Department of Commerce in December 2010 and is supported through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It is a federal advisory committee established as per the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972. The Committee serves to oversee the activities of the National Climate Assessment. Its members are diverse in background, expertise, geography and sector of employment. A formal record of the committee can be found at the NOAA NCADAC website.

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Go there and read. More later on.

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These guys cover the globe.

http://www.greenenergycouncil.com/

The International Green Energy Council is an educational and advocacy body. We pride ourselves on educating from kindergarten students all the way up to leaders of nations about energy efficiency, environmental stewardship and renewable energy. We also aid international leaders on creating sound policy and regulatory atmospheres in order to promote expeditious applications for renewable energy and green technologies.

Over the past six years we have worked with 22 Governors in regards to Renewable Portfolio Standards for their states. Furthermore, we are liaison and facilitators with several countries including but not limited to the following: Canada, South Africa, Greece, Senegal, Zambia, Nigeria, Philippines, Netherlands, Russia, Brazil, China, Morocco as well as a host of others. The IGEC is also working with many utility company’s around the Globe to meet their Renewable Energy Portfolio mandates. We have chartered chapters in 68 nations around the World.

The GEC is a professional association comprised of individuals and companies that promote sustainable forms of energy production, renewable energy sources, sustainable design practices and advanced thinking in utilizing education and information for the promotion of being better stewards of our environment while providing National Security Energy Plans to nations around the Globe.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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What a weird week it has been. Some solar, some global warming. A nice mix. So we end on this “hopeful” study.

http://www.weather.com/news/climate-change-poll-20121214

Poll: Science Doubters Say World is Warming

Published: Dec 14, 2012, 8:48 AM EST

WASHINGTON — Nearly 4 out of 5 Americans now think temperatures are rising and that global warming will be a serious problem for the United States if nothing is done about it, a new Associated Press-GfK poll finds.

Belief and worry about climate change are inching up among Americans in general, but concern is growing faster among people who don’t often trust scientists on the environment. In follow-up interviews, some of those doubters said they believe their own eyes as they’ve watched thermometers rise, New York City subway tunnels flood, polar ice melt and Midwestern farm fields dry up.

Overall, 78 percent of those surveyed said they thought temperatures were rising and 80 percent called it a serious problem. That’s up slightly from 2009, when 75 percent thought global warming was occurring and just 73 percent thought it was a serious problem. In general, U.S. belief in global warming, according to AP-GfK and other polls, has fluctuated over the years but has stayed between about 70 and 85 percent.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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But this guy is a good writer and the points are well thought out.

http://grist.org/climate-energy/how-to-make-illinois-into-a-clean-energy-leader/

David Roberts

Energy, politics, and more

How to make Illinois into a clean-energy leader

Illinois is a big deal where power is concerned: of U.S. states, it’s the sixth largest consumer of electricity and the fourth largest producer. It has more nuclear power plants than any other state and is unusually dense with underutilized transmission lines, which are at a premium these days. It has a thriving wind power industry (though it is a sad 18th in installed solar capacity), and a bustling, green-minded metropolis in Chicago, which boasts nearly 80,000 green jobs.

So it’s too bad the Illinois power system makes the Talmud look like The Da Vinci Code. I’ve been talking to people about it for a week and I feel like my brain got mugged in a back alley.

Nonetheless! States are where it’s at, in terms of clean-energy policy, and significant things are going on in Illinois. I shall attempt to make sense of them for you.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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No comment necessary here.

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/summer-2012-in-running-for-hot/68155

The summer of 2012 is in the running for one of the top three hottest summers in the past 60 years in the United States and southern Canada.

Steven A. Root, Certified Consulting Meteorologist and President and CEO of WeatherBank, Inc. has been examining hourly and daily temperatures in 59 hub cities dating back to Jan. 1, 1950.

WeatherBank is an AccuWeather, Inc. long-range forecasting and data partner.

Root computes the cooling degree days (CDD) for each city, each day of the year. Cooling degree days are the number of degrees that a day’s average temperature is above 65 degrees. The period from May 15 to Sept. 15 is considered to be the air conditioning/cooling season for the U.S. and Canada.

Root is estimating this summer to finish up with 59,484 CDDs based on what has happened thus far and what is projected.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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It is true. They are waving the flag of surrender. But more importantly, this is a really cool organization that I have never heard of. I am changing that today.

http://www.beyondnuclear.org/the-nuclear-retreat/2012/8/2/general-electrics-immelt-down-on-nukes.html

General Electric’s Immelt down on nukes

August 2, 2012

The latest confession of the nuclear retreat comes in the interview by Financial Times with none other than General Electric’s Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt. “It’s hard to justify nuclear, really hard,” said Immelt. He joins John “I’m the nuclear guy” Rowe, CEO of Chicago-based electricity giant Exelon Nuclear, who admitted this year that new nuclear power plants were “utterly uneconomical.”

These latest remarks come as no surprise given the atomic industry’s decades’ old penchant for economic failure going back to what Forbes Magazine described in 1985 as “the largest managerial disaster in business history.”  More egregious is how power executives can ignore the constant and many warning signs. Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investment and Fitch Financial Services have been saying for years that risky new reactor construction likely turns to financially toxic assets. Where were Immelt and Rowe when CitiBank called nuclear power the “corporate killer”?  In fact, they were among the corporate heads vying for tens of billions dollars in federal taxpayer “loans” approved by Congress for ludicrously expensive new reactor construction

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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First this person loads this article with oblique invective. Not all liberals are opposed to nuclear power. In fact he never even defines what a liberal IS. Second, he bases his arguement on health issues while dismissing the costs of the power stations and the displacement of that cost to investments in renewable sources of energy with no evidence to support those dismissals. Then there is the issue of waste storage which proved so decisive in the Fukushima accident – eg. causing the most destruction and the most danger. From a larger perspective, we have our own nuclear fusion plant going on with the Sun, and we got back up in the Moon causing the tides. We don’t need no stinking nuclear power.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-ropeik/are-antinuke-liberals-sci_b_844783.html

Are Anti-Nuke Liberals Science Deniers?

Posted: 04/ 5/11 03:37 PM ET

David Ropeik

Author, “How Risky Is It, Really?”

The first glimmers of hope begin to shine from the nuclear crisis in Japan, but they will do little to brighten the views of some about nuclear power. As the disaster at Fukushima has shown, nuclear certainly has risks, as do all forms of energy. But the disaster has also reminded us that it’s really hard to get people to change their minds about a risk, once those minds have been made up. And close-mindedness isn’t the brightest, or safest, way to make the healthiest possible choices about how to stay safe.

As a TV reporter in Boston I covered several nuclear power controversies. Seabrook. Pilgrim. Yankee Rowe. These were great stories… lead stories… because they involved possible public exposure to nuclear radiation, and everybody knows that’s really dangerous. My stories were full of ominous drama and alarm. But when I joined the Harvard School of Public Health and researched nuclear power for a chapter in a book, RISK, A Practical Guide for Deciding What’s Really Safe and What’s Really Dangerous in the World Around You, I was ashamed to learn how uninformed and misleading my alarmism had been. Ionizing radiation is indeed a carcinogen. But it’s not nearly as potent as most people fear.

94,000 survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been followed for 66 years by epidemiologists from around the world and, compared to normal cancer rates in Japan, only about 500 of those survivors have died because of the radiation. About two thirds of one percent. The radiation also caused birth defects in children born to women pregnant when they were exposed, but no long term genetic damage. These findings are widely accepted in the scientific community. Governments around the world base their radiation regulations on them.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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