2010/05/30

2010/05/28

Oh Dear 3 (with some older stuff) (updated)

The wonderful open minded watts strikes again:
Ed Darrell says:
May 27, 2010 at 11:44 am
Who is funding the CEI project for FOIA requests to NASA?

REPLY: I don’t know what the total makeup is, there are a lot of independent donations, I do know that. But I also know it won’t matter what the answer is, as you’ll simply write another hate filled post and blame “deniers” and “big oil”. Your MO precedes you. Blogging on school time and their network today? Tsk.

...-A

I.e. careful what you write I know your school and have proof of posting times.

He uses this tactic a lot to repress commenters! Is this why watts wants people to use their real names - yet more ammunition!

He must have had a bad week:
t . f . p . says:
May 28, 2010 at 5:17 am
[snip - I've warned you before about constantly posting under different names, Aka "Dick Chambers" aka "The Ford Prefect" pick one and stick with it, or don't post here again. I'm not interested in your games. -Anthony]

Who is Dick Chambers - it's not one of mine!!!


The new name was because he had banned the others!

Whad did I say:

Goddard claims the low ice area in the arctic is due to wind blowing the ice together. I simply pointed out an earlier post where Watts claims the minimum is caused by ice being blown out of the Fram Strait:

Previous claims have been:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/13/watching-the-2007-historic-low-sea-ice-flow-out-of-the-arctic-sea/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/19/jpl-missing-ice-in-2007-drained-out-the-nares-straight-pushed-south-by-wind-where-it-melted-far-away-from-the-arctic/


But certainly cannot be warmer temperatures!!!


Phil Clarke says:
May 28, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Steve,

The subject seems to be the compression of Arctic ice and the effects of winds upon ice extent. Here you go: Enjoy”

Here’s a puzzle. Back in 2008 a writer named Steve Goddard penned a piece for a UK IT News and gossip website named The Register on the topic of Arctic ice. It was largely based on an observational fallacy. Dr Walt Meier wrote in to correct the fallacy and added:

the rest of the article consists almost entirely of misleading, irrelevant, or erroneous information about Arctic sea ice that add nothing to the understanding of the significant long-term decline that is being observed.

The puzzle is this: with that blot on one’s CV, how did one become apparently the inhouse authority on the topic of Arctic Sea Ice at WUWT?

REPLY: Phil, yes he made a mistake. By your reasoning then let’s make sure that any mistake ever made by anyone, follows them around forever, preventing them from ever doing anything elsewhere again. You are quite the arrogant load of bollocks, so unless you’ve never made a mistake in anything you’ve done and can document it, I suggest you bugger off. – Anthony

Still no better this week!
Wren says:
June 6, 2010 at 11:09 pm
...
If debunking is the purpose, credibility will be an issue.

I would expect some differences in absolute temperature from place to place in Orange County, but I doubt the trends would differ significantly.

REPLY: Heh, lectures on credibility from the anonymous coward, Wren.

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I’m sure we’ll see an explosion from “Tamino” any minute now to refute this, oh wait, he’s gone on record as saying:

As for Steve McIntyre’s latest: I’m really not that interested. He just doesn’t have the credibility to merit attention. I have way better things to do.

OK then, one less angry, sciency, rant by an anonymous coward who won’t put his name to his own work to worry about. Talk about credibility. Sheesh.
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Phil. says:
July 2, 2009 at 1:04 pm
I have extended Pielke’s analysis to the full period, it’s amazing how while most of the period was ‘Flat’ the sea level still managed to grow by ~50mm.

http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn107/Sprintstar400/pielke_slr.gif

REPLY: ah more snark from Princeton’s leading intellectual coward. Can’t meet Pielke on equal terms eh? – Anthony
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Flanagan says:
July 13, 2009 at 8:42 am
Isn’t it strange that while the US is having a globally average temperature, all we can read here is about record colds? I mean, there must be record highs also in order ot have a globally zero anomaly for the US, so where are they? Florida, California? Why not mention them? ...

REPLY: “Flanagan” – I’m sick and tired of your European whining about what we report or don’t here in America....
If you don’t like what I report, visit other blogs, or get your own blog and report whatever you see fit. But please do shut the hell up on this issue. I just have no interest in your critiques nor opinion on the matter, especially from that of an anonymous coward.
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Mattb says:
November 25, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Surely you could have found a still shot from classic UK sitcom “Men Behaving Badly” instead of US classic “Sinfeld”?

REPLY: I write for a mostly American audience, ... Tell you what – instead, maybe we’ll put up a picture of you riding a bike? With your previous uniformed comment about the use of “deniers” it is you who are now behaving badly, especially if you are using your university address (and the IP says you are) during work hours on the taxpayers dime? See the policy page – Anthony
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Gary Strand says:
July 5, 2009 at 3:43 pm
I do *NOT* represent NCAR in any way, shape or form. If you’ve gotten that impression, then you’re wrong. I’m here on my own time, and the only relevance that my position at NCAR has is that I’ve got some expertise and understanding of the issue of anthropogenic climate change.

I am not speaking officially in any sense.

REPLY: Then you should NOT use your NCAR email address in postings, because by doing so it does in fact become an official NCAR document. In all cases on WUWT you did in fact use your official NCAR email address. Also during many (but not all) of your postings you posted from the IP address 128.117.65.29 which resolves to NCAR.
[list of posting times]
Granted some came from addresses outside of NCAR and outside of NCAR office hours but many clearly show you spending time here on the taxpayers nickel. Busted. Happy to provide documentation here if you wish to dispute it.

My friendly advice; if you don’t want your communications to be regarded as coming from NCAR, don’t use the taxpayer funded NCAR system as the basis for communications, particularly when you have a webcam that shows you sitting at your office desk working at your computer.

[next post:]
As of right now, I happen to be on NCAR’s network, but on my own machine, on my own time.

REPLY: Still using the taxpayer’s dime when you use the NCAR network. Get your own private DSL like the rest of us. We don’t get free government access and a majority of people if using their business network for such things would get fired for breaching the acceptable use policy. – Anthony

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Met Office says:
January 11, 2010 at 3:30 am
Reply: Based on the IP address of this post, it does not appear to originate from inside the Met office. Try again from the office and not your home computer if you are real.

...
~ ctm
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Andrew P says:
February 21, 2010 at 7:10 pm
REPLY: Sir, if you wish to claim dishonesty for Mr. Goklany, you’ll need to put your full name and your University affiliation to your words. I won’t tolerate your anonymity when Mr. Goklany has put his name to his words. Academics such as yourself should do things in the open. Either retract or don’t post anymore.

- Anthony Watts
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Rattus Norvegicus says:
July 10, 2010 at 8:00 pm
[snip - I won't allow you to insult Dr. Singer with such insulting words unless you have the courage to put your words to your name, and, I don't give a rattus norvegius butt if you don't like that. Otherwise clean it up and resubmit - Anthony]

Rattus Norvegicus says:
July 10, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Jeez Tony, is “delusional” that bad. Oh that’s right I insulted your “research

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Phil. says:
July 12, 2010 at 1:38 pm
....
This from a man who has described himself as “a member of the Upper House of the United. Kingdom legislature,” and also “I am a member of the House of Lords, though without the right to sit or vote, and I have never suggested otherwise” whereas in fact he was neither and has never been!
....

REPLY:And I find it rich that somebody who’s at a university but doesn’t bring their name to the discussion can criticize a man who has the courage to put his name to his words. What’s your title at your university Phil? Careful, or I’ll put you back in the troll box. ;-) -A
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Steve Milesworthy says:
July 14, 2010 at 11:42 pm
In the UK we have a name for people like Watts who sycophantically defend Monckton’s “honour” from the hilarious attack by posters such as ice9 – lickspittle. I look forward to the article “Monckton Climbs Down” when the inevitable happens.

As to Monckton demanding you deluge the University with emails, he’s just a pathetic and shameful bully who hates free speech except by himself.

REPLY: You are writing from a government entity, the UK Meteorological Office. Is this what taxpayers pay you for? To use your taxpayer funded time to denigrate others? How pathetic. -A

You are a pathetic bully Anthony Watts. These are my personal comments done in my personal time using PCs that are provided for reasonable personal use by employees, contractors and visitors to the Met Office.

REPLY: Perhaps, but still on the government funded network, using taxpayer funded PC’s, at your place of work. Still not cool. Read the policy page. Can’t take the heat, then do it from home. -A
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Mike says:
July 14, 2010 at 7:53 am
If you cannot argue, sue and censor. Many posters here criticized Mann for demanded his copyrighted image not be used in a video.

REPLY: And friends of Mann, like scumbag Kevin Grandia at the PR firm DeSmog blog, went ballistic when I made the same claim about my image, and my work being used in Climate Crock of the Week. Double stand, pot kettle and all that. Not impressed with your argument. -A
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Ed Darrell says:
September 15, 2010 at 8:00 am
Anthony, I’m very confused now.

Is it fair to say you repudiate the statements that Rachel Carson is a mass murderer?

If so, I apologize for assuming you supported the position of those you cite. I can make a more forceful correction, if you provide evidence it is a correction.

But if you support the claim, it would be dishonest for me to apologize for pointing it out.

REPLY: OK you had your chance to correct your libel by saying simply: “Anthony did not call Rachel Carson a mass murderer, I’m sorry for saying he did”. I don’t need to tolerate people (in my home on the Internet, see policy page) who put words in my mouth I’ve never written or said and then refuse to retract their error given ample opportunity.

You aren’t “confused”, you are dishonest, and you are now banned, permanently. – Anthony
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RW says:
September 15, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Gosh, what a HUGE error! Saying “2nd” instead of “3rd” – how completely incompetent! How very worth an entire blog post!

REPLY: Ah yes, illuminating prose from the troll coward. Of course if it was “I” who made such an error, in reverse, you and your troll masters would never let me hear the end of it. But, hmmm, looks like they’ll have to make another adjustment, no? – Anthony

UPDATE: Hey guess what? Foaming your snark to the level of spot check was useful. Besides being a snark, you’ve violated policy and have been for some time. Your IP address resolves to “University College London”, but the domain used for your “email” resolves to Shinagawa-ku, Japan, plus your email bounces. So per the policy page, which requires a valid email address to comment here, sayonara!
- Anthony
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Virveli says:
September 19, 2010 at 9:11 am
I researched a bit into this:

From the minutes of the Narrogin Shire Council, where Mrs Thomson sits as a Councillor, May 17, 2007:

REPLY: “Who are in the “Thompson Family Foundation” that registered the internet domain of “the Coalition of Agricultural Productivity” that shares your postal address? ”

Ah “Virvelli”, this is typical FUD of anonymous cowards like yourself. Smear other people with their public info from the safe comfort of anonymity yourself. Despicable. But you have proven an important point, that website speaks out about global warming as it relates to agriculture, and the Thompsons had the integrity to put their name on it their words, unlike you. So it’s “ok” for the Environmental Defenders Office of Western Australia to have a website talking about global warming, but not Matt and Janet, and for them to do so, you imply is wrong. Double despicable. They are fighting for their life, doing it in the open, with words, deeds, and education, while you fight from the shadows. How noble.- Anthony

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Anthony Watts says:
September 30, 2010 at 8:18 pm
Mr. Gould, since you seem to be so fond of defending this video (on the government payroll no less) I’m wondering if perhaps you may be affiliated with any of the organizations mentioned? Are you a part of 1010, Greenpeace, WWF, or similar NGO?

Most of us are trying to understand why you act as you do.

Anthony Watts says:
September 30, 2010 at 8:32 pm
To David Gould: No, I just find the video juvenile and disgusting – and badly thought out, much like the polar bear falling out of the sky and planes swarming NYC videos produced by other NGO’s trying stupidly to make some point about carbon. If the were going to try to emulate the famous Monty Python skit where the fellow who kept hiding behind a bush gets blown up, they failed with the design. Gore, especially graphically presented Gore, is never funny.

I find your wasting taxpayer funded time on it bothersome also.

And, since you aren’t with an NGO, did you have something to do with the video production of this?

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Andrew W says:

October 4, 2010 at 8:02 pm
The presenter said: “What happens next is even more horrifying than what you just saw.”
I think the bit Fox broadcast was the easily the worst of it, does anyone want to argue that the following two scenes are “even more horrifying”?
REPLY: No, we don’t want to argue about it, bugger off. – Anthony
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Anthony Watts says:


October 5, 2010 at 5:08 pm

Reply to RW, James Allison said it pretty well above.
Since you’ve refused to answer to the ugly issues related to the “you and your ilk” comment you made, and because you repeatedly insult people, and want to run the discussion on your terms, then shape-shift them when they don’t suit the moment, I’ve decided it is best for you to leave my living room. You join a small but illustrious group of angry cowards that have been dis-invited from WUWT. Congratulations.
Go waste the taxpayers money of the UK funding your university position day job someplace else. You’ve been dis-invited from my “home on the Internet” as a bad dinner guest.
Moderators have been advised.

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A Gem:
Smokey says: March 25, 2011 at 5:53 am

David UK,

No problem. The denizens of the realclimate and climate progress echo chambers tiptoe out occasionally to try and make a difference here, but all they’re really doing is adding to the amazing traffic stats of WUWT: over 70 million unique hits, and more than 560,000 reader comments in only four years.

People like to comment here because they know that their opinions will be read by many thousands of interested readers, instead of languishing in endless realclimate censorship/moderation. WUWT’s zero-censorship pollicy is a major reason that it has won the Weblog Awards category for “Best Science” site twice in a row.

2010/05/12

Nuclear Power Stuff

Interesting book on UK nuclear history
http://www.waltpatterson.org/goingcritical.pdf

An interesting edition of Engineering and Technology 24th April 2010 vol 5 iss 6 (a professional magazine of the IET institute of Engineering and Technology)

Dr Ian Fairlie believes unborn babies are particularly susceptible to so-called spike radioactive emissions that occur at nuclear power plants when their reactors are opened, typically once a year, to replace nuclear fuel. This could explain the cancer increases in under five-year- olds living near German nuclear power stations.
“This temporarily large increase in radionuclide concentration could reach foetuses and embryos,” he explains. “Embryos lay down cells at a rapid rate of knots and foetuses get bigger every day; these cells could have the [radionuclides] in them, which doesn’t go away. By the time the babies are born, they have raised concentrations in them:’ Fairlie now questions whether pregnant women and women of child-bearing age should actually be advised to move away from nuclear facilities. “This is anecdotal and there’s no published data but German women of a child bearing age are already moving away from nuclear power stations,” he adds. “I’ve heard this at conferences, am when I ask if this were true, they [fellow delegates] say ‘yes of course’


From the same magazine

After almost 25 years in the planning and almost £90bn wasted, the United States has abandoned its plans for a high-level nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. So where does that leave the future for storage of nuclear waste? Sean Davies reports

The nuclear industry would argue that the volume of HLW is small, but to the layman the numbers will seem quite staggering. At present there are some 270,000t of HLW around the globe, stored in storage pools at the reactor sites. Each year another 3,500t is added that burden.
In terms of radioactivity, HLW is the major issue, arising from the use of nuclear reactors to generate electricity. Highly radioactive fission products and transuranic elements are produced from uranium and plutonium during reactor opera- tions, and are contained within the used fuel.

A 2MW “windmill” will cost around £1.5M and give about 600kW average.
£90G would have provided 36GW of averaged power (about 10% of us requirements)

Energy from Uranium
http://www.stormsmith.nl/publications/Energy%20from%20Uranium%20-%20July%202006.pdf

Nuclear power the energy balance
http://www.stormsmith.nl/report20050803/

National Grid report:
http://www.nationalgrid.com/NR/rdonlyres/EF5C0829-1C5E-4258-8F73-70DC62C43F49/36936/SQSS1320Reportv10_final.pdf


National grid Sizewell+longannet trip report
http://www.nationalgrid.com/NR/rdonlyres/DC83D60E-14F4-432A-8D5C-AA9A24271E48/27568/27_May_2008Event_final.pdf

Cancer Clusters
http://www.comare.org.uk/press_releases/documents/COMARE11thReport.pdf

Nuclear power stations
5.3 The results for nuclear power stations are unambiguous and, as might be expected from their very low discharges, there is no indication of any effect on the incidence of childhood cancer (see Tables 5.1 and 5.2). For leukaemia and non-Hodgkin lymphomas there were only three sites with marginally higher than expected numbers and ten where the numbers were less than expected. None of these was remotely significant from a statistical point of view. For solid tumours, there were five sites with very slightly raised values and eight sites with lower values. Again, none of these exhibited statistical significance. Moreover, within the 25-km circles there was no evidence of any trend for rates to be higher nearer to the sites. We can, therefore, say quite categorically that there is no evidence from this very large study that living within 25 km of a nuclear generating site within Britain is associated with an increased risk of childhood cancer.

Other nuclear sites
5.4 The situation with the other nuclear sites is more complicated. For leukaemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (Table 5.3) there are four sites where there is some evidence of a raised incidence close to the installation, namely Sellafield, Burghfield, Dounreay and Rosyth. Each of these sites has been identified previously as having a possibly increased risk in the vicinity. The most important finding in this new analysis is that none of the other sites in this
group has a significantly increased rate of leukaemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Five of these other sites have registration rates slightly higher than the expected value, whereas six sites have slightly lower rates than this value.

Wind turbine synchronisation:
The are 2 main (only?) types of turbine.
1. Synchronous machines that have to rotate at fixed speeds to create 60/50Hz waveforms to couple into the grid. Once phase synchronous to the grid coupled power is supplied. These machines require gearboxes and the blades in a farm all rotate together.

2. non sychronous generator creating DC (through rectification usually) is coupled into an electronic circuit that creates the required grid synchronous frequency (The turbines by enercon do not contain gearboxes - a useful life extender!):
Netzintegration_Windpark_eng.pdf

Even when synchronised in this type the rotor speed is not fixed. It is allowed to rotate at a speed that generates optimum wind power converion.

When the wind speed reaches maximum for rated power then the blades are progressively feathered to maintain this power. At this point all turbines in a farm may appear to have the same rotational speed.

A broken turbine is feathered and brakes are locked to stop rotation

A synchronous type turbine running fast or slow is broken and not grid connected

An electronic grid connection allows a variable rotational rate but still has to be speed limited.

If you read the Enercon info you will see that the electronics actually allows the turbine to do useful (to the grid) work when a grid fault occurs.

UK wind power:
http://www.renewable-energy-foundation.org.uk/images/PDFs/REDs09/ref%20reds%20wind%201109.pdf

IET document Wind power
http://www.theiet.org/factfiles/energy/wind.cfm?type=pdf

Energy sources compared:

http://ec.europa.eu/energy/renewables/studies/wind_energy_en.htm

A survey of world fuel resources and their impact on the development of wind energy
http://www.gwec.net/fileadmin/documents/Publications/Plugging%20the%20Gap%20full%20report%20final.pdf

Leaking DoughNut
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/20050701-jaf-ucs-brief-leaking-torus.pdf

India Point Leak
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/20100623-ip2-ucs-edo-refueling-cavity-leak.pdf

Davis Besse leak:
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/20100405-db-ucs-petition-pressure-boundary-leakage-1.pdf

Nuclear Tightrope
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear_tightrope_report-highres.pdf

Calendar of Nuclear Accidents
http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/nukes/chernob/rep02.html

2010/05/02

AMSU Temperature Change per year

plotting the variation in temperature per year for each day produces this plot:



Interestingly the t-rise is not a constant over the year but has a pronounced dip at the beginning of May for lower air temp.

The sea surface temperature is practically flat. There is a peak during the NH summer. Why is this? Isn't the SH ocean bigger and therefore more likely to show an increase during it's summer when averaged globally. Is evaporation producing a stabilising effect which is less effective over the NH?