Where are the tears? Elephant Seals and Penguins were forced off the Ross sea 1,000 years ago because it got too cold
One thousand years ago Southern Elephant Seals were happily living in the Ross Sea of Antarctica. Likewise Adelie Penguins frolicked in the sun there during the “Penguin Optimum” of three to four thousand years ago. They had lived there on and off for thousands of years in the Holocene, but the glaciers came back and the cold times returned, and all the colonies were wiped out. All that’s left there now is just their rotting bones and fur as testament to the devastation of Global Cooling.
Thanks to Kenneth Richard at NoTricksZone for his dedication in digging up these papers.
The Ross Sea is a part of Antarctica that is south of New Zealand, and in the pictures below the remains of the seals and penguins show that they had well established colonies in places where they are unable to live now. The red circles mark the seal colonies, and the blue stars show the penguins. The colonies ebbed and flowed but then were lost as the Little Ice Age began and have not recovered.
Today the beaches are an empty wasteland:
Today, the beaches are largely free of marine mammals and birds; skuas (Stercorarius maccormicki) are the most widespread species. Along the southern coast, penguins are absent, although small Adélie (Pygoscelis adeliae) rookeries existed in the past (i.e., Baroni and Orombelli, 1991, 1994a; Emslie et al., 2007). Adélies also occur adjacent to Terra Nova Bay at Adélie Cove and Inexpressible Island. Solitary or small groups of Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii) occasionally haul out on the VLC. No other seals use these beaches at present.
The seals and penguins of Antarctica must be desperately hoping for some global warming so they can return to their ancestral homes and flourish where only desolate ice grips the sea and shore now. If only humans could do something about that!
Indeed, it’s time to launch a new campaign: “Fossil fuels can save the seals”. (It has just as much scientific validity as any eco-campaign running today, ask the IPCC!).
…
I don’t believe human emissions can warm the planet enough for the penguins to notice, but what if I’m wrong?
There really was a “Penguin Optimum” at about the same time as the Minoans and the Myceneans thrived. Bring back the warmth!
The red and yellow bars mark warmer eras where the marine mammals flourished. The diatom results marked in blue at the bottom (F. curta) of the graph below, show how sea ice expanded in the last thousand years as the cold made life impossible for the seals and penguins. The diatom results marked in red (T. antarctica) rise in the eras of longer warmer summers. The graph above runs “backwards” in time from right (the past) to left (present).
Fig. 7. Synthesis of Holocene climate records from the northern VLC discussed in the text. A. Age distribution of seal remains at Terra Nova Bay. B. Cadmium/phosphorus ratios of penguin guano at Inexpressible Island, inferred to be a proxy for the presence of modified circumpolar deepwater in Terra Nova Bay (Xie et al., 2021). C. Diatoms from a marine core at nearby Wood Bay (Fig. 1; Megzec et al., 2017), inferred to represent sea-ice extent (F. curta (blue) – high % = more sea ice) and summer temperature/duration (T. antarctica (red) – high % = warmer/longer summer). Green bar and arrow at the top of the figure denote the penguin optimum (Baroni and Orombelli, 1994) and decline of penguin rookeries at southern mainland locations. Red and yellow bands are from Fig. 6 and indicate times of relative warmth inferred from the elephant seals.
Tell the children, the world was warmer a thousand years ago, and the cooling has been a killer. If they like life on Earth, they want more warming, not more cooling. The world has been cooling for 5,000 years, and if we could warm the Earth that would be a good thing.
See these posts for references:
- Medieval Warm Period found in 120 proxies. Plus Roman era was similar to early 20th Century.
- Climate helped drive Vikings from Greenland
- The Medieval Warm Period hit west Antarctica
- Antarctica was warmer one thousand years ago — and life was OK
REFERENCE
Hall et al (2023) Widespread southern elephant seal occupation of the Victoria land coast implies a warmer-than-present Ross Sea in the mid-to-late Holocene, Quaternary Science Reviews, Volume 303, 1 March 2023, 107991
So, like Humans, more penguins and elephant seals die in the cold rather than in the warmth. Amazing. Who would have thought that Mammals are so similar. /sarc.
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Whoops. Got that wrong. A penguin is a bird. Too early in the morning. Lol
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But wait, the oceans are about to start boiling, according to a UN Official.
Marc
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There is a population of 1400 little penguins (Eudyptula novaehollandiae, now considered a separate species from Eudyptula minor) living off Stkilda Pier and Breakwater in Melbournistan, Australia. The pier was built in 1860 and the breakwater in 1956, I don’t know where that colony lived before that. There is another colony at Phillip Island about 100km away.
Penguins, like nearly all other animals and humans, love the warmth. (People holiday in warm places, not cold places except for winter activities like skiing.)
Warmists are “staticists” like Aristotle and fail to understand that the world is constantly changing in many ways, including the climate, past and present, and completely naturally. Shorter term changes occur due to Milankovitch Cycles, variations in solar output from our variable star sun, changes in cosmic ray flux, longer term from plate tectonics etc.. There is nothing humans can or do do to change the climate.
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It’s good to see that you have admitted that burning fossil fuels warms the climate.
Elephant seals don’t live on the ice. Warming the climate so that eles can live in Antarctica is not a clever idea, it is better to ensure their current habitat is not geatly disturbed. The key point of the paper is that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is very susceptable to small changes in temperature and ocean current. Radically altering the climate is a dumb thing to do because there will be unintended consequences.
[Satire a bit much for you Simon? – Jo]
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Don’t worry Simon, mankind “radically altering the climate” is not possible. That is a science fiction concept called terraforming.
But the climate does change naturally, as it has done in prehistoric and historic times on a regular basis. E.g. in historic times we have had the Minoan, Egyptian, Roman and Medieval warm periods when civilisation thrived.
We have also had the Little Ice Age when there was famine, war and disease.
The threat of global cooling is what constitutes a genuine climate crisis. Warming is never an issue. Even if the world was warming significantly, that would be a wonderful thing.
I don’t understand why you warmists think climate is static (see my comments in #2). I guess that suits the Left’s deindustrialisation and de-civilisation agenda for the West.
Why else would you be silent about your comrades in China building two coal power stations per week and being the world’s largest CO2 emitter by far, more than twice the next biggest emitter the US and increasing exponentially? Warmists work for China and against the West.
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Mankind has materially altered every ecosystem, even the Antarctic: https://discoveringantarctica.org.uk/ecosystems-and-foodwebs/ecosystems/ecosystem-change-and-exploration/
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Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Meteors, the Sun, the Universe, etc. etc. etc have all altered every ecosystem and Mother Nature on Planet Earth has handled it all quite well.
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“Radically altering the climate is a dumb thing to do because there will be unintended consequences.”
Of course it is dumb, it is what your mob, the Warmunists are trying to do, terraforming, I think is the name.
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I guess you also don’t live in a house because it’s a man-made construction and humans are naturally intended to live in trees?
What’s that? When your personal comfort is at stake then interference with nature suddenly becomes perfectly fine … am I right?
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When soldiers undertook the Neo Melanesian Course (Pigeon English) finished they said that they were qualified Branch Managers. This from the habit of some PNG tribes living and sleeping in trees 😉
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Simon, if you really cared for the environment, and since you believe in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming caused by CO2, you should stop driving your mostly coal powered electric car.
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My provider sources 100% of their electricity from renewables. Car is recharged off-peak when the expensive fossil fuel generators are not running. Welcome to the 21st Century.
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,,,,,
And Bill Clinton said ;
“I never had s#x with that woman”.
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“Depends on what your definition of “is” is”
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Coal burners are still running all day long, you don’t just switch them off, so you can have your “free” subsidised solar when, and if it’s available.
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How does your ‘provider’ ensure that only power sourced from industrial wind and solar plants is sent down your powerline? One of my sons is a linesman – I must remember to ask how the electricity from different sources is separated for individual properties!
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That is FALSE Simon as those 24/7 HIGH mass power generation needs to stay on to back up the erratic unreliable LOW mass power generation.
Solar doesn’t work at night; Wind doesn’t work for periods of time when no wind is present.
Why the need to lie as it is obvious you are making claims up.
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That’s interesting…
Um … how come they have an off peak when ‘expensive fossil fuel generators are not running’ if they source their electricity from 100% renewables? Surely fossil fuel generators are NEVER running for them if they have 100% renewable?
What’s your provider, what does it cost to fully recharge your car, and what range do you get?
By the way, ‘expensive fossil fuel generators’ on their own are still cheaper than Fossil fuels plus renewables.
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‘Radically altering the climate is a dumb …’
The idea of placing large mirrors in geostationary orbit, to deflect the sun’s rays, might radically alter the climate.
Needless to say the idea is not popular among many scientists, what do you think?
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Or shutting down the energy supply of the Western World is even more dumb.
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Hi Simon,
If you had read Jo’s text correctly you would have seen that she was careful to admit no such thing.
Great post thank you, Jo
Cheers,
Paul Miskelly
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https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/04/16/observation-of-the-earth-shows-that-deforestation-and-urbanization-cause-three-times-more-warming-than-co2/
The Climate Cultists in Australia happily cut down Rain Forrests to built wind turbines to appease the Climate Gods.
https://www.rainforestreserves.org.au/impacts-of-largescale-renewables
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Yes.
And more interestingly,that the climate there was actually warmer in the mid to late Holocene than it is currently.
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Simon,
As usual you miss the main point of the article which talks about NATURAL changes in the weather/Climate of the region long before SUV’s, Anabaptists, democrats, Biden’s depends, Coca Cola were around.
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Simon writes this misleading claim:
Actually at the 400 plus PPM level warm forcing has become negligible while it was significant at the 50-100 PPM level which was established around 500 million years ago thus humans have never added much warm forcing since 1880 when it was around the 280 ppm level.
A doubling from 280 to 560 ppm is postulated to add around 3.7 watts per square metre (W/m2
This against 507 W/m2 average global downwelling thus laughably negligible.
LINK
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The cold Humboldt current flows from Antarctica up the WCSA to sustain the many and varied life forms on and around the Galapagos as it has done for thousands of years! And will continue so to do for thousands more!
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The Humboldt Current also determines ENSO behaviour.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-86.87,-19.61,531/loc=-64.618,-23.697
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Of course the previous Eemian interglacial was also much warmer than our Holocene and Hippos swam in the Thames and the Rhine in Germany during this much warmer period.
And trees grew up to and ABOVE the Artic circle then and today it is much colder in 2024 and only TUNDRA covers this area today. THINK.
Of course SLs were also 6 to 9 metres higher during the Eemian and co2 levels were about 280 ppm then and only very small numbers of Humans and Neanderthals etc.
Here’s the quote from Wikipedia.
“The warmest peak of the Last Interglacial was around 125,000 years ago, when forests reached as far north as North Cape, Norway (which is now tundra) well above the Arctic Circle at 71°10′21″N 25°47′40″E. Hardwood trees such as hazel and oak grew as far north as Oulu, Finland. At the peak of the Last Interglacial, the Northern Hemisphere winters were generally warmer and wetter than now, though some areas were actually slightly cooler than today. The hippopotamus was distributed as far north as the rivers Rhine and Thames.[15]”
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I’m surprised Climate Action Heroes™ haven’t pointed at the Dry Valleys of Antarctica, within the mountains of Victoria Land adjacent to the Ross Sea, where it hasn’t snowed nor rained since Adam was a boy: rocky, barren, frigid, snow- & ice-free regions thanks to the 100% natural rain-shadow effect.
And as for those coal seams which keep popping out of cliffs and headlands…
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There is plenty of coal in Antarctica, e.g. see picture of outcrop at https://adam.antarcticanz.govt.nz/nodes/view/60393
If someone was a (very) serious “prepper” they could bug out there and use coal to keep warm and heat greenhouses etc. to grow food. Or better yet, small cooperative communities could set up there and survive the next nuclear war.
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Much Warmer!
Coal beds in Antarctica are proof that at one time the continent of Antarctica was much warmer and contained huge quantities of plant matter. What we know of the changing climate of Antarctica is that it didn’t start to cool until about 34 million years ago after is became separated from the other continents.
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The Co2 Coalition group of GENUINE Scientists also tell us that the Eemian was 8 C (14 F) warmer than our Holocene and the Polar Bears easily survived for thousands of years during that much warmer inter-glacial. That’s from 130,000 to 115,000 years ago.
https://co2coalition.org/facts/the-last-interglacial-was-8c-14f-warmer-than-today/
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Life expectancy was very low before the Industrial Revolution and about 28.5 years in 1770.
This increased to 32 years in 1900 and 46 years in 1950. Population in 1950 was 2.5 billion.
But today the 8.1 BILLION humans live to about 71 + years and Oceania and Aussies at 84.5 years are very high. See the graphs for continents at the link.
So where’s their DANGEROUS GLOBAL WARMING and Biden’s so called EXISTENTIAL THREAT?
Yet some ignorant fools actually their BS and FRAUD.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?country=OWID_WRL~Americas~OWID_EUR~OWID_AFR~OWID_ASI~OWID_OCE~AUS
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Sorry last line missing BELIEVE as in “actually BELIEVE”.
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A study of the Ross Sea reveals,
That Penguins and Elephant Seals,
Once perished from cooling,
As survival was gruelling,
Which belie global warming ideals.
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One of your best!
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The Co2 Coalition Scientists tell us why the next full glaciation will be CATASTROPHIC for Humans and yet our stupid donkeys are telling us we are too warm today.
Here’s the Co2 Coalition’s quote.
“The periods of glaciation are on 100,000 year cycles, driven by natural forces beyond our control. The warmer interglacials last 10,000 to 15,000 years. Importantly, we are now about 11,000 years into our current interglacial period, which may end within the next century or last another several thousand years. In any case, the beneficial interglacial warmth that we are enjoying now will end at some point in the not too distant future (in a geologic sense)”.
“When the next ice age descends upon us, it will be a true climate apocalypse accompanied by crop failures, famine, mass emigration from colder to warmer regions and unprecedented population loss. Looking at the last 4,000 years of climate and history, bad things happen during cold periods, very bad things. Cooler periods brought severe hardship and death, but the descent into a true ice age would be horrific for humanity and there is nothing we can do to stop it”.
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Here’s a link to the fact 14 from the Co2 Coalition scientists.
https://co2coalition.org/facts/interglacials-usually-last-10000-15000-years-ours-is-11000-years-old/
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This is not an accurate indication of what has occurred over the recent cycles. They last multiples of precession cycles, which are around 23,000 years.
Interglacials last between half and three quarters of a precession cycle. Rising solar intensity in the NH is responsibly for ending glacial periods but also starting glacial periods. The switch that changes from ice accumulation to ice loss is calving of glaciers. There is limit to the ice holding capacity of land. The last glacial cycle lasted 4 precession cycles before there was enough ocean cooling due to glacier calving to overtake accumulation.
Once the glacier calving takes over, it is a rapid process because the rising oceans break off ice shelves that form massive icebergs that move southward and cool the oceans even more. There are icebergs that have ground on ocean now 700m deep. It only takes half a precession cycle to melt most of the ice.
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And it will be hugely worse than it otherwise would be because if the “green” madness doesn’t stop, the West won’t have an energy supply with all the coal, gas, nuclear and real hydro power stations shut down plus the oil and gas industry shut down.
What are we going to do for food and energy?
At least the Elites who promote the madness will have their bunkers to hide in, at least until the Proles dig them out.
I notice the conservative freedom-loving billionaires like Elon Musk aren’t building them, only the Leftist oriented ones who want to control and destroy our lives.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/bunkers-billionaires-survive-apocalypse-cost-features-1235822762/
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And guess which Island Nation the dispossessed masses will want to flock to? It won’t be Fiji or Samoa et al these people will already have arrived here.
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A land down under, the largest island in the world.
At the LGM it had the appearance of a Martian desert.
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December sunlight at 60S peaked at 497.4W/m^2 3.800 years ago. It is now down to 486.8W/m^2 on its way down to 458W/m^2 in 8,000 years. So will get a lot cooler – at least in summer.
http://vo.imcce.fr/webservices/miriade/proxy.php?file=http://145.238.217.34//tmp/insola/insolaoutLbiL3v&format=text
The high southern latitudes are not doing what they are supposed to do because CO2 does nothing and the solar intensity is falling there.
The reduction of almost 10W/m^2 in December sunlight is a real change due to the precession cycle; not some fantasy change due to CO2.
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Samalas triggered the LIA.
‘In 1257, a catastrophic eruption occurred at Samalas, a volcano on the Indonesian island of Lombok. The event had a probable Volcanic Explosivity Index of 7, making it one of the largest volcanic eruptions during the Holocene epoch.’ (wiki)
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Again co2 levels have increased from 280 ppm to 420 ppm since the start of the Ind REV in about 1800.
That’s about 140 ppm or about 0.0140% increase in the last 224 years and yet Dr Hansen and Bill McKibben of 350.org tell us a drop to 350 ppm would be able to save us from their EXISTENTIAL THREAT.
So a co2 drop of just 70 ppm and everything would be okay again?
I’m glad they’ve cleared that up. What a load of BS and nonsense. Does any serious Scientist really BELIEVE this is worth the further WASTE of 30 + years and the WASTE of many more TRILLIONS of $ for ZERO CHANGE to the CLIMATE or temperature by 2050 or 2100?
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I suppose ‘science’ has a chance to be saved if we are able to explain to the the average politician what ‘ppm’ is.
Of course, there is the fact that there has been little change in the climate since 1800 … except of course the boiling oceans.
This is where the great ‘Age of Science’ has brought us.
Did you know that it was a Pandemic of the Unvaccinated?
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(420 – 280) / 280 is a 50% increase in CO2 concentration. Every doubling of atmospheric CO2 raises surface temperature by somewhere between 1.5℃ and 4.5℃.
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Nah, when you have something that is essentially zero (0.03% or 0.0003) and you increase it roughly by a factor of 1 in 10000, it’s still basically zero
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Simon, you stated:
Ok, I won’t try to explain that fallacy. Richard does it better. (He posted yesterday)
https://joannenova.com.au/2024/04/tuesday-53/#comment-2755810
Quote:
“CO2 behaves logarithmically and the more of it there is in the atmosphere the less warming each molecule should have.
The logarithmic effect of CO2 is due to the availability of photons of the required frequency that are absorbed.
That CO2 forcing increases logarithmically has been known for over a century.
The vast majority of the warming from CO2 comes from the first 20ppmv and after that CO2 has a small effect (see here)
https://chipstero7.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/16cc0-log-graph-lindzen-choi-webyyyyyy.gif
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Decarbonization, while not preventing the transmission or possibility of carbon infection, has been scientifically proven to help prevent hospitalization and death from carbon.
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Now the ANU think that Homo Erectus died out because they were too lazy to explore for better quality stones for tools.
And some researchers still think they may have still been around during the Eemian.
They lasted for about 1.9 million years and were the first early Human types to use fire and make stone tools.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180810091542.htm
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Nah, when you have something that is essentially zero – 0.03% ( 0.0003) and you increase it roughly by a factor of 1 in 10000, you still have zero.
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Electricity consumption in Finland influenced by climate effects of energetic particle precipitation
It is known that electricity consumption in many cold Northern countries depends greatly on prevailing outdoor temperatures especially during the winter season. On the other hand, recent research has demonstrated that solar wind driven energetic particle precipitation from space into the polar atmosphere can influence the stratospheric polar vortex and tropospheric weather patterns during winter. These changes are significant, e.g., in Northern Europe, especially in Finland. In this study we demonstrate that geomagnetic activity, as a proxy of energetic particle precipitation, significantly influences Finland’s average temperature and total wintertime electricity consumption in Finland. This influence is only seen when the prevailing equatorial stratospheric winds, so called QBO winds, are easterly. The results demonstrate a previously unrecognized societal influence of space weather, and imply that long-term energy consumption forecasts could potentially be improved by considering long-term space weather predictions.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-47605-8
ie the Sun and solar radiation are drivers of climate.
Nooooooooooo…..😆
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The idea, humanity’s tiny 2-3% of 0.04% CO2-a colourless, odourless, inert trace gas so rare, it’s almost extinct & exponentially exceeded by Water Vapour as a ‘GHG’-influences anything, is an infantile disinformation campaign.
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Engineer Dr Robert Barr recently talked to Nick Cater about the W & S lunacy and it’s really more clueless than most of us would believe.
Each house would have to spend about 40,000 $ for solar panels and battery, BUT the battery would last about 10 years and the panels about 15 years, so a complete expensive fraud and con job.
Then there’s thousands of KLMs of new transmission lines to connect this loopy dilute power system and the very low capacity factors involved.
Watch the video and just imagine this TOXIC SUPER EXPENSIVE mess that we’ll have to clean up on a very regular basis. What a disaster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHPQwvtLfJ4
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A $40,000 price tag today, but when replacement time rolls around in 10-15 years time, the cost will be at least double, say, $80,000?
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There’s a reason we speak of tropical paradises and arctic wastelands.
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If we were really able to manipulate climate we should be preparing for the next glacier period, by slowly warming up. If today’s warming is manmade, we are doing it right, if it is not, we will soon have a problem much bigger than today’s global warming, when Nature comes back to its old habits of turning Earth into an snowball.
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If we were really able to manipulate climate we should be preparing for the next glacier period, by slowly warming up. If today’s warming is manmade, we are doing it right, if it is not, we will soon have a problem much bigger than today’s global warming, when Nature comes back to its old habits of turning Earth into an snowball.
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