Last week I used most of my blog entries to recap the top events of 2011 and present the year-end statistics. Almost lost in the conversation were the month-end statistics for December. Fear not faithful blog readers. I did not forget about December which ended up being the most above normal month of the year (with respect to temperature). In fact, it was December that put us a shade above normal for the year. If December temperatures would have ended up around normal then we would have been a shade below normal for the year. So the biggest news coming out of December was the warmth and because of the warmth, much of the area did not have a White Christmas. In Wausau it was just barely a White Christmas. Even though it was quite warm, we did not break any daily high temperature records. No other daily records were set either. We usually have a couple of below zero temps during December, but not this year (in Wausau). The oddest trend in the numbers was a three day stretch (12th-14th) where each day the low temperature was 33. Otherwise, the most common high temperature of the month was 36, which we hit on 4 different occasions. Here are the final stats:

Average High: 31.6  (normal: 26.5)

Average Low: 18.3  (normal 11.4)

Total Precipitation: 1.52 inches  (normal 1.36″)

Total Snowfall: 8.6 inches  (normal 13.9″)

Highest Temperature: 45 on the 26th

Lowest Temperature: 1 on the 10th.

 ________________________________________

I am going to start out the new year of blogging by continuing some of the science and weather themes that I have developed and followed for several years now.

One big story that I have followed for almost a decade is the Peak Oil theory. I even interviewed Dr. Hirsch about the subject in case you wanted to review. Another year has passed and there is still no huge crash in fossil fuel supplies. It is hard to argue with Peak Oil theory because it is based on pretty solid science of geology and knowledge of extraction technology. Still, we are now more than a decade passed the time when the Hubbert originally predicted a crash in oil production. It hasn’t happened yet, despite the dire predictions happening year after year. I don’t see a huge crash coming this year either. I suspect there will be some supply shocks due to some oil fields getting more dry and socio-economic forces conspiring against the free flow of oil from different parts of the world. The price will probably stay high even though we are still in the great recession. I just don’t see a huge crash because more cheap natural gas keeps coming online and more alternative energy production continues to be installed. Even flying wind turbines are now on the table! These aren’t going to be a huge part of our energy supply by any means, but a sign that new innovative things continue to be developed.

 Also, The “fossil” theory of fossil fuel formation might not be the only game in town. More and more people are investigating the abiogenisis theory and carbon cycle of the earth.  This might point to a more ample future supply of oil and gas.

Whether you believe there is going to be a huge crash in oil supplies or not, one of my blog themes that I think will continue into the new year is how urban sprawl is unsustainable. I hate to use such a cliche term such as “sustainability” but the American urban landscape is not in the greatest of shape and the effort to continue building expensive new far flung infrastructure is unlikely to end well. We just don’t have the money or resources to keep paving over more land in order to build more strip malls and sub-divisions. I highlighted the ponzi-scheme nature of urban sprawl a while back and just recently a ran across a story about how the nation’s sewage systems are also falling apart. More and more sewage overflow is ending up in lakes, rivers, and eventually on beaches. The problem - local governments do not have the money to upgrade old sewer systems. The sewage systems are so big and sprawling that the upgrades would completely swamp most budgets. So it seems the U.S. might start looking and smelling more like a third world country in the near future.

One possible method for countering the unsustainable drive to build upon and pave over the natural landscape that I brought up last year and will touch upon periodically in 2012 is using different metrics to measure economic “growth”. One metric that might make sense is happiness. Who cares if a new strip mall or box store is built, if you are not happy. As long as happiness is increasing, that should be a sign of positive “growth” for the country. The trouble is, how would one measure happiness? Some scientists are using twitter and unfortunately they seem to have found that happiness went down in 2011.

Have a happier new year! Focus on the things that matter.

Meteorologist Justin Loew

Posted under Alternative Energy, Monthly Recap, Peak Oil, Pollution

A big environmental story broke today that intertwines tightly with many of the themes I have been covering here in the blog over the last few months. The news is that world wide carbon dioxide emissions grew rapidly last year. Some headlines called it a “monster” growth in emissions. Other played the “worst fears confirmed” and “worse than we could ever imagine” theme. It isn’t worse than I imagine. As you know, I am optimistic about the future of alternative energy. I expect fossil fuel usage to climb for the next decade or two, before falling dramatically by the middle of this century and continuing to fall by 2100. A few months ago, I used a little web applet to help me plot out the scenario and its effects on global temperature. So it might look bad right now, but progress toward a cleaner future continues.

Delving inside the numbers we find more interesting facts. Carbon emmissions continue to go down in the U.S. Hooray for us! Emmissions are going down in the EU as well. A couple of the reasons for the decline in the U.S. is the ongoing great recession and more usage of natural gas. In the eyes of a mainstream AGW theorist, the use of natural gas is not all that great, but it is much better than using oil and coal (you wouldn’t know it by the tone of the article, sigh). Not only does natural gas usage emit less carbon dioxide, it is stupendously cleaner burning so almost all other metrics of pollution would go down as well! Not only that, the U.S. has enough natural gas to last for decades, if not centuries!! AND it is dirt cheap!!! It is beyond comprehension why national leaders in D.C. are not promoting natural gas as a bridge fuel to a cleaner future. Instead we continue to get billions in ethanol subsidies and more failed investments in alternative energy companies. I like the thought of investing in new start-ups, but that should be left to the private sector. I am tired of my tax money going up in smoke.

China continues to be the biggest polluter on the planet and India’s emissions are growing dramatically as well. This brings up an interesting question about the Kyoto treaty, that many people realized from the start. The critique was: if the Kyoto treaty did not include developing countries, then it would be useless. It turns out, it was nearly useless (or toothless). As predicted, China and other developing countries are now the world’s biggest (or rapidly getting there) polluters.

This story also hits on the progress theme I have been highlighting lately. Many governments around the world, such as in the U.S. and the E.U., have policies in place to “make the economy grow”. Most of the policies are intended to make people by more stuff, take on more debt, spend more money, build more houses, build more roads…etc. If the goal is to not pollute so much then perhaps we should be focusing on of the metrics of “growth”, as I oultined in more detail in this past blog post. Spending billions of dollars on NEW infrastructure guarantees that there will be more pollution in the future. On a bright note, I saw a report on TV the other day that home builders are getting more requests for multi-generational houses. In light of the “American Dream” scenario promoted during the last few decades, this might be seen as negative, but I think it is a good thing. Traditional farm families from a century or two ago, used to live in multi-generational homes. Families took care of each other. It is not a bad thing, as long as everyone is contributing. College dropouts, vegging in their parents basements playing video games for years on end, doesn’t sound so great, but it is probably better (for the environment especially) than if they took out a home loan they couldn’t afford and were living alone. Owning a home is not for everyone. There are many other “dreams” you can achieve and have a fulfilling life, without owning a home for most of your life. I don’t like the constant pressure coming from the federal government to spend-spend-spend, build-build-build.

Lastly, based on the latest carbon emissions story, can we now stick a fork in the Peak Oil theory, anyway the “major-crash-back-to-the-stone-age” part. Natural gas and oil sands development, while not panaceas compared to past “easy oil”, are certainly keeping the world afloat and look to continue doing so into the next few years.

__________________________________________________

Before checking out for this Friday, an update on the US Drought Monitor. Conditions are about the same right here in Wisconsin. Some abnormally dry conditions continue in the northeastern corner of the state and have increased slightly in the west. No real problems. The worst drought in the country remains in Texas, but at least they have seen some slight improvement over the last month or so. Even better news is that they will have some more relief late this weekend and early next week. The northeastern part of Texas around Dallas-Fort Worth, could end up with a couple inches of rain. It will not be a drought buster, but it is better than nothing.

Lastly, don’t forget to partake in the archaic illogical ritual of turning the clocks back one hour Saturday night.

Have a good weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Peak Oil, Pollution

Here in the blog we mostly write about things that we find interesting, which is the weather, mainly local and national weather events and records. I also discuss new science developments and space exploration from time-to-time. I often try to find subjects that you will find interesting or something controversial that will generate discussion. Just yesterday I brought up my crusade against Daylight Savings Time and “changing the clocks” and was glad to see someone else commenting some support.

Tony brought up anthropogenic global warming (AGW) yesterday and that almost always generates discussion. Tony mentioned how many more people are talking about AGW nowadays. This is a good thing because it tends to marginalize extreme or illogical viewpoints. When a research study/trend is more widely discussed, the logic and reason of it is more highly scrutinized.

I was reminded of this recently by a report highlighting the fact that the solar cycle does indeed affect winter time temperatures in the northern hemisphere. Changes in the strength of the sun’s cycle would seem to be a logical contributor to changes in the weather and climate here on earth, however, for many years anyone who claimed that changes in the sun could be affecting the climate and possibly contributing to some of the recent warming was derided as a kook, idiot, flat-earther, tool of big oil, and many worse names. It is nice to see that solar cycle changes are now being considered. The further study and inclusion of solar changes should help improve weather and climate forecasts in the future.

The story is similar with cosmic rays and cloud cover. When it was first suggested that changes in cosmic ray intensity could affect cloud cover and the climate on earth, the scientists behind the theory were intellectually berated by many mainstream climatologists and the media by extension. As I have detailed here in the blog, the theory slowly gained traction through experimental verification and now climatologists are actively trying to quantify the effect. Once again, this should help improve the accuracy of future climate forecasts.

Just remember that even if solar cycle changes and cosmic ray intensity have contributed some percentage to recent warming, it does not mean that humans have no effect.

If you follow the blog, you know that one of my main (constructive) criticisms of AGW theory is the fossil fuel inputs used in the climate models. The amount of fossil fuel that is assumed to be used during the next several decades seems grossly over-estimated. Just this year the REN21 report claims that we already get 20% of our global energy from renewables. This is far, far ahead of what climate modellers expected by 2010. There is not much reason, in my opinion, to expect that renewable energy use will decline dramatically in future years, not to mention decades. There is also the issue of Peak Oil and declining population growth that do not seem to be adequately considered in model projections. The interplay between energy use, energy supply, and population growth are dynamic and self-limiting, not linear or static. James Lovelock famously claimed that the human population will be less than a billion by 2100 (because of AGW). If such a population crash did occur over the next 90 years, I GUARANTEEE humans will be causing a lot less carbon dioxide emissions and fossil fuel usage will decline (quite dramatically most likely). The theorized temperature increase would not materialize to the degree that current projections indicate.

Just based on (optimistic) renewable energy usage and the population leveling off, I ran a simulation where carbon dioxide emissions peaked 2 decades from now and declined the rest of the century. In this scenario (based on one simple model), AGW would be much less than currently theorized.

Further reading on emissions scenarios:

1. Many scenarios displayed graphically here.

2. Discussion of different scenarios. Most with high population growth and energy dominated by hydrocarbons all the way through 2100.

Getting back to population growth, I saw a great headline today: “US Birthrates Decline in Wake of Poor Economy“. As you know, I have recently been arguing against the traditional “growth” measures of economic and societal health/progress. I have seen enough urban sprawl and pollution in this country and elsewhere. Not only are declining birthrates good for the environment, paradoxically (according to mainstream economic thought) they are probably good for the “economy”. Less kids likely means less people needing food stamps, welfare, and other government support.

In other climate news, a new satellite is being proposed that could be a “gold standard” for measuring the radiation balance of the earth-atmosphere system. I think this is a good idea since there has been some controversy regarding satellite observations in the past. The proposed acronym name for the satellite is “TRUTHS”, which is not so great in my view. I understand the idea they are going for with the acronym, but it hints of an ongoing propaganda war.

Also, in an ongoing effort to improve climate models, the carbon balance of the earth continues to be studied. Recent research has suggested that nature, as a whole, probably absorbs more carbon that has been thought in the past.

Have a nice Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Peak Oil, Pollution

Earlier this week I mentioned how the trip back from my fishing vacation was somewhat ruined when I heard on the radio that the Times Atlas of the World had wildly exaggerated the amount of ice that had melted off of Greenland. That wasn’t the only thing that bugged me. I also heard some financial news and once again it was trumpeting a rise in housing starts during the past month – as something positive for the “economy”. I did a little reading and found some other articles talking about the housing “problem” here in the U.S. I am flabbergasted that there are by some accounts over 10 million empty and/or for sale homes in the U.S. and we are still building a half million new ones every month!

Now why would I be upset to hear that more houses are being built – that the housing sector might be turning around? I could go through the entire argument again but it would be better if you read this past blog post. The gist of it is that we should start looking to other metrics for judging how good the “economy” is. The main theme throughout the last couple of centuries (particularly here in the U.S.) is build build build! If there is more building, traveling, shipping, flying, and consuming going on then the economy will be “good”. If we aren’t out there paving over more of nature, then the economy is “bad”. I am saying that I have had enough with sprawl. I have had enough with expansion for the economy’s sake. If we want to have a better and cleaner place to live we should start focusing on different metrics to judge the health of the “economy”. We should stop judging our economic well being on growth alone. How about focusing more on quality instead of quantity? We can still enjoy great progress without constantly building more roads, more houses, more box stores, and more parking lots.

So what would be a better metric than housing starts, or GDP, or infrastructure expansion? What about health? If the aggregate health of the population increased every year or lifespans increased every year, wouldn’t that be a sign that things are good – even if we never build another freeway? How about energy efficiency or productivity? If we get more use out of every unit of energy year over year, isn’t that progress – even if we never build another sub-division with cookie-cutter houses? Some people have even suggested happiness. If happiness could be reliably measured and it increased every year, wouldn’t that mean we have a good “economy”?

I am not sure at this time what the exact solution is but I am happy to see that someone agreed with me the last time I wrote on this subject. Thanks for the comment! I am also glad to see more websites that are pushing this issue. Many of them mix leftist politics into the discussion a little too much for my taste but here is one that I recently stumbled across – PostCarbon.org. One of the contributors to that site has written a book called “The End of Growth“. While I don’t agree that we have reached hard limits on how many resources we are able to use (a counter argument to Peak Oil here), I do subscribe to the thought of re-evaluating what is important to a society as an alternative to just building more houses to make things better. Also, to say the there will be no “growth” in the future, is not the best way to frame the issue. Growth can come in many forms and I wouldn’t want to live in a future with no progress.

Sadly, the “jobs” bill coming out of the government right now boils down to building more roads, a tried-n-true but worn out and environmentally disastrous way to put people back to work. Hopefully some dissenting voices will be heard.

Have a good weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Environment, Nature, Peak Oil, Pollution

A few months ago I posted a blog entry questioning if the state of the atmosphere and earth is as bad as promoted in some media and government outlets. The answer seemed to be that there are plenty of problems (even serious problems) but that it wasn’t as apocalyptic as the headlines sometimes portray.

Since it is often good to review “common knowledge”, verify previous research, and get a different viewpoint, here are some other items of interest that run a little contrary to previously held knowledge:

1. For a while now it has been reported that droughts and famines will become much more of a problem in a potentially warmer world in the future. One of the studies used to come to this conclusion was found to be flawed. A re-analysis of plant productivity trends found no statistically significant trends for over 85% of the vegetated surface of the earth. If droughts and floods become more extreme in the future, there will no doubt be negative effects on the food supply, but for the time being, it isn’t as bad as originally thought.

2. In contrast to the gradual increase of sea levels over the last couple of decades, the level actually fell last year – by quite a bit. It appears that the transition from El Nino to La Nina and copious amounts of rainfall in Brazil and Australia caused most of the significant drop in global sea-level. Even though this trend is counter to what has been expected from year-to-year due to anthropogenic global warming (AGW), it is not too likely it will continue to go down. If the global temperature goes up over coming decades then more of the ice caps will melt and it is not likely that any amount of rain over land will reduce the higher levels of the ocean.

3. In AGW research, there has been an awakening of sorts. A few years ago researchers at the National Polytechnic Institute of the Ukraine suggested that cosmic rays could be having a larger influence on the global temperature than previously thought. Vitaly Rusov and his colleagues were roundly criticized and mocked for this theory. Even after lab results clearly showed that cloud droplets were affected by cosmic rays, any link to global warming was almost completely dismissed. There were also some follow up statistical studies that did not show a strong link between climate warming/cooling and the flux of cosmic rays. Then a funny thing happened. The more people looked at the theory, the more it looked as if cosmic rays might play a small but quantifiable part in the global temperature scheme. Now even more research has confirmed that cosmic rays can change aeresol (cloud particle) production in the atmosphere. The most recent confirmation comes from CERN in Switzerland. I am still unconvinced that cosmic rays play a major role in the climate, but it seems it should be studied further and be considered as a part (albeit quite small) of future climate modelling.

4. On the subject of past mocking and ridicule, I am unsure if the backers of Peak Oil theory can be matched when speaking about the abiogenisis theory of oil formation. People who promoted the abiogenesis theory were trashed in many an online forum, mainly by Peak Oil theorists. It was fossil fuel theory or nothing. We were running out of oil in the late 1990s, 2005, 2008, 2010, sometime in the near future, because all the fossil fuel on the planet was created in a short period of time hundreds of millions of years ago, we know how much is left, and it is not much! Thankfully some people continued to think seriously about how carbon and hydrogen get into the earth’s mantle and what happens in the heat and pressure. Now more substantial research is going into the abiogenesis theory.

I have no doubt that we are reaching the limits of fossil fuel production with our current technology, but I don’t think we are headed back to the stone age anytime soon. Whether or not there is some new hydrocarbon fuel being created within the earth at this very moment, we should be focusing on cleaner more stable energy sources for the future. If you doubt that we might be polluting too much, negatively affecting the environment, or not using too much fossil fuel, just take a look at this little animation of the earth demonstrating the areas where humans have essentially taken over. Hint, it is the vast majority of the land surface.

Have a fine Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Oceans, Peak Oil

Here is another follow up on a theme that is intertwined with the weather, economy, and anthropogenic global warming (AGW). That theme is Peak Oil. I have been following the Peak Oil theory for about a decade now because it seemed at odds with AGW theory. It seemed unlikely that both could be correct. Either we run out of oil (and essentially all cheap fossil fuel) and there is less AGW, or fossil fuel usuage continues to grow significantly (as assumed by the IPCC) possibly leading to significant warming of the planet. I once contacted both sides of the conflicting theories and both hedged quite a bit. They both essentially said that even if oil runs out that we would still be using some form of fossil fuel in enough amount to perhaps cause AGW. I even interviewed prominent Peak Oil theorist Dr. Hirsch last year. At that point he still expected a crash in oil within 2 to 5 years. We are now over a year closer to the “crash” and things are still humming along fine. Oil is more expensive, but it is still widely available.

In contrast to Dr. Hirsch’s steafast prediction that oil would crash relatively soon, other prominent Peak Oil theorists that appear to have
“thrown in the towel” – saying in effect that oil won’t neccesarily “crash” but there are difficult times ahead because of the rising price. This is something I have argued from the beginning, especially after seeing that Hubbert’s peak in oil production (late 1990s) never came to pass. The Peak Oil prediction then moved to 2005, then to 2008, then 2010, etc… Even if we have reached our limit of oil production, which I think is likely, the price-demand structure is dynamic. The price of oil will not go up in a linear fashion without having an effect on demand. When the price gets too high, society will use less, or convert to alternatives. On another front, technological progress is allowing for extraction of previously un-recoverable oil at less cost (see this article about more efficient extraction of oil from Canadian tar sand). All the while, renewable energy keeps getting more cost competitive and is enjoying more widespread use. Just last week I linked to the latest REN21 report that trumpets the fact that 20% of the world’s energy supply now comes from alternative sources.

Have a pleasant Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Peak Oil