NZ ETS: Analytic Negligence

blue sky

Our approach

The reality of political decision-making is that much of it is driven by the bevy of backroom advisers retained by the government for the purpose of providing sound, unbiased and well-researched information as the basis on which to make the aforesaid decisions. This group of people are at the forefront of policy formation and much of the research and analysis by them is economic in nature.

What better place then, to go looking for an example of economic analysis to gauge the level of analytical critique directed at the NZ ETS, than the Institute of Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand?

A convenient example that addresses an ETS issue “Free Allocation in the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme A Critical Analysis” Policy Quarterly – Volume 6, Issue 2, February 2010, by Christina Hood will do nicely. The author has impeccable credentials and presents some perfect material for us to gain an insight into the sphere of policy influence in respect to climate change policy. It should be noted that the article has been sourced from outside of the stream that would normally be compiled into executive summary for ministerial consideration, but it is not out of the realm of possibility that an article such as this may gain some traction on the strength of its source — hence the caveat next.

A caveat

The selection of Christina Hood’s article is not to take issue with Christina specifically but with the approach to economic analysis of the ETS generally. The root cause of the lack of consideration given to wider scenario possibilities lies with scientific deficiencies in the ETS basis and governmental reluctance to investigate the alternatives. It would be unfair to berate those undertaking economic analysis of the ETS for blithely accepting the consensus findings of another professional group (climate science), but it does reveal shortcomings in critical thinking.

It must be assumed that Christina still wields influence at a high level after a stint as policy adviser to the minister for energy and climate change issues during 2002–2005; she is also not without scientific understanding because her resume includes a PhD in physics. I hope that, since selling her soul to the climate change spectre in exchange for pieces of policy-peer recognition (if not silver), Christina has spent time in monastic solitude seeking redemption. I am also hopeful that her contemplation will in time produce an outpouring of literary penance couched in an extended economic analysis and comparison of alternative New Zealand economic scenarios with and without an ETS (or carbon tax), based on alternative hypotheses of anthropogenic carbon and natural cycle climate drivers.

Most revealing in that analysis would be the budget foregone in order to feed the appetite of the voracious climate change beast. For example, what is the opportunity cost to health, education or foreign aid due to the money-multiplier lost to the productive economy and instead allocated to ETS carbon credit purchase and sector protection or subsidy over the next 50 years?

What we must ignore for now

If we are looking for an objective approach we will have to ignore what seems to be the author’s premise that anthropogenic carbon emissions are the most significant climate driver and therefore the assumption of that basis goes without saying. We will also overlook the petulant introduction “Submitters were given two weeks to make written submissions, and some were asked to appear for oral submissions with only a few hours notice. Very little economic analysis of the legislation was released by the government at the time or has been since.” If the critique following the introduction in response to the minimal analysis had explored the differences of economic impact in an economy with and without an ETS, then the statement would gain validity, but if the major climate driver is unquestionably anthropogenic without acknowledgement that there might be other possibilities, then who cares what analysis is done because the scheme will wreak economic havoc anyway, in whatever configuration on an invalid basis. Tweaking here and there to make a market intervention more palatable to economic purists won’t change that.

Next we will overlook the author’s assertion that an emissions price of NZ$100 per tonne by 2050 is “more plausible” than NZ$50. This statement was made in the context of $200 billion foregone government revenue by 2050 from free allocation of units, but has the author really thought about what a $100 price on emissions means to New Zealand’s international competitiveness and GDP, and how that price will be achieved (by market means?)?

Finally, we will overlook the economic niceties that the author bemoans have been circumvented by the protection and subsidy of industry and agriculture enacted in the latest incarnation of the ETS. It is a matter of course that a government will seek ways to do that when it gained its right to govern via a manifesto aligned to the interests of those same sectors. In other words, votes trump economic theory.

The ingrained negligence

Billions of dollars have been sunk globally in the financial black hole of anthropogenic climate change that could otherwise have been invested productively for the future wealth of nations. The range of beneficiaries of this money-spinner is mind boggling and the first that come to most minds are climate scientists. But consider for a moment the suppliers of supercomputing facilities world-wide, including architecture, building construction, air conditioning and computers. These facilities are duplicated over and over as the number of IPCC climate model submissions attest.

The last decade has exposed the negligence of climate modellers to present to the world the alternative scenarios of future climate using realistic natural climate drivers because their anthropogenically forced outputs have not tracked the observed conditions of the last decade and have been worse than useless as a basis of infrastructure planning, particularly in the UK and Australia.

Economists, whether government employed or contracted, are also beneficiaries but squarely positioned to have major influence on the ministerial decision-making process — i.e., they have power. With power, though, comes responsibility. What we have witnessed in the formulation of the ETS is an abdication of responsibility by those in the best position to speak up on behalf of a public far from the reins of power when decisions with profound consequences for the New Zealand economy and significant impositions at a personal level were being made.

Economic analysis that does not incorporate the spectrum of sensibly anticipated risks is negligent, but what do we see? Just the one anthropogenic scenario with some variations to provide the illusion of multiple scenarios provided by climate science and quiescence from economists. If there were misgivings in the economic fraternity as to the veracity of the anthropogenic assumption and the possibility of erroneous economic modelling, then either they were not voiced or they were voiced only in passing — they were certainly not laid out in the public domain.

The propensity of economic analysts to abdicate responsibility is evidenced in another report “Economic modelling of New Zealand climate change policy” by NZIER – Infometrics. Their rider: “While every effort is made by Infometrics to ensure that the information, opinions and forecasts provided to the client are accurate and reliable, Infometrics shall not be liable for any adverse consequences of the client’s decisions made in reliance of any report provided by Infometrics, nor shall Infometrics be held to have given or implied any warranty as to whether any report provided by Infometrics will assist in the performance of the client’s functions.” Here’s our work, pay us, but don’t hold us accountable to it. It is perhaps fortunate that these people are not brain surgeons or car mechanics, though their proximity to the nation’s economic reins is tragic.

Our look at Christina Hood’s article reveals an analyst who is concerned only with how the ETS stacks up when economic theory is applied to it but ignores the very basis of the analysis and how the introduction of an obvious alternative would nullify the need for possibly hundreds of billions of dollars being syphoned from the long-term productive economy of New Zealand. This is negligence at any level – professional, academic, official or in the forum of the Institute of Policy Studies.

Once we omit from our look at the report what we must ignore for the sake of objectivity, there is very little left for our own critique until we come to the last paragraph: “The first scheduled review of the scheme is in 2011. As the ETS will only be coming into operation at this time, there will be a temptation for this review to be cursory. Instead, the review provides an opportunity for the proper cost-benefit analyses to be undertaken to inform decisions on how ETS revenues should be best allocated for the benefit of New Zealand as a whole.”

But no — the opportunity is of a vastly different nature.

An opportunity for belated consideration of a natural climate driver hypothesis

The New Zealand ETS is scheduled for review in 2011. Much has happened in the last 14 months to warrant an objective scrutiny of the scientific and economic justification for it that has not been carried out to date. The IPCC version of climate change has been given right of passage to the exclusion of competing climate driver hypotheses. Now more than ever, the anthropogenic assumption must be called into question in light of the spectacular failure of national institutions, notably the UK Met Office and CSIRO, to provide climate scenarios that even remotely resemble what the respective populations of Britain and Australia are grappling with.

That failure is highlighted by the success of individuals operating in a commercial environment to do what national institutions cannot — make useful forecasts using natural climate drivers as their mainstay. It is of concern that our National Institution of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) are now using “emissions scenarios” as the basis of long-term climate prediction when that approach is making equivalent overseas institutions a global laughing stock. Why join them?

When the reality of an alternative natural climate driver scenario is finally introduced to economic analysis of the ETS, the hundreds of millions of misallocated resource dollars will be immediately returned to their rightful place economically and the analytic negligence of the past will be rectified.

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77 Thoughts on “NZ ETS: Analytic Negligence

  1. Richard C (NZ) on 24/12/2010 at 11:34 am said:

    In “ETS and Carbon Taxes” Andy made the salient observation

    Andy says:
    December 23, 2010 at 8:45 pm

    The non-discounted price for CO2 will be set by the market, as I am led to understand.
    To date, no one has explained to me how this market price is reached and how NZ businesses are supposed to plan for it.

    https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/open-threads/politics/ets-and-carbon-taxes-001/#comment-33353

    This raises all sorts of issues, some I’ve tried to address in reply.

    Richard C (NZ) says:
    December 24, 2010 at 9:02 am

    The “market” being European.in lieu of any other, so the NZ price would be aligned to that I’m guessing.

    First problem being (for them), that the “market” price wont reach the threshold that makes any difference which seems to be in excess of $100. This because coal is so cheap relatively.

    Next problem being (for us), is what is known euphemistically as “carbon leakage”. This is the inevitable situation where commercial operators hightail it out of the country to somewhere (anywhere) that the tax is not imposed.

    “Carbon leakage” is not observed in economic modelling until emissions prices are well over AU$200/ tCO2, so we can breathe a sigh of relief because we can rely on models to substitute our common sense – apparently.

    I’m inclined to be more than a little sceptical given the situation we saw here in Mt Maunganui when NZ Controls moved their production to China where they could employ 19 Chinese instead of 1 Kiwi. F&P is similarly pragmatic and Seeka Kiwifruit trialled packing in China during the 2010 season. Then there’s Vietnam, Cambodia and India. An Indian corporate has just outlaid AU$850m for WA coal so I don’t think they’re worried too much about carbon prices – bring it on, they say.

    We have already seen the Redcar UK debacle. See “Corus Teeside, Tata and “ Green Credits”, a new form of asset stripping?”

    http://www.steelstrip.co.uk/steel-strip/archives/1111

    The last British steel-making enterprise shipped off to India. Economic modelling? Yeah right.

    Immediately after a NZ corporate financial controller inserts “Carbon Price $100″ in his/her spreadsheet and hits “Enter”, the Planning Dept will receive a memo requesting options for off-shoring any part of the operation that incurs the cost irrespective of what “economic modelling” might say..

    • Richard C (NZ) on 24/12/2010 at 8:32 pm said:

      State run Indian companies want AU coal (TATA already there). No worries about carbon prices for them but plenty for Glenbrook Steel NZ.
      —————————————————————————————————————————-
      TATA Steel said today it is studying Rio Tinto’s $3.9 billion bid for Riversdale Mining, as it reviews alternatives to the offer.

      Tata Steel, which has a 24 per cent stake in Riversdale, said in a regulatory filing that it will “evaluate the takeover bid in the context of other alternatives available to Tata Steel.”

      Earlier today, International Coal Ventures said it has hired Citibank to advise on a counterbid to Rio Tinto’s $16-a-share offer for Riversdale Mining.

      “We have appointed Citibank. The merchant bank will submit its report in the next two weeks, based on which we will take a call on counter-bidding for Riversdale,” chairman C.S. Verma told reporters.

      ICVL is a joint venture between five state-run Indian companies — Steel Authority of India, NTPC, NMDC, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam and Coal India.

      Continues…………..

      http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/citi-adviser-to-icvl-on-riversdale-bid/story-e6frg9e6-1225975721708

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/12/2010 at 1:28 pm said:

      NZ coal consumption for year to Sept 2008 3.12Mt

      3.12 x 0.746 = 2.328 Mt of carbon

      2.328 x 3.7 = 8.61 Mt of CO2

      NZ$ ETS charge to the NZ economy per year for coal alone

      @ 19.50 per tonne…..$167,895,000

      @ 25.00 per tonne…..$215,250,000

      @ 50.00 per tonne…..$430,500,000

      @ 100.00 per tonne…..$861,000,000

      Completely unnecessary @ any rate because CO2 is not the climate driver.

      But Charles Chauvel wants an extra $215,250,000 from coal alone.

      Yeah right.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/12/2010 at 1:36 pm said:

      @ NZ$50.00 per tonne for CO2 emissions and 3.12 Mt coal consumption per year.

      NZ$4.3 billion over 10 years just from coal.

      This is freaking madness.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 26/12/2010 at 1:47 pm said:

      This figure should be reduced to account for the effective price of $12.50 from 2010 -2012 (some sectors still $25?).

      Also using the effective price to 2012.

      @ 12.50 per tonne…..$107,600,000 pa

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/12/2010 at 7:33 pm said:

      Newcastle AU power station coal currently @ ~NZ$146 tonne.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/12/2010 at 9:10 pm said:

      How the govt calculates emissions from calorific value and energy (91.20 ktCO2/PJ) i.e.Not a conversion factor from weight of coal to weight of CO2.

      Emission factors – solid fuels

      In previous inventory submissions, New Zealand’s emissions from coal combustion in the public electricity and heat production subcategory were calculated using the emission factor for sub-bituminous coal of 92.99 kt CO2/PJ (Baines, 1993). In 2008, the electricity generator contacted the Ministry of Economic Development to request an update of this value. The assumption was made that using the overall sub-bituminous value for the public electricity and heat production subcategory (91.20 ktCO2/PJ) is consistent with other coal burning activities in New Zealand. This updated emission factor is included for the whole time series (1990–2007) for the public electricity and heat production subcategory.

      New Zealand’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990–2007

      http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/climate/greenhouse-gas-inventory-2009/html/page3.html

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/12/2010 at 6:37 pm said:

      What the NZ ETS means in costs to the major coal users.

      Using conv factor 2.7596 (coal in tonnes to CO2 in tonnes)

      Fonterra ………..1,241,826 tonnes CO2 pa (450,000 tonnes coal)

      @ 19.50 .$24.2 million pa

      @ $25 …$31.0 million pa

      @ $50 …$62.0 million pa

      Glenbrook……..2,207,692 tonnes CO2 pa (800,000 tonnes coal)

      @ 19.50 ..$43.0 million pa

      @ $25 ….$55.2 million pa

      @ $50 …$110.4 million pa

      For comparison
      Domestic air travel ..915,000 tonnes CO2 pa (from Greenpeace ??)

      @ 19.50 .$17.8 million pa

      @ $25 …$22.9 million pa

      @ $50 …$45.8 million pa

    • Richard C (NZ) on 26/12/2010 at 1:02 pm said:

      From GPC NZ Emissions Trading Scheme fact sheet

      “Not all exposed businesses will get free emission units. The food processing sector, for example, will receive little or no allocation. Fonterra, the country’s biggest export earner, has estimated that the ETS will cost it $38 million in the first year (1 July 2010 – 30 June 2011), rising to $107 million in 2015.”

    • Richard C (NZ) on 26/12/2010 at 1:16 pm said:

      From GPC NZ Emissions Trading Scheme fact sheet

      “rather than keeping the 309 million Kyoto emission units for itself, the Government is allocating them to forest owners, and to energy intensive, trade-exposed companies to help the latter while they adjust to carbon pricing. This support is not a cost to the taxpayer as the Government is using units it received free through the Kyoto Protocol. The taxpayer faces no cost unless New Zealand’s Kyoto account for 2008-2012 is in deficit. As noted above, the current projection suggests New Zealand will have a Kyoto surplus.”
      ——————————————————————————————————————–
      i.e. Everyone’s complacent because much of the country is benefiting from the free allocation and disbursement of units. Not much fun for those sectors that missed out however.

      But when the free allocation runs out – what then? See Dr Christina Hood’s submission below and article linked in the above post for the answer.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 26/12/2010 at 1:34 pm said:

      Fonterra ………..1,241,826 tonnes CO2 pa (450,000 tonnes coal)

      @ 12.50 .$15.5 million pa

      Effective price to 2012 – not 100% sure that Fonterra pays $12.50 or $25. Their own estimate of $38m in the first year indicates that perhaps it pays $25.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 26/12/2010 at 1:39 pm said:

      Glenbrook……..2,207,692 tonnes CO2 pa (800,000 tonnes coal)

      @ 12.50 ..$27.6 million pa (Effective price to 2012)

      Domestic air travel ..915,000 tonnes CO2 pa (from Greenpeace ??)

      @ 12.50 .$11.4 million pa (Effective price to 2012)

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/12/2010 at 7:09 pm said:

      What the NZ ETS means in costs to the major coal users (cont from above)

      Huntly ………..3,794,450 tonnes CO2 pa (1,375,000 tonnes coal est)

      @ 19.50 …$74.0 million pa

      @ $25 …..$94.9 million pa

      @ $50 …$189.7 million pa

    • Mike Jowsey on 25/12/2010 at 9:45 pm said:

      They need the money to pay the Green Fund in order to fund the New World Order. If you have a couple of hours over the holidays, recommended viewing: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1070329053600562261#

      It gets real interesting from about the 40 min mark. Food for thought, eh.

      Merry Christmas Richard C.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/12/2010 at 10:11 pm said:

      Thanks Mike and I hope you have a peaceful Christmas (or boisterous if you wish). Me, I’m big on peaceful nowadays.

      I’m not a video fan to be honest – I’ll wait for the book.

    • Mike Jowsey on 26/12/2010 at 5:00 pm said:

      That’s a pity. Don’t think they are doing a book.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 26/12/2010 at 1:41 pm said:

      Huntly ………..3,794,450 tonnes CO2 pa (1,375,000 tonnes coal est)

      @ 12.50 …$47.4 million pa (Effective price to 2012)

  2. Richard C (NZ) on 24/12/2010 at 7:01 pm said:

    From

    New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS) Review 2011 —
    Terms of Reference

    The review panel should not focus on:

    a. whether an emissions trading scheme is the most appropriate response to climate change for New Zealand;

    b. whether New Zealand should be taking action on climate change; and

    c. climate change measures outside of the NZ ETS (except to the extent that a – c above raise broader issues about the best means of meeting New Zealand’s international obligations).

    Considerations
    In considering the matters set out in section 160(5) and the area of focus and issues to which particular attention is to be given, and in preparing its report, the review panel will take into account the effectiveness and efficiency of the NZ ETS giving particular attention to the following factors:

    a. short term costs, competition and competitiveness impacts – the costs for New Zealand and associated impacts on the competitiveness of its firms between now and 2020;

    b. administrative efficiency including transaction costs

    c. impacts on long-term economic resilience – the long-term risks and opportunities for New Zealand’s economic resilience;

    d. environmental integrity – the impact on New Zealand’s domestic emissions profile and international efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions;

    e. the need to balance the efficient design of the NZ ETS vis-à-vis our trading partners and environmental effectiveness; and

    f. equity between sectors and groups – the distribution of costs and benefits between sectors and groups (including iwi).

  3. Richard C (NZ) on 24/12/2010 at 8:13 pm said:

    Dr Christina Hood’s “Submission to the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee on the
    Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill”

    http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/6C882B6B-0972-4EFF-A0F6-EB5D5789FB19/115616/49SCFE_EVI_00DBHOH_BILL9597_1_A14707_DrChristinaHo.pdf

    Of interest

    Figure 1. In the existing legislation, free allocation phases out by 2030
    leaving the government with surplus units to sell2.

    Christina’s submission (See Figure 2)

    2.5 With this Bill, the government has chosen to allocate 100% of the
    surplus units as increased free subsidies to industry and agriculture. To 2030,
    this amounts to a $21 billion wealth transfer from taxpayers to these
    subsidised sectors. After 2030, the scheme is not fiscally neutral but is in
    deficit: the government would have to purchase units offshore to maintain the
    level of subsidy specified in the Bill.

    Also see subsidy costs Figure 4.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/12/2010 at 9:27 pm said:

      Fonterra’s “Submission to the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee on the
      Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill”

      http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/F793E11E-A3EE-45D2-A983-59E8783D47D3/115724/49SCFE_EVI_00DBHOH_BILL9597_1_A14811_Fonterra_1.pdf

      Bill Still Falls Short In Key Areas

      4 The proposed amendments to the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ
      ETS) fall short of their objective to reduce the risk of emission leakages, and
      provide greater certainty for economic growth. Specifically Fonterra prioritises in
      this submission three aspects of the scheme that it wishes to bring to the Select
      Committee’s attention:

      4.1 The current eligibility thresholds will preclude Fonterra from receiving an
      allocation for its manufacturing emissions. The scheme will expose the
      New Zealand dairy industry to punitive costs ahead of offshore competitors,
      resulting in economic leakage and risking global emission increases. Milk production, dairy manufacturing and transportation of milk are part of an integrated supply chain. Manufacturing cost increases will be passed back to farmers and form part of a cumulative impact on farm economics and therefore output1. These costs must be considered alongside other cost increases in the dairy supply chain to address the competitive impacts for dairy production. It is farmers who ultimately determine whether dairy
      output remains at business as usual levels. Not considering the full costs
      across the integrated supply chain means farmers will in effect receive
      allocation relief for 75% emissions of costs, not the 90% suggested by the
      agricultural allocation provision. In contrast the allocative relief for eligible
      industrial firms will not decline to 75% until 2026;

      4.2 The provisions of the Act, including as amended by this Bill, discriminate
      between energy sources, with the impact that the use of efficient and
      cleaner technology such as co-generation is penalised, and the intensive
      use of transport fuel, which is an integral part of the supply chain, is
      ignored;

      4.3 The absence of an on-farm point of obligation transforms the emissions
      trading scheme into an unavoidable tax for individual farmers, and as such
      fails to properly incentivise behaviour change at the emission source. This
      diminishes the benefits of intensity allocation in encouraging investment in
      new technology

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/12/2010 at 10:07 pm said:

      From Fonterra’s submission to “Ministerial Review of Electricity Market Performance” Sept 2009

      Whilst generation from renewable sources is making an increasing contribution to the energy mix, globally the technologies of choice are combined cycle gas turbine and coal.

      We are of the view that dynamic efficiency can only be maximised if energy policy is agnostic as to generation technology and that concerns about environmental externalities are best addressed through appropriate policy instruments that price the externalities taking account of the local or global nature of the externalities, e.g. cap and trade schemes for greenhouse gases.
      —————————————————————————————————————————–
      CO2 is an externality – apparently

  4. Richard C (NZ) on 25/12/2010 at 9:34 am said:

    ETS needs teeth, Labour says

    1:50 PM Friday Dec 24, 2010 – NZH

    The Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) needs to be given “a set of teeth” by the panel that is reviewing it, the Labour Party says.

    Climate Change Minister Nick Smith yesterday announced the panel which will study the way the ETS is working and whether it should continue to full implementation.

    The scheme makes industries pay for some of their greenhouse gas emissions and is being introduced in stages.

    Labour’s climate change spokesman Charles Chauvel said today it should be fully implemented immediately.

    “If New Zealand wants to avoid burning a lot of gas to generate electricity, to achieve a long-term turnaround in deforestation and bring about changes in consumer behaviour around energy and transport use we need a stronger ETS,” he said.

    “And we need the revenues from the scheme to pay to help bring about these changes, rather than to provide an ongoing subsidy to polluters, as the ETS currently does.”

    Continues……..
    —————————————————————————————————————————–
    The review panel will start work in February 2011.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/12/2010 at 10:50 am said:

      “Labour’s climate change spokesman Charles Chauvel said today it should be fully implemented immediately.”

      That would mean a carbon price of NZ$50.

      Last trades on the European Climate Exchange (ECX)

      ECX CER Futures (NZ$ @ 0.5631)

      Dec 2011 …..€11.17 …..(~NZ$19.83) …..Vol 1080

      Dec 2012 …..€10.89 …..(~NZ$19.33) …..Vol 3,386

      Mar 2013 …..€11.14 …..(~NZ$19.78) …..Vol 55

      https://www.theice.com/marketdata/reports/ReportCenter.shtml?reportId=10&contractKey=81

      Through its ECX product suite, ICE Futures Europe is the leading global marketplace for trading carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

      ICE Futures Europe currently offers derivative contracts on three types of carbon credit: ICE ECX EU allowances (EUAs), ICE ECX Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) and the world’s first ICE ECX Emissions Reductions Units (ERUs).

      https://www.theice.com/productguide/ProductGroupHierarchy.shtml?groupDetail=&group.groupId=19

      So Chauvel wants to arbitrarily price 2011 carbon NZ$30.22 higher than the Mar 2013 market price.on low volume and NZ$30.67 higher than the Dec 2012 market price at higher volume

      These idiots make it up as they go along.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/12/2010 at 11:04 am said:

      Chauvel is swimming against the tide

      “CO2 emissions trading volumes have experienced strong growth. In 2009 volumes surpassed 5 billion tonnes of CO2 and equivalent, and 2010 volumes passed the 5 billion tonne mark early in the second half. ”

      5 billion tonnes equates to NZ$97.5 billion @ NZ$19.50 per tonne

      Note that the price is $5.50 LESS than the current NZ price of $25.

    • Andy on 26/12/2010 at 10:07 am said:

      Presumably these high prices of CO2 would mean extra big profits for the electricity companies.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 26/12/2010 at 11:04 am said:

      The carbon price is a penalty for say Genesis that operates Huntly, so it’s a loss for them – not a profit.

      The thermal penalties must raise wholesale market prices overall especially in dry years so that hydro and other renewables profit then (if they’ve got the water and wind that is).

      But hydro in New Zealand is not increasing anywhere near the rate of thermal increase so the penalty hits any new generation basically (except for wind) because our hydro options are near an end.

      Once the planet is saved and NZ Steel and Bluff Aluminium have shut down and gone to India we will have lots of surplus power so prices should come down significantly i.e. they will have to give it away and a good thing because we wont have jobs to pay for it.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 26/12/2010 at 11:19 am said:

      Obviously if the wholesale price rises then Genesis will recover some (maybe all) of the loss. I doubt they would profit at all but it is a possibility. Their analysts should have all that worked out and modelled.

      Increased wholesale electricity prices then flow on to retailer to consumer and to any activity that uses electricity so the consumer gets hit again e.g. refrigerated supermarket goods.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 26/12/2010 at 11:48 am said:

      “But hydro in New Zealand is not increasing anywhere near the rate of thermal increase”

      See plot Thermal vs Hydro

      http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/climate/greenhouse-gas-inventory-2009/html/images/figure3-2-2.gif

      Note the direct inverse relationship

    • Richard C (NZ) on 27/12/2010 at 11:26 pm said:

      “so the penalty hits any new generation basically (except for wind)”

      What I mean here is that the penalty hits a significant amount of on-going new generation because the growth is coming from gas – not hydro.

      There is wind and geothermal growth obviously but I was highlighting gas vs hydro.

      And as Andy has shown us, even geothermal gets hit too.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 27/12/2010 at 11:42 pm said:

      “That would mean a carbon price of NZ$50.”

      I’m wrong here. He wants all sectors to pay $25 – not some paying $12.50.

      This is wrong too:-

      “So Chauvel wants to arbitrarily price 2011 carbon NZ$30.22 higher than the Mar 2013 market price.on low volume and NZ$30.67 higher than the Dec 2012 market price at higher volume”

      Should be:-

      So Chauvel wants to arbitrarily price 2011 carbon NZ$5.22 higher than the Mar 2013 market price.on low volume and NZ$5.66 higher than the Dec 2012 market price at higher volume

      Doesn’t look nearly as bad now.

  5. Richard C (NZ) on 25/12/2010 at 6:44 pm said:

    From “Economic modelling of New Zealand climate change policy”

    “We start from the premise that New Zealand continues to be part of future international climate change agreements. New Zealand signing up to Kyoto and any subsequent international agreement results in a net welfare loss, no matter which instrument is used to account for our liability.2 We have been asked to determine the least cost approach to meeting these obligations – that is, to identify the instrument(s) that minimize this welfare loss.”

  6. Richard C (NZ) on 26/12/2010 at 9:48 am said:

    Business organisations and climate change

    Greenhouse Policy Coalition

    The Greenhouse Policy Coalition was formed in 1996, and represented almost all of New Zealand’s largest users of power. Its members included New Zealand Steel, New Zealand Aluminium Smelters, Solid Energy, Fonterra, Methanex New Zealand and four pulp and paper manufacturers.

    In 2009 the coalition argued that implementing the Kyoto Protocol on climate change was a significant risk to New Zealand’s economy. It called for a moderate and measured response by government.

    http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/employer-and-business-organisations/6
    ——————————————————————————————————————–
    Big users

    In 2008 Rio Tinto Zinc, owner of the Bluff aluminium smelter, and New Zealand Steel, owner of the Glenbrook steel mill, told government that their New Zealand businesses would become uneconomic if they had to pay for emissions when competitors overseas did not. The companies talked of ceasing to invest in and closing their New Zealand operations. Shown here is Ray Deacon of Rio Tinto Alcan NZ, talking to the parliamentary select committee considering climate-change legislation in 2008. In the background is Xiaoling Liu, president of Rio Tinto Alcan’s Primary Metal Asia Pacific region. A re-worked emissions trading scheme, introduced in 2009, substantially reduced industry responsibility and costs, and included a capped price for carbon units.

    http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/employer-and-business-organisations/6/5?setlang=mi

    • Richard C (NZ) on 26/12/2010 at 9:57 am said:

      Greenhouse Policy Coalition

      http://www.gpcnz.co.nz/

      New Submissions

      * GPC submission on NZES and NZEECS
      * GPC submission on Regulatory Responsibility Bill
      * GPC Submission to Minister on an emission reduction target by 2020
      * Infometrics analysis of cost of 40% emission reduction target for NZ
      * Castalia Peer Review of NZIER/Infometics economic modeling for ETS Review
      * GPC Submission to Select Committee Review of ETS – April 2009

      NZ Emissions Trading Scheme fact sheet

      http://www.gpcnz.co.nz/Site/News_Releases/ETS_fact_sheet.aspx

    • Richard C (NZ) on 26/12/2010 at 10:03 am said:

      Snippet from NZ Emissions Trading Scheme fact sheet

      · New Zealand Governments do not like using subsidies, while the EU is much more ready to use them, e.g. it provided 2.9 billion euros of support to coal mines in 2008 and is currently discussing whether to continue this sort of assistance.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 26/12/2010 at 10:35 am said:

      Bizarre! The GPC website contains no AGW rebuttals or. peer reviewed papers, CCG is light years ahead and look at the resources they have at their disposal. They got nothin – what a bunch of wimps.

      This is their science “summary”:-

      The Science – summary

      “There are still some uncertainties regarding the science and impacts of climate change. Climate change policy continues to develop, however, so that is the main focus for the Greenhouse Policy Coalition. The GPC will continue to monitor the science issues.”

      They link to the UNFCCC and IPCC (Huh???)

      Gaarrrrhhh!!!!!!

    • Richard C (NZ) on 26/12/2010 at 6:36 pm said:

      This was probably a bit harsh without knowing where GPC stands so I emailed David Venables Executive Director Greenhouse Policy Coalition to find out.

      His reply was that he did not have the time or other resources available to research and present a full examination of the science and that examining the pros and cons of the science is not really where GPC is in the debate. Also that successive governments have committed to doing something about climate change and it is GPC’s brief to make sure that what they do doesn’t ruin our economy and, in particular, major industrial employers

      So I’ve obviously got it wrong but I do find it surprising that the basis of the ETS is not being attacked by them given the evidence contrary to the iPCC version of climate change.

      I have provided David with links into as much of the CCG resources as I think he would need to see the contrary science without overloading him so at least he will have food for thought.

    • Andy on 26/12/2010 at 7:09 pm said:

      This doesn’t really surprise me at all. There are just playing consensus politics.
      At some stage, reality will bite them in the bum

      Piers Corbyn has made this interesting observation:

      “This winter is like the battle of Stalingrad in the ‘Climate war’. It will be long and hard and the public will suffer until the failed pseudo-science of man-made climate change – which become like a religion – is defeated; and instead available proven solar-based advances in forecasting science are applied to reduce misery and save lives”.

      http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=286&c=5

      I don’t know if Piers’ science is correct, but he seems to have a much better strike rate than the Met Office.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 26/12/2010 at 7:54 pm said:

      Yes, Piers’ strike rate is 85% and that’s been verified by a peer reviewed study. He is also banned from gambling on weather forecasts because of that. But it’s not just Corbyn. The Watts and Copeland Sinusoidal Solar-Lunar Model has proved itself for Ian Holtom against CSIRO/BOM in Australia and there are other examples.

      Boris Johnson is taking an interest and I note that his article about Piers Corbyn “There’s a mini ice age coming, says man who beats weather experts” was top of the most read environmental articles in the Sydney Morning Herald for some time.

      I’m starting to think that this is the better card to play. There are literally hundreds of peer reviewed papers that can be presented but the opposition always finds a way to ignore them – not IPCC, not from “the team”, not in a “top” journal, physicists are not “real” climate scientists, not approved by RealClimate and not in their Wiki so it’s not “reputable etc. They also seem to require one catch-all paper that encapsulates every AGW rebuttal known to man and if that can’t be presented you lose. Never mind that there is not one paper that defines the AGW hypothesis. It’s a hard debate to engage in as can be seen in the NZ Herald comment forums. You can put up “800 peer reviewed papers” and it’s either “give me one” or talk-to-the-hand.

      But here we have someone who puts his money where his climate driver is and wins against the massively funded UK Met Office. Now Bryan Leyland is doing the same and although we wont know for two years if he’s won, if it’s anything like his first effort, he will.

      The general populace is far more interested in this than scientific papers unfortunately.

      “At some stage, reality will bite them in the bum”

      That will be when the half-price offer ends on ETS units and if not then it will be when the Govt runs out of free units. What Australia does will have a bearing too.

    • And Piers Corbyn is not the only one. On this side of the world Ken Ring doesn’t do too badly – around 75% I am given to understand. Certainly the farmers in our part of the Waikato swear by him. If my Fieldays experience was anything to go by he was far more popular than the weather gnome (oops! Sorry, weather Ambassador). I understand Ring bases his predictions on the moon’s effects on the atmosphere – I guess somewhat akin to the effect on the oceans.

      Mind you, I have always believed that the NZ Met Service does get it right 100% of the time – you just have to wait long enough.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 26/12/2010 at 9:42 pm said:

      Ken Ring is a new name to me. I’ve been following the forecasts of Renwick/Griffiths/NIWA/TV3 vs Weather Watch chief analyst Philip Duncan/NZ Herald in “Meteorology” here

      https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/open-threads/climate/meteorology-001/#comment-31431

      Maybe you could compare those with Ken Ring’s forecasts.

      If you’ve got the time and inclination (I haven’t) you could also compare Ken Ring’s Snow Report 2010 to 2020

      http://www.predictweather.com/ArticleShow.aspx?ID=261&type=home

      with NIWA’s snow levels for the years 2030-2049 and 2080-2099.here

      https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/open-threads/climate/meteorology-
      001/#comment-32621

      NIWA found:

      * On average, at nearly all elevations, there will be a gradual decrease in snow as the century progresses.

      The time frames don’t overlap but NIWA has fixed a trend that can be compared.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 26/12/2010 at 9:44 pm said:

      BTW, NIWA used “emissions scenarios” for their snow level prediction.

    • Andy on 27/12/2010 at 10:19 am said:

      NIWA are trying to predict the snow levels in NZ for 2080 2099?

      Do they take us for idiots? There are actually real problems to be solved in this country, and these computer generated fantasies do not fit into this category.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 27/12/2010 at 11:18 am said:

      To be fair they were commissioned to do the work.by the Ski Areas Association of New Zealand

      Caveat emptor.

    • I don’t have the time either. Ring publishes a book annually and appropriate extracts are published in at least one farming magazine. Being rather niggardly (and not really needing it) I have never purchased a copy. I don’t know how far out he makes predictions.

      Like Piers Corbyn he is subject to criticism and ad hominem attacks.

  7. Richard C (NZ) on 26/12/2010 at 3:56 pm said:

    “extended economic analysis and comparison of alternative New Zealand economic scenarios with and without an ETS”

    The easy part of this is because “without” is almost a no-change scenario so most of the difference between “with” and “without an ETS” is just the incremental impact of all the $ quantification above.

    The tricky part is making a realistic assessment of how much NZ would be penalized by the EU say if NZ was “without” an ETS and would there be a European consumer backlash? The criticism that the ETS is to protect European markets was long ago leveled at it in view of the fact that those markets are declining.

    Also tricky is deciding if revenues gained from exports to emerging (developing and not subject to an ETS) markets would off-set the Euro penalties. There’s probably economic modeling of this somewhere but surely the penalties would be easily off-set by not having to pay the carbon tax (ETS) in the first place.

  8. Clarence on 27/12/2010 at 1:47 pm said:

    Why should the financial penalties of the ETS continue beyond the expiry of the Kyoto commitment period on 31 December 2012? The chances of any second commitment period are now close to zero.

    Much of the rationale for the ETS has always been based on the alleged liabilities of the Government (ie the taxpayers) to purchase carbon credits to meet Kyoto targets. The estimated cost of those foreign credits sits on the Government’s balance sheet as a very substantial contingent liability. The supportive NZIER/Infometrics modelling took as a given the ongoing life of such liabiities (until 2030), and justified the ETS as a means of reducing the outflows required to buy offshore credits.

    The Ministry for the Environment’s Regulatory Impact Statement which accompanied the National-led Government’s 2009 amendment to the ETS, was trounced by Treasury for its total failure to comply with the RIA Handbook published at http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/guidance/regulatory/impactanalysis.

    Surely, the 2011 Review is a prime opportunity to overcome that departmental embarrassment and publish a complying RIS.

    • Oh, how neat is that, Clarence! And any RIS must open the door to the “science” — the reason for having a response to “climate change” at all. Which has to go a long way to explaining why the government opted to ignore an RIS in the first place.

      This reasoning gives the CSC a credible path to make ground-breaking submissions to the committee. It would be one of the first government forums anywhere to host a discussion of the science.

      But might reason be permitted to prevail? Could true open-mindedness be achieved? Will the committee honour its democratic obligations or crush them again? “It’s not the despair, I can cope with the despair. It’s the hope!” (John Cleese, in Clockwise.)

    • Richard C (NZ) on 28/12/2010 at 1:01 am said:

      Clarence, your first point.

      A good article from the New York Times re the prospects of the Kyoto protocol here

      http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/12/17/17climatewire-cancun-agreement-preserves-an-escape-hatch-f-38242.html?pagewanted=1

      Second to last paragraph

      “The question, though, is what would take Kyoto’s place? Bledsoe argued that countries should be willing to take that discussion out of the United Nations and allow the big-emitting countries that are part of the Major Economies Forum or G20 to resolve those questions.”

      Worthwhile keeping in mind too, are the respective attitudes of the Ministries to the Cancun Agreements
      .
      Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade – done deal
      .
      “This document, and hence all decisions contained therein, was adopted by consensus by the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the unfccc at its sixteenth session in Cancun, Mexico. The COP comprises all UN Member States, hence when a COP decision is adopted there is no need for an annex containing signatories, nor is there a separate document.”
      .
      Ministry for the Environment – no deal
      .
      “It’s also worth noting that the Cancun Agreements do not constitute a draft treaty. Thus New Zealand, and 193 other countries have pledged support for the continuation of efforts to reach a global treaty rather than ‘signing up’ to a legally binding agreement. The government would need to carefully and cautiously consider the implications for New Zealand before deciding whether to sign and ratify any treaty that may come out of future negotiations. As occurred with previous agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty needs to undergo a thorough National Interest Analysis, public consultation and be approved by both Cabinet and Parliament in order to become legally binding on New Zealand.”

      Trade confirms adoption of the agreement, Environment doesn’t – what’s up with that?

      Your second point,

      How then to pitch to the RIA?

      Alternative natural climate driver hypothesis and proof of success in prediction as opposed to the failure of CO2 forced predictions?

      AGW debunking via peer-reviewed physics and climate science papers?

      AGW debunking via anecdotal and empirical evidence that AGW has stopped?

      All of the above?

  9. Richard C (NZ) on 28/12/2010 at 7:53 pm said:

    “Alternative natural climate driver hypothesis and proof of success in prediction as opposed to the failure of CO2 forced predictions?”

    Like this

    Theodore Landscheidt predicted in 2003 that the current cooling would continue until 2030

    “Analysis of the sun’s varying activity in the last two millennia indicates that contrary to the IPCC’s speculation about man-made global warming as high as 5.8°C within the next hundred years, a long period of cool climate with its coldest phase around 2030 is to be expected. It is shown that minima in the secular Gleissberg cycle of solar activity, coinciding with periods of cool climate on Earth, are consistently linked to an 83-year cycle in the change of the rotary force driving the sun’s oscillatory motion about the centre of mass of the solar system. As the future course of this cycle and its amplitudes can be computed, it can be seen that the Gleissberg minimum around 2030 and another one around 2200 will be of the Maunder minimum type accompanied by severe cooling on Earth.

    This forecast should prove ‘skilful’ as other long-range forecasts of climate phenomena, based on cycles in the sun’s orbital motion, have turned out correct, as for instance the prediction of the last three El Niños years before the respective event.”

    • Andy on 28/12/2010 at 8:03 pm said:

      This seems to be the thesis proposed by Piers Corbyn too.

      Video at WUWT

      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/27/piers-corbyn-goes-global-cooling/

    • Richard C (NZ) on 28/12/2010 at 8:13 pm said:

      New Little Ice Age Instead of Global Warming?

      by Dr. Theodor Landscheidt

      Schroeter Institute for Research in Cycles of Solar Activity
      Klammerfelsweg 5, 93449 Waldmuenchen, Germany

      6. Forecasts of solar activity and
      climate confirm validity of solar motion cycles

      These theoretical considerations have been corroborated by practical results. Predictions based on cycles in the sun’s motion turned out to be correct. My long-range forecasts of precisely defined classes of energetic X-ray flares and strong geomagnetic storms, covering the period 1979 – 1985, reached an overall hit rate of 90 percent though such events show a very irregular distribution. These forecasts were checked by the Space Environment Center, Boulder, and the astronomers Gleissberg, Wöhl and Pfleiderer (Landscheidt, 1986; Landscheidt and Wöhl, 1986). Accumulations of strong geomagnetic storms around 1982 and 1990 were also correctly forecast several years before the events. I predicted, too, in 1984 (Landscheidt, 1986, 1987) that the sun’s activity would diminish past 1990. Just this happened. Though a panel of experts (Joselyn, 1997) had predicted in 1996 and even two years later that sunspot cycle 23 would have a large amplitude similar to the preceding cycles (highest smoothed monthly sunspot number R = 160), the observed activity was much weaker (R = 120).

      My climate forecasts based on solar motion cycles stood the test as well. I correctly forecast the end of the Sahelian drought three years before the event, the last four extrema in global temperature anomalies, the maximum in the Palmer drought index for U.S.A. around 1999, extreme river Po discharges around the beginning of 2001, and the last three El Niños as well as the course of the last La Niña (Landscheidt, 1983-2002). This forecast skill, solely based on cycles of solar activity, is irreconcilable with the IPCC’s allegation that it is unlikely that natural forcing can explain the warming in the latter half of the 20th century.

      http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/new-e.htm

    • Richard C (NZ) on 30/12/2010 at 4:34 pm said:

      This plot from “New Little Ice Age Instead of Global Warming?” shows the perfect correlation of the Gleissberg cycle (thin line) with temperature (thick line) as opposed to the non-existent CO2 correlation over the same period.

      http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/new/Fig4L.jpg

      The Gleissberg cycle is a smoothed time series of the length of the sunspot cycle (LSC).

      “…..nearly all Gleissberg minima back to 300 A.D., as for instance around 1670 (Maunder minimum), 1810 (Dalton minimum), and 1895, coincided with cool climate in the Northern Hemisphere, whereas Gleissberg maxima went along with warm climate as for instance around 1130 (Medieval climate optimum). The degree of temperature change was proportional to the respective amplitudes in the Gleissberg cycle.

      During the Maunder minimum solar activity was minimal and during the Medieval Climate Optimum very high, probably even higher than in the six decades of intense solar activity before 1996. Accordingly, Friis-Christensen and Lassen (1995) have shown that the connection between the Northern Hemisphere land air temperature and varying LSC extends back to the 16th century. Butler (1996) corroborated this result for the last two centuries in Northern Ireland.”

      Temperature though, lags solar activity by several years and LSC is a coarse indicator. Indices of geomagnetic disturbances are finer indicators. The aa-index of geomagnetic activity is plotted here (top curve) with temperature (bottom curve):-

      http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/new/Fig6L.jpg

      The lag of the temperature data suggests that some of the excess energy linked to solar activity is stored and accumulated in the climate system by processes taking years. Oceans are a candidate because of their thermal inertia.

      “Fig. 7 from Landscheidt (2000) is an extension of the data in Fig. 6. It can be seen that the aa-curve reaches its highest maximum, marked by number 7, around 1990 and shows a steep decline afterwards. Allowing for a lag of 8 years, the highest maximum in the curve of global temperature should have occurred around 1998. This was the year with the highest surface temperature observed since the establishment of international meteorological services.

      The relationship in Fig. 7 points to global cooling in the years after 1998 with the exception of the period around the El Niño beginning in 2002, predicted more than 3 years before the event (Landscheidt, 1998, 2000, 2002). Revealingly, this forecast and the correct long-range prediction of the two preceding El Niños was based on special phases of solar cycles which go along with accumulations of solar eruptions (Landscheidt, 1995). ”

      http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/new/Fig7L.jpg

    • Richard C (NZ) on 28/12/2010 at 9:27 pm said:

      1. Introduction

      [Snip]

      Those scientists who are “grudgingly” beginning to acknowledge the sun’s pivotal role in climate change are converts who had believed in the IPCC’s dictum that “solar forcing is considerably smaller than the anthropogenic radiative forces” and its “level of scientific understanding is very low”, whereas forcing by well mixed greenhouse gases “continues to enjoy the highest confidence levels” as to its scientific understanding so that it is “unlikely that natural forcing can explain the warming in the latter half of the 20th century.” Actually, there had been a host of publications since the 19th century and especially in recent decades that provided evidence of strong solar-terrestrial relations in meteorology and climate ignored by proponents of man-made global warming (Koppen, 1873; Clough, 1905; Brooks; 1926; Scherhag, 1952; Bossolasco et al., 1973; Reiter, 1983; Eddy, 1976; Hoyt, 1979; Markson, 1980; Schuurmans, 1979; Landscheidt, 1981-2001; Bucha 1983; Herman and Goldberg, 1983; Neubauer 1983; Prohaska and Willett, 1983; Fairbridge and Shirley, 1987; Friis-Christensen and Lassen, 1991; Labitzke and van Loon, 1993; Haigh, 1996; Baliunas and Soon, 1995; Lassen and Friis-Christensen, 1995); Lau and Weng, 1995; Lean et al, 1995; Hoyt and Schatten, 1997; Reid, 1997; Soon et al. 1996; Svensmark and Friis-Christensen, 1997; White et al. 1997; Cliver et al., 1998; Balachandran et al., 1999; Shindell et al., 1999; van Geel et al., 1999; Berner, 2000; Egorova et al., 2000; Palle Bago and Butler, 2000; Tinsley, 2000; Hodell et al., 2001; Neff et al., 2001; Rozelot, 2001; Udelhofen and Cess, 2001; Pang and Yau, 2002; Yu, 2002)

      The IPCC’s judgement that the solar factor is negligible is based on satellite observations available since 1978 which show that the Sun’s total irradiance, though not being constant, changes only by about 0.1 percent during the course of the 11-year sunspot cycle. This argument, however, does not take into account that the Sun’s eruptional activity (energetic flares, coronal mass ejections, eruptive prominences), heavily affecting the solar wind, as well as softer solar wind contributions by coronal holes have a much stronger effect than total irradiance. The total magnetic flux leaving the Sun, dragged out by the solar wind, has risen by a factor of 2.3 since 1901 (Lockwood et al., 1999), while global temperature on earth increased by about 0.6°C. The energy in the solar flux is transferred to the near-Earth environment by magnetic reconnection and directly into the atmosphere by charged particles. Energetic flares increase the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation by at least 16 percent. Ozone in the stratosphere absorbs this excess energy which causes local warming and circulation disturbances. General circulation models developed by Haigh (1996), Shindell et al. (1999), and Balachandran et al. (1999) confirm that circulation changes, initially induced in the stratosphere, can penetrate into the troposphere and influence temperature, air pressure, Hadley circulation, and storm tracks by changing the distribution of large amounts of energy already present in the atmosphere.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 29/12/2010 at 11:04 am said:

      Global Cooling Consensus Is Heating Up – Cooling Over The Next 1 To 3 Decades

      31 prominent scientists and researchers who have words that governments ought to start heeding.

      The List

      1. Don Easterbrook, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Geology, Western Washington University.

      Setting up of the PDO cold phase assures global cooling for next approx. 30 years. Global warming is over. Expect 30 years of global cooling, perhaps severe 2-5°F.”

      He predicts several possible cooling scenarios: The first is similar to 1945-1977 trends, the second is similar to 1880-1915 trends and the third is similar to 1790-1820 trends. His latest article states:

      Expect global cooling for the next 2-3 decades that will be far more damaging than global warming would have been.”

      Read here, here and here.

      2. Syun Akasofu, Professor of Geophysics, Emeritus, University of Alaska, also founding director of ARC

      He predicts the current pattern of temperature increase of 0.5C /100 years resulting from natural causes will continue with alternating cooling as well as warming phases. He shows cooling for the next cycle until about 2030/ 2040.

      And again a new paper ON THE RECOVERY FROM LITTLE ICE AGE – Read here.

      3. Prof. Mojib Latif, Professor, Kiel University, Germany

      He makes a prediction for one decade only, namely the next decade [2009-2019] and he basically shows the global average temperatures will decline to a range of about 14.18 C to 14.28 C from 14.39 C [eyeballing his graphs].

      He also said that “you may well enter a decade or two of cooling relative to the present temperature level”, however he did not indicate when any two decades of cooling would happen or whether the second decade after the next decade will also be cooling. Read here and here.

      4. Dr. Noel Keenlyside from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University. The BBC writes:

      The Earth’s temperature may stay roughly the same for a decade, as natural climate cycles enter a cooling phase, scientists have predicted.”

      A new computer model developed by German researchers, reported in the journal Nature, suggests the cooling will counter greenhouse warming.”

      Read here news.bbc.

      5. Professor Anastasios Tsonis, Head of Atmospheric Sciences Group University of Wisconsin, and Dr. Kyle Swanson of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. msnbc writes:

      We have such a change now and can therefore expect 20 -30 years of cooler temperatures”

      This is nothing like anything we’ve seen since 1950,”

      Kyle Swanson of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee said. “Cooling events since then had firm causes, like eruptions or large-magnitude La Ninas. This current cooling doesn’t have one.”

      Swanson thinks the trend could continue for up to 30 years.”

      Also read The mini ice age starts here at dailymail.co.uk/.

      6. William M Gray, Professor Emeritus, Dept of Atmospheric Sciences, Colorado State University

      A weak global cooling began from the mid-1940’s and lasted until mid-1970’s. I predict this is what we will see in the next few decades.”

      Read colostate.edu.

      7. Henrik Svensmark , Professor DTU, Copenhagen. Henrik Svensmark writes:

      Indeed, global warming stopped and a cooling is beginning. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth, on the contrary. This means that projections of future climate is unpredictable.”

      Read here.

      8. Jarl R. Ahlbeck, D.Sc., AboAkademi University, Finland

      Therefore, prolonged low solar activity periods in the future may cause the domination of a strongly negative AO and extremely cold winters in North America, Europe and Russia.”

      Read here.

      9. Dr. Alexander Frolov, Head of Russia’s state meteorological service Rosgidromet. The Daily Mail.co.uk quotes Frolov:

      ‘From the scientific point of view, in terms of large scale climate cycles, we are in a period of cooling.

      ‘The last three years of low temperatures in Siberia, the Arctic and number of Russia mountainous regions prove that, as does the recovery of ice in the Arctic Ocean and the absence of warming signs in Siberia.”

      And writes:

      Mr. Tishkov, deputy head of the Geography Institute at Russian Academy of Science, said: ‘What we have been watching recently is comparatively fast changes of climate to warming, but within the framework of an overall long-term period of cooling. This is a proven scientific fact’.”

      10. Mike Lockwood, Professor of Space Environmental Physics, University of Reading, UK. Read BBC News here:

      The UK and continental Europe could be gripped by more frequent cold winters in the future as a result of low solar activity, say researchers.”

      11. Dr. Oleg Pokrovsky, Voeikov Main Geophysical Observatory: Ria Novosti writes:

      There isn’t going to be an ice age, but temperatures will drop to levels last seen in the 1950s and 1960s.

      Right now all components of the climate system are entering a negative phase. The cooling will reach it’s peak in 15 years. Politicians who have geared up for warming are sitting on the wrong horse.

      The Northeast Passage will freeze over and will be passable only with icebreakers.”

      Pokrovsky also claims that the IPCC, which has prophesized global warming, has ignored many factors. He also noted that most American weather stations are located in cities where temperatures are always higher.

      We don’t know everything that’s happening. The climate system is very complex and the IPCC is not the final truth on the matter.”

      Read here NoTricksZone.

      12. Girma Orssengo, b.Tech, MASc, PhD

      These cool and warm PDO regimes correlate well with the cooling and warming phases of GMTA shown in Figure 3.

      The model in Figure 3 predicts global cooling until 2030. This result is also supported by shifts in PDO that occurred at the end of the last century, which is expected to result in global cooling until about 2030 [7].”

      Read WUWT and read here, and

      In this article, a mathematical model was developed that agrees with observed Global Mean Temperature Anomaly(GMTA), and its prediction shows global cooling by about 0.42 deg C until 2030. Also, comparison of observed increase in human emission of CO2 with increase in GMTA during the 20th century shows no relationship between the two. As a result, the claim by the IPCC of climate catastrophe is not supported by the data.”

      ‘Fossil fuels allowed man to live his life as a proud human, but the IPCC asserts its use causes catastrophic.’ “

      Read here at WUWT.

      13. Nicola Scafetta, PhD.

      Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications

      The partial forecast indicates that climate may stabilize or cool until 2030-2040.”

      Read here

      14. Dr William Livingston, astronomer & solar physicist; and 15. Dr Matthew Penn – astronomer & solar physicist

      Astronomers Dr. William Livingston and Dr. Matthew Penn and a large number of solar physicists would say that now the likelihood of the Earth being seized by Maunder Minimum is now greater than the Earth being seized by a period of global warming.”

      Read here: http://algorelied.com/?p=2706.

      16. Joe d’Aleo – Executive Director of Certified Consultant Meteorologists. Read here: Intellicast.com

      Longer term the sun is behaving like it did in the last 1700s and early 1800s, leading many to believe we are likely to experience conditions more like the early 1800s (called the Dalton Minimum) in the next few decades. That was a time of cold and snow. It was the time of Charles Dickens and his novels with snow and cold in London.”

      Also see various other articles about Global Cooling under ICE AGE at Ice Cap

      17. Harry van Loon, Emeritus at NCAR and CORA, 18. Roland Madden, Senior scientist at NOAA, Deputy Head of Climate analysis, 19. Dave Melita, Head Meteorologist at Melita Weather Associates, and 20. William M Gray, Professor Emeritus, Dept of Atmospheric Sciences, Colorado State University

      These scientists came to the same conclusions— the global warming trend is done, and a cooling trend is about to kick in.

      Read here!

      21. Dr. David Archibald, Australia, environmental scientist:

      In this presentation, I will demonstrate that the Sun drives climate, and use that demonstrated relationship to predict the Earth’s climate to 2030. It is a prediction that differs from most in the public domain. It is a prediction of imminent cooling.”

      See Warwick Hughes and David Archibald

      22. Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov, Head of Space Research, Lab of Pulkov Observatory. See iceagenow.com:

      In his presentation called The Sun Dictates the Climate, he indicated that there would be an ice age kind of temperatures in the middle of the 21st century. He showed a graph called The forecast of the natural climate change for the nearest 100 years and it showed the globa temperatures dropping by more than 1°C by 2055. According to him, a new ice age could start by 2014.”

      And read here.

      23. Dr Fred Goldberg, Swedish climate expert. People Daily:

      We could have an ice age any time, says Swedish climate expert.”

      and read: We could have an ice age any time, says Swedish climate expert

      24. Dr. George Kukla, a member of the Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences and a pioneer in the field of astronomical forcing, Read Ice Age Now:

      In the 1970s, leading scientists claimed that the world was threatened by an era of global cooling.

      Based on what we’ve learned this decade, says George Kukla, those scientists – and he was among them — had it right. The world is about to enter another Ice Age.”

      25. Peter Clark, Professor of Geosciences at OSU: Read iceagenow.com:

      Sometime around now, scientists say, the Earth should be changing from a long interglacial period that has lasted the past 10,000 years and shifting back towards conditions that will ultimately lead to another ice age.”

      26. James Overland, NOAA. Read physorg.com:

      ‘Cold and snowy winters will be the rule rather than the exception,’ said James Overland of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.”

      27. Dr. Theodore Landscheidt. Predicted in 2003 that the current cooling would continue until 2030 [Read here]:

      Analysis of the sun’s varying activity in the last two millennia indicates that contrary to the IPCC’s speculation about man-made global warming as high as 5.8°C within the next hundred years, a long period of cool climate with its coldest phase around 2030 is to be expected.”

      28. Matt Vooro, P. Eng. The icecap.us:

      We seem to be in the same climate cycle that we were back in 1964-1976.The last two winters [2008, 2009] have been very similar to those we had back then with all the extra snow and cold temperatures. Once the extra warming effect of the current 2009/2010 El Nino is finished, watch for colder temperatures to return due to the impact of the negative PDO, AMO, AO, NAO, ENSO/La Nina, major volcanic ash and changing solar cycles.”

      Good source of articles and data on global cooling, see: Isthereglobalcooling.com

      29. Thomas Globig, Meteorologist, Meteo Media weather service. Read here at WUWT:

      ‘The expected cold for the next month will bring this down significantly by year end. ‘The year 2010 will be the coldest for ten years in Germany,’ said Thomas Globig from the weather service Meteo Media talking to wetter.info. And it might even get worse: ‘It is quite possible that we are at the beginning of a Little Ice Age,’ the meteorologist said. Even the Arctic ice could spread further to the south.”

      30. Piers Corbyn, Astrophysicist. From http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/27/piers-corbyn-goes-global-cooling/

      It is even very probable that we will not only experience a very cold winter, but also in the coming 10 years every second winter will be too cold. Only 2 of 10 will be mild.

      Predicting in November that winter in Europe would be “exceptionally cold and snowy, like Hell frozen over at times,” Corbyn suggested we should sooner prepare for another Ice Age than worry about global warming. Corbyn believed global warming “is complete nonsense, it’s fiction, it comes from a cult ideology. There’s no science in there, no facts to back [it] up.”

      31. Dr. Karsten Brandt, Director of donnerwetter.de weather service.

      It is even very probable that we will not only experience a very cold winter, but also in the coming 10 years every second winter will be too cold. Only 2 of 10 will be mild.

      http://notrickszone.com/2010/12/28/global-cooling-consensus-is-heating-up-cooling-over-the-next-1-to-3-decades/

      H/T Andy

    • Richard C (NZ) on 05/01/2011 at 2:48 pm said:

      32. De Jager and Duhau

      Predict a Maunder-type minimum beginning 2020-2030.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 29/12/2010 at 10:01 pm said:

      2010 – where does it fit in the warmest year list?

      Posted on December 28, 2010 by Don J. Easterbrook

      Headings

      The past century

      1880 to 1915 cool period.

      1915 to 1945 warm period.

      1945 to 1977 cool period.

      1977 to 1998 global warming

      1999 to 2010 global cooling.

      The past 500 years

      The past 5,000 years

      The past 10,000 years

      Conclusion
      So where do the 1934/1998/2010 warm years rank in the long-term list of warm years? Of the past 10,500 years, 9,100 were warmer than 1934/1998/2010. Thus, regardless of which year ( 1934, 1998, or 2010) turns out to be the warmest of the past century, that year will rank number 9,099 in the long-term list.

      The climate has been warming slowly since the Little Ice Age (Fig. 5), but it has quite a ways to go yet before reaching the temperature levels that persisted for nearly all of the past 10,500 years.

      It’s really much to do about nothing.

    • Andy on 05/01/2011 at 3:24 pm said:

      The trolls at HT are onto this

    • Richard C (NZ) on 05/01/2011 at 5:35 pm said:

      See down-thread “I propose a simpler plan of attack on the ETS RIA.”

      If we stick to the recovery from the LIA, alternate climate driver hypotheses and temperature trends using up-to-date stats methods, it’s a whole lot simpler.

      i.e Avoid physics and paleogeology like the plague (with respect to ex-geophysicists of course).

    • Andy on 05/01/2011 at 7:40 pm said:

      Hey! The only geophysics I ever did was in the pay of Big Oil.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 17/01/2011 at 5:38 pm said:

      @Andy if you see this. Is this how XML works?

      @Richard T. This may be worth a post. I’m emailing Don Easterbrook to find out his basis for 1905 being his first data point and the NOAA contact Bruce Bauer to ascertain the correct “present” date for GISP2 temperature..
      —————————————————————————————————————————-
      I’ve tried fact checking the Renowden – Easterbrook dispute over the “present” date of GISP2 temperature data found here:-

      ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt

      Note there are 2 records – 1) Temperature 2) Accumulation rate (m. ice/year)

      First data point 0.0951409 x 1000 years before “present” in the temperature record.

      Gareth says this:-

      The first data point in the file is at 95 years BP, and shown in his graph. In other words, Don presents 1905 as equivalent to the present — a point I emphasised the last time he used this data. However, we were both wrong.

      One of the last comments to my “100 years of warming” post suggested that the GISP2 “present” followed a common paleoclimate convention and was actually 1950. This would make 95 years BP 1855 — a full 155 years ago, long before any other global temperature record shows any modern warming. In order to make absolutely sure of my dates, I emailed Richard Alley, and he confirmed that the GISP2 “present” is 1950, and that the most recent temperature in the GISP2 series is therefore 1855.

      Richard Alley is the author of a paper referenced on the following NOAA page but the NOAA contact is E-mail: bruce.a.bauer@noaa.gov

      Looking at the NOAA page “GISP2 – Temperature Reconstruction and Accumulation Data”

      http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/metadata/noaa-icecore-2475.html

      Start Year: -107175 AD End Year: 2000 AD

      Looking at the page “Complete XML Record: noaa-icecore-2475”

      http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=dif&identifier=noaa-icecore-2475

      Removing XML

      Parameters
      ISO_Topic_Category Geoscientific Information ISO_Topic_Category

      Keyword
      earth science paleoclimate ice core hydrogen isotopes Temperature
      Keyword

      Keyword
      earth science paleoclimate ice core physical properties ice accumulation rate (meters/year)
      Keyword

      Paleo_Temporal_Coverage
      Paleo_Start_Date -107175 AD Paleo_Start_Date
      Paleo_Stop_Date 2000 AD Paleo_Stop_Date
      Paleo_Temporal_Coverage

      Paleo_Temporal_Coverage
      Paleo_Start_Date 109125 cal yr BP Paleo_Start_Date
      Paleo_Stop_Date -50 cal yr BP Paleo_Stop_Date

      I’m not an expert in XML but this seems to indicate that that the “present” date for temperature is 2000 AD and the “present” date for ice accumulation rate (meters/year) is 1950 AD.
      —————————————————————————————————————————–
      I do think Don’s plot is misleading by presenting 1905 as present instead of adding a value for 2010 but whether Gareth’s use of GRIP data is valid, I don’t know. Using Gareth’s GRIP reasoning for 1905-2000 the difference would be more like 2.44 C instead of the 1.44 C he came up with for 1850-2000 because 1905 was cooler than 1850 on the GRIP plot.

    • Andy on 17/01/2011 at 8:33 pm said:

      The Paleo_Temporal_Coverage elements (two of them) in the XML document seem to provide alternative representations of the temporal coverage

      Start = -107175 AD == -107175 AD
      Stop = 2000 AD == -50 BP

      i.e you can’t assign different meanings to the two elements.

      I don’t know what the significance of the 2000 date is, if any. The actual data, referenced in the txt file,clearly shows the first data point at 95 BP (i.e 1855 )

      The XML file seems to be an industry standard metadata file.

    • Andy on 17/01/2011 at 8:36 pm said:

      I meant

      -107175 AD = 109125 cal yr BP

      for the start date. My typo

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/01/2011 at 12:39 am said:

      The actual data, referenced in the txt file,clearly shows the first data point at 95 BP (i.e 1855 )

      You’ve identified 1950 as P by prior knowledge of the convention I assume because it does not say 1950 explicitly in the txt file. I was not sure that the convention had been followed by GISP2 but I’ve since found part confirmation in “A Note on the Timescales”:-

      http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/document/notetime.htm

      A link “Meese/Sowers timescale” on that page leads to

      ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/depthage/gisp2age.txt

      And the first data is explicitly at 1.5m -38 (yrs BP 1950) i.e. 1988.

      I don’t know what the significance of the 2000 date is, if any

      2000 is when the coring project starts but the temp reconstruction does not start until coring is 145 yrs down if 1950 is P or 95 yrs down if 2000 is P.

      I’m not convinced by your explanation because ice accumulation rate uses the 1950 P convention as clearly shown in the metadata (Paleo_Stop_Date -50 cal yr BP) but Temperature is stated differently (Paleo_Stop_Date 2000 AD). it seems to me that the Paleo_Temporal_Coverage elements are assigning 2 different conventions.

      You may be right that they are one and the same but I’m interested to see what the NOAA contact says.

    • Andy on 18/01/2011 at 8:15 am said:

      I can calculate the 1950 baseline for BP by comparing the two XML nodes that display the paleo date range. These use BP and AD respectively (I am always amazed how many people in NZ think AD stands for “after death”. Whose death exactly?)

      If you have a contact then I agree it is best to confirm with them than resort to guesswork.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 18/01/2011 at 11:25 am said:

      Don Easterbrook’s reply
      ——————————————————————————————————————————
      Hello Richard in New Zealand (one of my favorite places!),

      Drilling of the GISP2 ice core was completed in 1993, which precludes a top-of-the-core date of 2000. After the drilling, additonal firn studies were made so data may be available to 2000, but it isn’t from the top of the core. 1950 is the date used by ice core researchers as a common starting point, but it’s not the top of the core. If you look at the original oxygen isotope data of Stuiver and Grootes (available at the Univ. of Washington website) you will see that the top of their data set is 1987. Alley’s curve begins at 95 years before 1950 (1855), so CO2 dogmatists are claiming that is the top of core, but that is incorrect. Alley states that “Temperature interpretation based on stable isotope analysis, and ice accumulation data, from the GISP2 ice core, central Greenland. Data are smoothed from original measurements published by Cuffey and Clow (1997).” So, going back to the the Cuffey and Clow curve that Alley’s curve is based on, that curve begins at 0 yrs and they state: “We chose to calibrate the GISP2 δ18O raw data as given by Grootes et al. (1993) and Stuiver et al. (1995),” which clearly starts in 1987. Thus, the Cuffey and Clow curve apparently begins in 1987, not 1950 or 1855. Temperatures in Greenland from 1935 to 1940 were about 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F) warmer than in 2005 (see attached temp curve), so it has not been warmer in Greenland since 1940. The isotope data set of Stuiver and Grootes includes 47 years after 1940, and since it has not been warmer in Greenland since 1940, Greenland has not been warmer than it was at the top of the ice core (1987). If you draw a straight horizontal line from the 0 point (1987) in the Cuffy and Clow curve, all of the Holocene temps are above that line. Alley’s curve is slightly different, showing a few cooler times (e.g., Little Ice Age). The conclusion that more than 9,000 of the past 10,500 years were warmer than present is thus confirmed.

      Don
      —————————————————————————————————————————–
      “(see attached temp curve)” refers to “Greenland temp curve 1880-2004.jpg” that I’m unable to find on the internet but is available from me here rscumming@gmail.com. Both this plot and the GRIP 1840-2009 plot at HT (“Easterbrook’s wrong (again)” post) show the 1940s warming that the CO2 forced models cannot hindcast BTW.

      A 1987 start date sets the first data point in the GISP2 temperature reconstruction at 1892 (95 BP 1987) according to Don’s reply.

      HT (“Easterbrook’s wrong (again)” post) has this Easterbrook quote from the EIKE forum:-


      The contention that the ice core only reaches 1905 is a complete lie (not unusual for AGW people). The top of the core is accurately dated by annual dust layers at 1987. There has been no significant warming from 1987 to the present, so the top of the core is representative of the present day climate in Greenland.

      To which Gareth Renowden says:-

      Unfortunately for Don, the first data point in the temperature series he’s relying on is not from the “top of the core”, it’s from layers dated to 1855. The reason is straightforward enough — it takes decades for snow to consolidate into ice.

      I agree with GR that Don should include an estimate of 2010 (or 1987) temperature on his disputed Fig 5. but GR could be wrong about 1855 being the first data point (possibly 1892).

      I’ve thanked Don for his reply and have asked for a comment on the Fig 5 suggestion. Stil waiting for Bruce Bauer’s reply (NOAA).

    • Richard C (NZ) on 19/01/2011 at 9:21 am said:

      Bruce Bauer’s reply
      ————————————————————————————————————
      Hello Richard,
      Sorry, we appear to have an error in our database regarding the time span of the Alley 2000 temperature and accumulation data. I suspect we picked up the entire age range for the GISP2 ice core when generating the web page, rather than only the portion used by Alley for this study. I will correct the database and regenerate the web page (and the XML file, it is also generated from the same source database). The link to the data file is correct, and that data file:
      ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt
      contains the full set of temperature and accumulation data from Alley.

      The age units are thousands of years before present, with “present” defined as 1950 AD. As an aside, many geologic time series are dated via radiocarbon, which is unreliable after 1950 AD due to atmospheric testing of H-bombs, so 1950 AD was adopted as “present” by radiocarbon dating scientists, and adopted in paleoclimatology as well.

      The date ranges in the data file are correct. Temperature data extend from 0.095 to 49.981 thousand years before 1950 AD, so the corresponding calendar dates would be 1855AD to -48031 AD. The accumulation data are reported from 0.144 to 49.0034 thousand years before 1950 AD.

      Sorry for the date range error on the Alley 2000 web page. We have migrated through several versions of databases with different age scales, and obviously ended up with the wrong age range for this study.
      Sincerely, Bruce

      Bruce Bauer, Data Manager
      World Data Center for Paleoclimatology and
      NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, Paleoclimatology Branch

      ——————————————————————————————————–
      This means GR is right and DE should add a 2010 estimate to the 1855 data point on his Fig 5 in order to establish the present for comparison of the last 10,000 years of GISP2.

      http://hot-topic.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/easterbrook_fig5.png

      If Don had added a 2000-2010 temperature estimate to his graph, the baseline rises by just over 1C (1.44 using GRIP) so that “9,100” reduces to about 4500? above that over the last 10,000 years – still a considerable amount. I am confronting him on this but so far he has been intractable.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 27/01/2011 at 12:02 pm said:

      Setting the 2000-2010 present temperature at -30.15 (1.44 higher than -31.5913 at 1855) shows 12 periods warmer on Don Easterbrooks Fig 5. The 1.44 comes from GRIP data.

      http://hot-topic.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/easterbrook_fig5.png

      The actual data shows 17 periods warmer than the -30.15 2010 estimate:-

      2.00687 – 2.20231
      2.32376 – 2.3545
      3.13329 – 3.43744
      3.60574 – 3.66517
      4.25679
      4.99637 – 5.02375
      5.14763 – 5.21773
      5.57743 – 5.68131
      6.75923 – 7.00894
      7.40322 – 7.48772
      7.55658 – 7.57475
      7.64267 – 8.02902
      8.59735
      8.65181
      8.68911 – 9.19888
      9.30211 – 9.40756
      9.67046 – 9.78686

      The major periods total 5790 years.

      This is being debated at WUWT

      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/24/easterbrook-on-the-magnitude-of-greenland-gisp2-ice-core-data/#comment-583495

      GR at HT is still on DE’s case too.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 30/12/2010 at 10:18 am said:

      De-trending the 7SS NZTR and comparison to CO2 levels – a synopsis

      Conventional temperature anomalies are in relation to a 30 year flat average moving “normal” climate but this obscures the normal global warming that has occurred since the ice ages. The IPCC estimates this warming to be 0,45 C/100 yr since the Maunder minimum.

      De-trending the 7SS simply requires the subtraction of actual composite temperatures from a linear rise of 0.45 C per century starting at the 1850 global average temperature of 13.6 C (y = 0.45x + 13.6).

      A linear regression of the resulting anomaly 1909-2009 yields y = 0.00456x – 2.33. Therefore, NZ has warmed 0.456 C over the last century in excess of the general warming since the LIA 1850. It was also 2.33 C cooler than global at 1909 and 1.874 cooler than global at 2009. NIWA has not done this.

      The global record exhibits a cyclical trend in addition to the linear rise and so does the 7SS NZTR. The cyclical trend is revealed by the best fitting polynomial curve. NIWA has not done this.

      Two papers: “Reconstruction of solar spectral irradiance since the Maunder minimum”, N. A. Krivova1, L. E. A. Vieira and S. K. Solanki, 2010 and “The Variable Solar Dynamo and the Forecast of Solar Activity; Influence on Surface Temperature”, C. De Jager, S.Duhau, in the book “Global Warming in the 21st Century” Copyright 2011 account for 0.15-0.19 C of the general warming by solar activity and 0.26-0.30 C from residual non-solar climatological causes (Akasofu 2010). NIWA has not done this.

      Linear regression of 7SS composite actual temperatures over the 30 year period 1980 – 2009 reveals +0.0075 C warming at +0.025 degrees per century. Regression of the last 11 years 1999 – 2009 yields cooling of -0.05145 C at a rate of -0.468 degrees per century. NIWA has not done this.

      Most of the warming in the 7SS occurred circa 1960 prior to the spike in CO2 levels in the late 1970’s. Over the last decade CO2 levels continue to rise sharply but NZ temperatures are falling, revealing the break in apparent CO2-Temperature correlation. NIWA has not done this.

      Synopsis: negligent analysis by NIWA.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 30/12/2010 at 2:20 pm said:

      Plotting a 15 year moving average of the 7SS composite actual temperature clearly shows that 0.4 C of the 0.9 C rise 1909-2009 occurred abruptly from 1953 to 1963.

      Hullooo NIWA.

      I have used the IPCC estimate of 0.45 global average temperature rise per century but there are good grounds that 0.5 should be used. Readers that are paying attention will have observed in “The List” that Akasofu (2) and Latif (3) use 0.5 explicitly and implicitly respectively.

      This is because a rise of 0.45 per century starting with 13.6 at 1850 only yields 14.3155 C whereas 0.5 yields 14.395 C that is consistent with the latest global average (See – “The List”, Latif, 3).

      De-trending the 7SS using y = 0.5x + 13.6 yields NZ local warming 1909-2009 of 0.4 C (y = 0.004066x -2.33446).

      Hullooo NIWA.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 30/12/2010 at 3:15 pm said:

      Plotting a 15 year moving average of the 7SS NZTR de-trended using y = 0.5x + 13.6 is even more instructive. The data is here:-

      https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/news/december-20-2010/#comment-34287

    • Richard C (NZ) on 30/12/2010 at 5:41 pm said:

      Rate of 7SS rise since 1962 (47 years) 0.22 C/100 yr (de-trended 15 year moving average).

      Actual rise 0.1 C since 1962 (0.1 = 0.002215 * 47 by linear regression).

    • Richard C (NZ) on 01/01/2011 at 12:42 pm said:

      The Primary and Secondary Climate Drivers.

      A compilation of papers and articles evidencing solar, lunar, cosmic ray and celestial influence on climate change.

      Primary:-

      The Variable Solar Dynamo and the Forecast of Solar Activity; Influence on Surface Temperature

      De Jager and Duhau. 2011

      Reconstruction of solar spectral irradiance since the Maunder minimum

      N. A. Krivova, L. E. A. Vieira and S. K. Solanki, 2010

      Are cold winters in Europe associated with low solar activity?

      M Lockwood, R G Harrison, T Woollings and S K Solanki 2010

      Variation of cosmic ray flux and global cloud coverage–a missing link in solar-climate relationships.

      Svensmark – Fris-Christensen, 1996

      Cosmic rays linked to rapid mid-latitude cloud changes

      B. A. Laken, D. R. Kniveton, and M. R. Frogley 2010

      Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds

      H Svensmark, Bondo, and J Svensmark 2100

      Celestial driver of Phanerozoic climate?

      Shaviv and Veizer, 2003

      Cosmic Rays and Climate

      Shaviv

      The Watts and Copeland Sinusoidal Solar-Lunar Model

      WHAT IS THE MAIN FACTOR CONTROLLING THE MURRAY DARLING BASIN SYSTEM RAINFALL (SOUTH QLD-NEW SOUTH WALES-VICTORIA & SOUTH AUSTRALIA AREAS)?

      Holton, 2010

      On the recovery from the Little Ice Age

      Akasofu 2010

      THE SUN DEFINES THE CLIMATE

      Abdussamatov (translated from Russian by Lucy Hancock)

      SOLAR ACTIVITY: A DOMINANT FACTOR IN CLIMATE DYNAMICS

      Landscheidt

      New Little Ice Age Instead of Global Warming?

      Gleissberg cycles, Barycentrism

      Landscheidt

      SOLAR CYCLE 24: EXPECTATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

      Archibald 2009

      EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR A CELESTIAL ORIGIN OF THE CLIMATE OSCILLATIONS AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

      Scafetta, Submitted May 2010

      The role of the sun in climate forcing

      Beer, Mende, Stellmacher 2000

      Secondary:-

      Solar Activity Controls El Niño and La Niña

      Landscheidt

      Connection between ENSO phenomena and solar and geomagnetic activity

      Nuzhdina 2001

      Natural forcing of climate during the last millennium: fingerprint of solar variability Low frequency solar forcing and NAO

      Swingedouw, Terray, Cassou, Voldoire, Salas-Mélia and Servonnat 2010

      Südpazifische Oszillation und Kosmische Strahlung

      Borchert, 2010

      Abstract
      It was found that the South Pacific Oscillation (SO) is influenced by Sun activity similar to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Especially during the warming period from 1980 to 2009 the oscillation of Sunwind – Index “aa “ was in good resonance with the delayed South Pacific Oscillation. The same observation was found between the Oscillation of Cosmic Radiation, which is controlled by the Forbush – Reduction by the magnetic fields of the sun protons of the Sunwind and the delayed SO.

      Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature

      McLean, de Freitas, and Carter 2009.
      ——————————————————————————————————————–
      This list complete with links was submitted to Solar

      https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/open-threads/climate/climate-science/solar/

      Because of the number of links, the post went to either spam queue or moderation. The list on Wordpad with links is available on request to rscumming@gmail.com

      If the list with links does appear in “Solar” the Akasofu link is an error. the correct link is http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=3217&JournalID=69#abstract

    • Richard C (NZ) on 03/01/2011 at 9:33 pm said:

      “On the recovery from the Little Ice Age”, Akasofu 2010 is a one stop for de-bunking the following CAGW scary stories:-

      Temperature rise

      Sea level rise

      Sea ice extent

      Glacier retreat

      CO2 influence on temperature

      The paper establishes a normal rate of global temperature rise since 1650 of 0.5 C/century.

      Speculates on the possibility that solar and cosmic ray influences are the major climate change causes.

      Suggests that the warming has halted since 2000 due to multi-decadal change and predicts that temperatures will be flat or declining for the next 30 years or so.

      Figure 9 is the most compelling visual summary, highlighting the IPCC’s bizarre assumption and prediction.

      http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=3217&JournalID=69#abstract

  10. Richard C (NZ) on 04/01/2011 at 10:04 am said:

    I propose a simpler plan of attack on the ETS RIA.

    1) Presentation of “On the recovery from the Little Ice Age”, Akasofu 2010

    2) Presentation of “The Primary and Secondary Climate Drivers”, a compilation of papers and articles evidencing solar, lunar, cosmic ray and celestial influence on climate change.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 04/01/2011 at 4:12 pm said:

      Plus

      3) Presentation of temperature trends for the global surface air temperature anomaly
      (GSTA) as per “On the trend, detrending, and variability of nonlinear and nonstationary time series”, Wu, Norden, Huang, Steven, Long, and Peng, 2007 and 7SS NZTR using the same methodology.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 23/01/2011 at 1:22 pm said:

      On reflection, the focus should be on 2) for simplicity.

      Presentation of “The Primary and Secondary Climate Drivers”, a compilation of papers and articles evidencing solar, lunar, cosmic ray and celestial influence on climate change.

      With emphasis on predictive skill.

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