2012/08/31

USCRN Average vs Mean data

From the downloaded data from uscrn

        Average temperature, in degrees C, during the 24 hours of the day.
        Note: USCRN/USRCRN stations have multiple co-located temperature
        sensors that record independent measurements. This value is a single
        temperature that is calculated by averaging 24 full-hour averages
        derived from the multiple independent measurements of 5-minute intervals
        during each hour

        Mean temperature, in degrees C, calculated using the typical historical
        approach of (T_DAILY_MAX + T_DAILY_MIN) / 2.

 
Mean temperature gives twice the slope of average

2012/08/30

The Effect on slope using base period from 1931 to 1995

As requested for WUWT here is a plot of linear curve fit to plots of the same data referenced to 30 year periods from 1931 to 1995
eg. base periods
1931 to 1961
1945 to 1975
1995 to 2012* THIS DOES NOT GIVE SUFFICIENT YEARS BUT IS PLOTTED.

Only stations returning over 15  reference base years were used as noted on the normal plot. The stations in this data set are from the UK




So it looks as if the slope changes by over 10% but 1961 to 1991 gives one of the lower slopes. Choosing 1931 the slope (deg C per year) is near the maximum!



2012/08/28

Arctic Ice - The lady's not for turning (in the words of Thatcher)

Now at the last linear monthly fit before the minimum (see last plot). Been expecting the rate of loss to reduce but little change for weeks.

The plots now look like:
 
Nothing to say really - It is just incredibly odd.1

2012/08/27

Watts disappears a post!

Just for fun!
Tony often makes fun of  sites removing information. So why not turn the tables!

He recently removed this post:

A letter to Justin Gillis of the New York Times on his misleading sea ice story today

Not Found
Apologies, but the page you requested could not be found. Perhaps searching will help.

The text I have recovered using search engines is:

TO: Justin Gillis, New York Times 8/27/12 1PM PDT

Mr. Gillis, Reference Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/28/science/earth/sea-ice-in-arctic-measured-at-record-low.html

Why do you not mention these two important facts:
1. You say: The amount of sea ice in the Arctic has fallen to the lowest level on record”. That this is a 30 year record of satellite data, not an “all record”. That wrongly misleads your readers.
2. According to NSIDC: That there was a contributory storm that broke up a lot of the Arctic sea ice: Sea ice extent dropped rapidly between  August 4 and August 8. While this drop coincided with an intense storm over the central Arctic Ocean, it is unclear if the storm prompted the rapid ice loss. Why do you ignore such facts?
----------
If that was it all then perhaps one can understand his withdrawal! Also, the english is not so good!

Of course If I were Watts I would also wonder why this blogger has stopped the wayback machine archiving his latest posts (since 2011). This obviously shows he has much to hide!

American Meteorological Society Statement on Climate Change

This is a damning statement from the American Meteorological Society on life as we know it. (I would expect this to be nobbled by (them) as soon as possible)




Climate Change
An Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society

(Adopted by AMS Council 20 August 2012)

http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/2012climatechange.pdf
...
Final remarks

There is unequivocal evidence that Earth’s lower atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; sea level is rising; and snow cover, mountain glaciers, and Arctic sea ice are shrinking. The dominant cause of the warming since the 1950s is human activities. This scientific finding is based on a large and persuasive body of research. The observed warming will be irreversible for many years into the future, and even larger temperature increases will occur as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere. Avoiding this future warming will require a large and rapid reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. The ongoing warming will increase risks and stresses to human societies, economies, ecosystems, and wildlife through the 21st century and beyond, making it imperative that society respond to a changing climate. To inform decisions on adaptation and mitigation, it is critical that we improve our understanding of the global climate system and our ability to project future climate through continued and improved monitoring and research. This is especially true for smaller (seasonal and regional) scales and weather and climate extremes, and for important hydroclimatic variables such as precipitation and water availability.

Technological, economic, and policy choices in the near future will determine the extent of future impacts of climate change. Science-based decisions are seldom made in a context of absolute certainty. National and international policy discussions should include consideration of the best ways to both adapt to and mitigate climate change. Mitigation will reduce the amount of future climate change and the risk of impacts that are potentially large and dangerous. At the same time, some continued climate change is inevitable, and policy responses should include adaptation to climate change. Prudence dictates extreme care in accounting for our relationship with the only planet known to be capable of sustaining human life.
They certainly pull no punches with this.

It must be a good sock to the jaw for Watts, a retired AMS Television Seal Holder. His professional institution reject out right his stance on global warming.




NOAA/NCDC and BEST compared to Watts Favourite



Now found some US data (presumed ALL US not just CONUS) up to 2012 from NOAA
 http://www7.ncdc.noaa.gov/CDO/CDODivisionalSelect.jsp

These are monthly (like BEST) and so to fit with USCRN/USRCRN daily dat I have assumed a months worth of constant temperature for both these sources. This data is then passed through the same processing as the USCRN/USRCRN to produce the plot.

As can be seen the NOAA data for June is significantly higher than USCRN so Tony's claim of "not the warmest July" may be correct. However the overall trend of NOAA is significantly downwards compared tio the upwards trend of USCRN.

This being the case Tony may be backing the wrong horse in this race. USCRN (his ACCURATE) data stream show continual warming over the last decade. Time will tell (hopefully before disater strikes!).


 
uscrn 60 days average
noaa 200 day average
Best 80 day average
 




2012/08/26

The Hypocrisy of Watts

A beautiful post from Tony:

First let’s look at Overpeck’s ugly email about Inhofe and big oil, plus a death wish for Oklahoma residents, bold mine:
Wish Oklahoma was on the Gulf Coast – then these guys might have a more realistic view. Until then, they’ll just do what the oil industry wants them to do, I guess.
best, peck
Now lets look at Tony's blog:

Some examples of the very ugly DEATH wishes passed on Watts' blog, (and ok'd for publication )


https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/26/admiration-for-the-catlin-explorers/#comment-95597
Rachelle Young says:
March 26, 2009 at 8:52 pm
I would be content to see all three of them freeze to death or be eaten by ‘endangered’ polar bears 
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/28/catlin-crew-out-of-time/#comment-112321
Chemist says:
April 28, 2009 at 4:48 pm
I’ll be the one to say it: I hope they die so that their deaths will draw attention to the truth of this issue. If they succeed, then it will be just another propaganda
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/04/question-for-catlin-arctic-survey-what-happens-to-the-fuel-drums/#comment-115652
Daniel L. Taylor says: May 5, 2009 at 6:51 am
…Maybe I’m just a cold hearted SoB, but in my opinion they need to freeze to death on that ice. The world needs to see the headline “Global Warming scientists …
I’m sorry, but if the deaths of everyone on that ice survey team helps raise awareness of and opposition to the global warming political train wreck then so be it. It needs to happen.
These posts still exist on his blog - amazing!!
.


The Effect Of Anomaly reference period on Temperature Plots

Much rubbish is talked in some locations about how the reference period for anomaly plots is chosen to to create worse temperature rises than reality.

Here is a plot showing monthly data from UK station temperatures. These are converted into anomalies by taking 30 Januarys from the start year, averaging the temperature and then subtracting this from each January to create an anomaly. This is repeated for each month to create the full plot.

This method shows how met. stations are warming and allows a reasonable average anomaly to be calculated over dissimilar (envirnonmentally) stations. It also removes the annual fluctuation in temperature reducing the need to filter this out.

The plot shows 5 different start years from 1951 to 1991 (the latter only having 20 years averaged for the anomaly calculation.

As can be seen all that happens is the plot gets shifted up and down the chart. The wiggles and the slope are constant.

NO ADDITIONAL WARMING is created by changing the reference period. The reference period is not relevant unless the distribution of temperatures throughout the year changes.

2012/08/22

USCRN compared to Best

Plot showing Best and USCRN data.
Best is monthly data Average
USCRN is daily Average

Quite a good match (bearing in mind Best is7500 stations and USCRN is 40)

The match becomes better as more uscrn stations come on line

The slope of linear trend is -ve in Best +ve in uscrn mainly due to Best data terminating in 2011


Berkley Data Here



2012/08/19

USCRN/USRCRN - The CONUS data

Data from the contiguous states of USA.

This is derived from all locations that have reported data from 2003 onwards. The more rescently commissioned sites therefore do not appear

The average plot shows a temperature increase of 0.3K per decade
The maximum plot shows a temperature increase of 0.6K per decade
The minimum plot shows a temperature increase of 0.14K per decade

The main plots are averaged over 10 days
The spaghetti plot is averaged over 100 days

It is interesting to note that the temperature increase since 2010 is much greater than that for the whole plot the final plot here shows a temperature increase of 6.8K per decade (PS. I realise that this is more weather than climate!)

How will watts handle this?!!!!!!!








And a final a couple with longer averaging
1. showing a 200 day averaged max chart


2. showing a 400 day averaged spaghetti plot


The last 3 years:


2012/08/17

The Reliabilty of Nuclear stations compared to Wind Power

Warm seawater forces Conn. nuclear plant shutdown
By Stephen Singer on August 13, 2012
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut's nuclear power plant shut one of two units on Sunday because seawater used to cool down the plant is too warm.
Unit 2 of Millstone Power Station has occasionally shut for maintenance or other issues, but in its 37-year history it has never gone down due to excessively warm water, spokesman Ken Holt said on Monday.
Water from Long Island Sound is used to cool key components of the plant and is discharged back into the sound. The water cannot be warmer than 75 degrees and following the hottest July on record has been averaging 1.7 degrees above the limit, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said.
The federal agency issued an "emergency license amendment" last week, allowing Millstone, a subsidiary of Dominion Resources Inc., to use an average temperature of several readings.
"It wasn't enough to prevent us from shutting down," Holt said.
================================

River temperature forces nuclear plant to 50 percent power


Not even TVA can beat the heat.
On Wednesday, the utility had to bring a third reactor at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant down to 50 percent power to avoid environmental sanctions because the water in the Tennessee River — where the plant's cooling water is discharged — already was at 90 degrees.
"When the river's ambient temperature reaches 90 degrees, we can't add any heat to it," said TVA's nuclear spokesman Ray Golden.
Similar problems last summer forced the Tennessee Valley Authority to spent $50 million for replacement power, according to Golden. The extra expense translated to something between 50 cents and $1 on most electric bills several months later, officials have said.
To avoid similar heat problems this year, TVA in October began construction on a seventh cooling tower at Browns Ferry, which is near Athens, Ala., and officials expected the $80 million super tower to be complete in June or July.
But weather stormed that plan, too.
"It was delayed because of the impact of the tornadoes, and some spring storms and some heavy rains," Golden said. "It's probably about 98 percent complete, and we hope it will be in service in the next one to two months."

=================================
August 24, 2010 By
90 Degree River Shuts Down Southern Nuclear Plant
Blue Living Ideas

       As a result of the record high temperatures engulfing the South (and much of the planet) the Tennessee Valley Authority has had to shut down its largest nuclear power plant for the 40th day since  July 8th, the TimesFreePress reports. The Tennessee River in Alabama is just much too hot.

================================
Water shortages hit US power supply
As the United States' extended heat wave and drought threaten to raise global food prices, energy production is also feeling the pressure. Across the nation, power plants are becoming overheated and shutting down or running at lower capacity; drilling operations struggle to get the water they need, and crops that would become biofuel are withering.
While analysts say the US should survive this year without major blackouts, more frequent droughts and increased population size will continue to strain power generation in the future.
Power plants are a hidden casualty of droughts, says Barbara Carney of the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in Morgantown, West Virginia, because they are completely dependent on water for cooling and make up about half the water usage in the US. That makes them vulnerable in a heat wave. If water levels in the rivers that cool them drop too low, the power plant – already overworked from the heat – won't be able to draw in enough water. In addition, if the cooling water discharged from a plant raises already-hot river temperatures above certain thresholds, environmental regulations require the plant to shut down.
At least four nuclear plants had to shut down in July for these reasons. Nationwide, nuclear generation is at its lowest in a decade, with the plants operating at only 93 per cent of capacity.
Nuclear is the thirstiest power source. According to NETL, the average nuclear plant that generates 12.2 million megawatt hours of electricity requires far more water to cool its turbines than other power plants. Nuclear plants need 2725 litres of water per megawatt hour for cooling. Coal or natural gas plants need, on average, only 1890 and 719 litres respectively to produce the same amount of energy.
==============================
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/health/20iht-nuke.1.5788480.html?pagewanted=all
Officials at Électricité de France have been preparing for a possible rerun of a ferocious heat wave that struck during 2003, the hottest summer on record in France, when temperatures of some rivers rose sharply and a number of reactors had to curtail output or shut down altogether.
The French company operates 58 reactors - the majority on ecologically sensitive rivers like the Loire.
During the extreme heat of 2003 in France, 17 nuclear reactors operated at reduced capacity or were turned off. Électricité de France was forced to buy power from neighboring countries on the open market, where demand drove the price of a megawatt hour as high as €1,000, or $1,350. Average prices in France during summer months ordinarily are about €95 per megawatt hour.
The heat wave cost Électricité de France an extra €300 million. The state-owned company "swallowed it as a one-off cost of doing business in extreme circumstances," Philippe Huet, an executive vice president at Électricité de France, said.
===============================

So Just like wind, nuclear has to shut down when needed most.

OK so how about wind requiring all that backup running continuously in case the wind drops?

Well, one scram on a nuclear plant will require the generation of 500MW to 1GW of instantly available power (spinning reserve) - you cannot  allow supply interruption (May 2008 outage National Grid).
Wind does not fail instantly everywhere so a gradual decrease in power has to be compensated by conventional. In general, most stations running under warm start conditions will be producing the required power when needed. There is probably no need for spinning reserve as wind backup - the met office seem reasonably accurate predicting a few hours ahead).

lets look at UK National Grid data for a few days:
10th August to 17th Agust 2012 data



Note that the peak delivered is 15GW greater than the lowest delivered. The National Grid may not like this normal situation but the certainly find no difficulty providing the power.

It would therefore seem obvious that at least 15GW of solar and wind could be accomodated. (solar of course would remove some of the daily peak).

From an earlier post here:
National grids reserves
From wiki
There is generally about 1.5 GW of so called spinning reserve
NG pays to have up to 8.5 GW of additional capacity available to start immediately but not running, referred to as warming or hot standby, that is ready to be used at short notice which could take half an hour to 2 hours to bring on line
A similar amount of power stations (8–10 GW by capacity) are operable from a cold start in about 12 hours for coal burning stations, and 2 hours for gas fired stations


Short term and instantaneous load and generation response mechanisms

The national grid is organized, and power stations distributed, in such a way as to cope with sudden, unforeseen and dramatic changes in either load or generation. It is designed to cope with the simultaneous or nearly simultaneous failure of 2 × 660 MW sets
Spinning Reserve National Grid pays to keep a number of large power station generators partly loaded.
Pumped Storage Pumped storage as in Dinorwig Power Station is also used in addition to spinning reserve to keep the system in balance.

Frequency Service For large perturbations, which can exceed the capability of spinning reserve, NG (National Grid plc) who operate the national grid and control the operations of power stations (but does not own them) has a number of partners who are known as NG Frequency Service, National Grid Reserve Service or reserve service participants. These are large power users such as steel works, cold stores, etc. who are happy to enter into a contract to be paid to be automatically disconnected from power supplies whenever grid frequency starts to fall.
Standing Reserve Operating closely with NG Frequency Response is the National Grid Reserve Service now called STOR or Short Term Operating Reserve.[9] NG Standing Reserve participants are small diesel engine owners, and Open Cycle gas turbine generator owners, who are paid to start up and connect to the grid within 20 minutes from the time Frequency Response customers are called to disconnect. These participants must be reliable and able to stay on and run for an hour or so, with a repetition rate of 20 hours.

National Grid has about 500 MW of diesel generators on contract, and 150 MW of gas turbines with about 2,000 MW of disconnect-able load.[9]

Sources of intermittency on the UK National Grid The largest source of intermittency on the UK National Grid is the power stations; in fact, the single largest source is Sizewell B nuclear power station. Whenever Sizewell B is operating the entire 1.3 GW output is liable to stop at any time without warning. Its capacity is 2.16% of the national grid maximum demand, making it the single largest power source and therefore the largest source of intermittency. Despite this issue, NG readily copes with it using the methods outlined above including the use of diesel engines. An industry-wide rate of unplanned scrams (shutdowns) of 0.6 per 7000 hours critical means that such a shut-down without warning is expected to happen about once every year and a half.[11] However, no matter how low the rate of unplanned scrams, this is largely irrelevant - what matters is the fact that it can and does happen, and measures have to be in place to deal with it.

In 2008 both Sizewell and Longannet power stations both stopped unexpectedly within minutes of each other, in fact causing widespread power failures, as substations were tripped off using prearranged under-frequency relays.[12]

Reports of May 2008 outage
National grid https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/ofgem-publications/41426/nationalgrid-systemeventsof27mayfordswg16july.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20100206093023/http://nationalgrid.com/NR/rdonlyres/E19B4740-C056-4795-A567-91725ECF799B/32165/PublicFrequencyDeviationReport.pdf


So what about all those rare earth magnets required in wind turbines and of course there is all that noise from gears being tortured? And wont they make the network more unreliable?

Well not all turbines are created equal

Take a look at:


ENERCON WECs produce clean energy without neodymium
29.04. 2011

ENERCON wind energy converters (WECs) generate electricity in an environmentally friendly way without the use of the controversial element, neodymium. The gearless WEC design on which all WEC types – from the E-33/330 kW to the E-126/7.5 MW – are based includes a separately excited annular generator. The magnetic fields required by the generator to produce electricity are created electrically. By design, and unlike the majority of competing products, ENERCON WECs do without permanent magnets whose production requires neodymium.

Neodymium has made the headlines recently because its extraction partly involves significant environmental damage. China, where neodymium-containing rocks are quarried in mines, is the main supplier of this so-called rare earth element. According to investigations by Germany’s NDR TV station, separation of neodymium from mined rocks results in toxic waste products (Menschen und Schlagzeilen and Panorama television magazines aired on 27 and 28 April). In addition, radioactive uranium and thorium are released by the mining process. These substances find their way into the ground water, heavily contaminating plant and animal life. They are seen as harmful to humans. According to the reports, part of the locals at the neodymium production sites in Baotou in northern China are already seriously ill.

ENERCON feels that these environmental and health aspects support its choice of WEC design. “We are a high-tech company that sets great store by environmental protection,” says ENERCON Managing Director Hans-Dieter Kettwig. “Our choice to rely on separately excited generators was the right one, not only from a technological but also from an environmental point of view.” According to Kettwig, renewable energies need to be viewed in their entirety in order to offer a convincing alternative. Producing clean energy is one thing; however, sustainability in production is just as important.
Helps the network recover:
Staying connected when grid problems occurMost transmission networks and ever more distribution grids require wind energy converters to remain connected to the grid in the event of grid short circuits. Like conventional power plants, wind turbines are not allowed to suddenly disconnect from the grid during voltage dips or overvoltage caused by grid problems. ENERCON wind turbines with the optional ENERCON UVRT feature have this capacity. No matter what type of short circuit occurs, ENERCON wind turbines can ‘ride through’ faults for several seconds, even if they were operating at rated power before the fault. This is also possible if the wind turbine voltage completely breaks down as a result of a power system failure. These outstanding power plant properties have been certified by independent institutes during actual grid fault testing. Flexible setting options offer maximum performance according to the respective grid operator’s specifications or to the project’s framework conditions.
Depending on the selected parameters, the wind turbine can feed in either mainly active or reactive power to maintain grid voltage. If necessary, voltage-dependent reactive current can even be supplied to the grid; this current can be maximum rated current as stipulated by the latest German grid code. If desired or required, fault ride-through is also possible without power feed-in. The ENERCON wind turbine remains in operation during the fault. After the grid problem has been resolved and grid voltage has been restored, the wind turbine can immediately resume power feed-in. Thus the ENERCON Undervoltage Ride-Through feature facilitates adaptable settings in order to meet grid standards (e. g. of the German
Association of Energy and Water Industries) and to maximise the amount of installable wind farm power.






2012/08/16

Arctic sea ice 2012-08-15

After some large losses it looks as if the minimum may be around the 4.15e6 sq km








2012/08/12

USCRN/USRCRN - "perfect" data and how it compares

A quick look at a few CONUS (contiguous US states) data

"ITS WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT!"


http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/08/an-incovenient-result-july-2012-not-a-record-breaker-according-to-the-new-noaancdc-national-climate-reference-network/

Tony has said that this date is as good as it is going to get as far as temperatures go.
He has invalidly compared USCRN with the older ghcn network using absolute values (does not get rid of any offsets between the data sets). And concludes this July is not a record breaker.

Leaving "records" aside this is the plot for 12 of the stations reporting from 2002 to current date (daily data)

A note: some of the stations reporting early in 2002 have much missing data that seems to give a high temperature anomaly in the first few months. This has been left in.

These are a simple arithmetic average of the 12 station data which individually have been averaged over 20days

This is a first stab at these plots so they may change if errors are found

Data from:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/uscrn/products/daily01
plots updated - more data - corrected averaging

Max temperature plot


Linear fit gives 0.774C/decade


Min temperature plot


Linear fit gives 0..22C per dacade


Average temperature plot


Linear fit gives 0.44C per decade


Spaghetti plot showing station names


As a comparison here is the plot for crutem3v from wft

Over the same period a negative slope!

I wonder if Tony will reject the USCRN data in the same manner as he tried to kill the Best data!



2012/08/03

Climate Audit at Last Back On track

After wasting his time on an ignominious essay from Tony McIntyre gets back on track doing what he does so well.
Not science.
Nothing to do with climate.
Nothing to do with auditing.
Nothing to do with statistics.

He's frothing at the mouth on his quest to embarrass scientists who wrote emails where they robustly discussed science.

A brilliant invention - emails - as quick as voice, you have a copy of what was discussed, you can send data and plots. It is not as formal as a letter and you feel you can tell someone their ideas are wrong without causing real hurt.

Then along comes a slavering pack of underworld denizens who cannot kill climate science with their own research - they do ABSOLUTELY NONE - but they can stop  real scientists working using FOI attacks. They then attempt to destroy their science (in the minds of the public) by quoting from stolen Emails that the authors thought were private robust discussions.

It must be difficult finding a private channel where these discussions can now be made!

It is also interesting that Tallbloke has been away from blogging for weeks:

Roger Andrews says:
TB
Welcome back. I guess the Norfolk fuzz released you when they wrapped up their enquiry, right? ;-)

Or is it he has been going over the next batch of emails with FOI looking for the good bits!!



From Tony a call to Arms:

The secret letter UEA and CRU doesn’t want us (or anybody else) to read


Uh oh.
Steve McIntyre has written an eviscerating essay about a secret letter circulated by the IPCC to UEA/CRU, which they are refusing to divulge, because it will:
...
I suggest that all hands immediately work on FOI requests to UEA requesting this letter. We might also want to start a betting pool on how long they’ll be able to hold out.
Somewhere, we have the procedure for FOI requests in the UK, but I’ve misplaced it. Sharp readers will likely find it and post in comments, so I can update this post.
========================
Oh dear the man seems out of control:

  1. Please don’t file FOI requests on this matter to UEA. That’s already been done and is under appeal. Further efforts doing the same thing will make it more difficult in the future. Please don’t do this.
    On the other hand, you may wish to consider steps in your own jurisdiction.
    REPLY: I’ve made some changes to the text which will likely yield better results – Anthony
-----------------------------
Is this a way of hiding the failure of Tony's paper?




Latest Arctic Ice data

Data plotted to 2nd August (valid to 1st August - area usually changes upwards when next averaged)

Ice loss seems on target to be minimum at around 4.55e6 km^2 this year




Since the projected minimum is likely to be greater than 2007 This will allow Tony and followers to claim 5 years of arctic ice  recovery!