Trouble in the UK - A Green Tax Rebellion is Afoot

The new tipping point: UK motorists rebel against additional taxes by shutting down highways.

 

After hundreds of angry drivers shut down highways in England Tuesday in protest against green automobile taxes, and drivers and fishermen in France and Spain paralyzed their ports and roads in a fuel-tax protest, politicians began to signal Europe’s ambitious emission-control policies may soon have to be abandoned. While Europe has led the way in using tax incentives to encourage people to buy low-emission cars and to build carbon-neutral houses in order to meet Kyoto targets, it has become increasingly apparent that inflation-battered voters are no longer willing to go along. Political leaders in Britain and France are seeking the reversal of tax policies designed to make polluting vehicles more expensive, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and some British ministers calling on their own governments and the European Union to relax ecologically friendly taxes in order to give relief to citizens suffering from fast-rising food and fuel prices.
      –Doug Saunders, Globe and Mail, 28 May 2008

The fuel protests hammer home a clear message. After the 10p tax rebellion, the local elections, and the Crewe by-election, no one can doubt the mood of the country any more. There is insurrection in the air. The British people are ready for change and they don’t believe Labour can deliver it.
      –Nick Clegg, The Daily Telegraph, 28 May 2008

Gordon Brown has been urged to stand firm against calls to abandon green tax rises on fuel as environmentalists warned that scrapping the proposals would risk undermining Britain’s drive towards a low carbon future and send the wrong message about the Government’s commitment to tackling greenhouse gas emissions. Amid fears that the gloomy financial outlook could sap the political will needed to combat climate change, Charlie Kronick, senior climate adviser at Greenpeace, said: “When they are willing to spend millions of pounds shoring up their vote in a by-election they can do this as well. How serious can they be about using the tax system to try to affect environmental outcomes when, if they are under political pressure, it is the first thing that goes?”
     –Ben Russell, The Independent, 28 May 2008

Drivers should not be “hammered” by the Government, Cabinet Minister John Hutton declared yesterday in a clear sign of a road tax climbdown. The Business Secretary spoke out as senior Labour sources admitted planned increases of up to £245 a year that could hit millions of family car drivers were a “mistake”.
     –Bob Roberts, The Mirror, 28 May 2008

Huge rises in road and petrol taxes for millions of motorists could be scrapped after two Cabinet ministers hinted at another U-turn in government policy.
After warnings from MPs that the party was alienating ordinary voters, Jack Straw and John Hutton suggested that the Pre-Budget report in the autumn would contain changes to plans set out by the Chancellor in March. But, in a further sign of government confusion, Downing Street and the Treasury insisted that no plans were being considered to revise the vehicle excise duty changes announced in the Budget.
     –Philip Webster, The Times, 28 May 2008

What Political Cartoonists Think About Global Warming

NOTE:

I originally had a Google video posted here, which was a collage of political cartoons published in major US Newspapers about climate change. I made the mistake of not watching it all the way to the end, but watched about 80% of it.  A couple of commenters have pointed out that this video was a trojan horse for injecting opinion about “911 Truth” at the end, which had nothing to do with the original content or title.

Thus, given this deception on the part of the author of the video, I have removed it. - Anthony

Cold Irony: Arctic Sea Ice Traps Climate Tour Icebreaker

Stuck in the arctic ice that doesn’t exist. (file photo: EcoPhotoExplorers)

Last year as arctic sea ice melted to record levels, panic set in for many. But then, as the sea ice rebounded and froze again quickly in the 2007/2008 winter, making up for that record loss and reaching heights not seen for several years, many exclaimed that even though the ice areal extent had recovered, this new ice was “thin” and would likely melt again quickly. There were also many news stories about how the Northwest Passage was ice free for the first time “ever”. For example, Backpacker Magazine ran a story saying “The ice is so low that the photos clearly show a viable northwest passage sea route along the coasts of  Greenland, Canada, and Alaska.”

Cashing in on the panic that has set in with the help of some climate alarmists, tour operators like Quark Expeditions of Norwalk Connecticut are offering polar expeditions catering to that “see it before it’s gone” travel worry. One of them is in fact a trip though the Northwest Passage on a former Soviet Icebreaker called the Kapitan Khlebnikov which is a massive 24,000 horsepower Polar Class icebreaker capable of carrying 108 passengers in relative luxury through the arctic wilderness. Here is some background on this icebreaker:

Kapitan Khlebnikov - The Kapitan Khlebnikov was built in Finland in 1981 and is one of three vessels of this class. Not simply an ice-reinforced ship, the Kapitan Khlebnikov is a powerful polar class icebreaker, which has sailed to extremely remote corners of the globe with adventurous travelers since 1992. It was the first ship ever to circumnavigate Antarctica with passengers in 1996-97. See more on this vessel at Wikipedia

According to Quark Expeditions, they’ve even fitted this icebreaker with a heated indoor swimming pool, exercise room and sauna, and a theater-style auditorium for “Expedition Team presentations” ( presumably so you can watch Gore’s AIT polar bear tears while in situ ). It is quite a difference from the travel conditions that Robert Peary experienced just 99 years ago when he reached the North Pole.

One of my alert readers, Walt from Canada,  pointed out this story in the Globe and Mail on may 24th in the travel section. It seems the irony of a polar expedition to see such things as record sea ice loss being stopped cold by the very ice that doesn’t exist was not lost on the editors.

From the Globe and Mail article:

I am on the bridge of the massive Russian icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnikov, and the tension is palpable. We have hit ice - thick ice.

The ice master studies the mountains of white packed around the ship while the 24,000-horsepower diesel engines work at full throttle to open a path. The ship rises slowly onto the barrier of ice, crushes it and tosses aside blocks the size of small cars as if they were ice cubes in a glass. It creeps ahead a few metres, then comes to a halt, its bow firmly wedged in the ice. After doing this for two days, the ship can go no farther.

The ice master confers with the captain, who makes a call to the engine room. The engines are shut down. He turns to those of us watching the drama unfold, and we are shocked by his words: “Now, only nature can help this ship.” We are doomed to drift.

What irony. I am a passenger on one of the most powerful icebreakers in the world, travelling through the Northwest Passage - which is supposed to become almost ice-free in a time of global warming, the next shipping route across the top of the world - and here we are, stuck in the ice, engines shut down, bridge deserted. Only time and tide can free us.

What irony indeed.

They eventually had nature on their side, and on the seventh day of being trapped in the ice, winds and tide moved the ice pack enough that they could continue. But, I have to wonder, will the pampered eco-tourists on this trip see the irony that we do?

NASA sends “The Weather Rock” to Mars

When I made a post discussing the weather station on NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander titled “First Weather Station on the Surface of Mars“, I expressed some concern that there might be something wrong with the meteorological package due to the first photo of the MET mast showing something dangling:

And I jokingly wrote: “Given that this mission was put together on a low budget, using parts previously designed for other spacecraft, it makes me wonder if the weather station we see above isn’t simply this low tech device“.

After further research, I’m forced to conclude that in fact, NASA did send a “weather rock” to Mars as part of the meteorological package!

Yes I know, you still don’t believe me, so here are the technical details. The instrument is called the “Telltale Project” and it was developed by the Mars Simulation Laboratory at the University of Aarhus in Demark.

In their project page about the instrument they write:

The Telltale is a passive wind indicator for the 2007 NASA Phoenix lander developed and constructed at the Mars Simulation Laboratory at the Aarhus University.

The Telltale consists of a gallows that is mounted on the top of the Meteorological Mast of the Lander. The active element of the instrument is an extremely lightweight Kapton tube hanging in Kevlar fibres. Images taken of the instrument will show the deflection of the Telltale due to the wind. A mirror is mounted below the active part to enable better direction information. Full resolution JPG (24 kB)

Click for a larger image.
Part of the Phoenix lander showing the Telltale on top of the Meteorological Mast ©NASA/JPL

So there you have it, what originally looked like a possible malfunction in the first photo of the first weather station on Mars turned out to be an accurate representation of the instrument, an instrument not unlike that of the “weather rock” found as a novelty item all over the world. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

In other news, I’m told that inside the MET package box, NASA has included several of these, monitored by a tiny camera, to assist in weather forecasting of seasons on Mars. ;-)

UPDATE: The first day’s weather report from Phoenix Lander on Mars is now available, see below:

First Weather Station on the Surface of Mars

Of course we’ve all heard and seen the fantastic news of NASA’s Phoenix lander making a successful three point landing on the red planet. The primary goal of the Mars Phoenix Mission is to detect life or the traces of it. However a secondary goal is to measure the weather at the surface continuously over a long period of time.

Today in a group of raw images returned from the lander is the first photo of the weather station mast after deployment. I’m pleased to present it here:

On further inspection though I note that there appears to be something dangling from the top portion of the sensor apparatus, see the arrow:

I don’t know if this is normal or if something has come loose and what we see is something dangling on the end of a wire. Given that this mission was put together on a low budget, using parts previously designed for other spacecraft, it makes me wonder if the weather station we see above isn’t simply this low tech device.

Here is a pictorial view of the lander and the position of the MET mast:

Click for a larger sized image

Here is a description of the MET station from Wikipedia:

The Meteorological Station (MET) will record the daily weather during the course of the Phoenix mission. It is equipped with a wind indicator and pressure and temperature sensors to do so. It is also equipped with lidar (laser imaging detection and ranging), which will be used to find the amount of dust particles in the air. It was designed in Canada and supported by the Canadian Space Agency and a team headed by York University The Geological Survey of Canada will oversee the science operations of the station, which was built by Canadarm maker MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. of Richmond, B.C.

The lidar laser is a passive Q-switched Nd:YAG laser with the dual wavelengths of 1064 nm and 532 nm. It operates at 100 Hz with a pulse width of 10 ns. The lidar is vertically pointing. The scattered light is received by two detectors and operates in both analog and photon counting modes.

All types of backscattering (for example Rayleigh scattering) are the basic effect used for the lidar. With the delay between the pulse and the light reflected by the particles in the atmosphere the distance is calculated. Additional information can be obtained from backscattered light. The polarization makes it possible to discriminate between ice and dust. The line width is an indicator for the Brownian motion of the particles and therefore an indicator for the temperature.

The lidar will get information about the three-dimensional structure of the planetary boundary layer by investigating the dissipation of dust, ice, fog and clouds in the local atmosphere. The wind velocity and temperatures will be monitored over time and show the evolution of the atmosphere over time. Dust and ice contribution in the atmosphere and the formation of dust devils are in the science focus of the instrument.

Judging from experience in installing many weather stations myself, I’d venture a guess to say that the greatest effect on the long-term reliability of the MET station will be the dust. Very fine dust can penetrate and clog even the most carefully designed systems.

I assume there will be public weather data available at some point, and if so I’ll make it available here.

The parking lot effect: temperature measurement bias of locations

NOTE: David Smith is doing experiments with the portable USB digital thermometers that are available here. This sort of experimentation is easy and inexpensive to do, and makes a great topic for a student science fair project. The results are easy to download from the USB thermometer into a PC for analysis. -Anthony

Seven Days in May

A guest post by David Smith

This is an update on recent field tests with remote thermometers (see the ”Fun with Thermometers” post for  background).

My goal is to quantify, to an extent, the effects of microsite problems (pavement, buildings, trees, etc) on temperature.

In the current test one sensor (”A”) is currently in an abandoned baseball field at least two hundred feet from any paving, tree, structure, etc other than a chain-link fence:

This reasonably approximates a good-quality site, isolated from human microclimate effects.

The other sensor (”B”) has a split personality. On one side is a poorly-drained field while on the other side is an older asphalt parking lot:

When the wind blows from the north this second sensor tends to reflect the characteristics of the soggy field, while a southerly wind brings air from the parking lot.

An aerial view of the two sites (”A” and “B”) is here:

 

For this update I selected seven days in May in which the skies were mostly clear throughout the day and night. This should maximize any radiative effects on temperature. (Unfortunately, the site is warm, quite humid and windy this time of year, limiting the magnitude of any radiational microsite effects. But, despite this diminished magnitude there are still useful observations to be made.)

Below is a plot of the average temperature of “B” on five clear-sky days when the breeze was from the parking lot and the average of two clear-sky days when the breeze was from the soggy field. I’ve subtracted the temperature of the nearby baseball field (”A”) from these two averages so that the lines show how much warmer or cooler “B” is than “A”. I’ve also slightly smoothed the data.

All seven days were breezy, which mixes air and limits its time over the surfaces, so the effects are probably muted compared to days with less-breezy conditions:

 

This shows several things. One, when the wind is from the parking lot (red line), the temperature at “B” sensor is warmer than that of the baseball field, night and day. Shortly after sunrise the difference diminishes, presumably due to the higher heat capacity and thus slower warming of the asphalt vs the baseball field. As the sunny day progresses the heat content and temperature of the asphalt rises, reaching a relative peak at “B” in the late afternoon. As the sun sets and evening progresses the temperature of “B” remains elevated but to a smaller extent.

This “parking lot effect” should be noticeably greater this summer, when average windspeed and air mixing diminishes.

 The effects when the wind is from the soggy field (blue line) are perhaps even more interesting. The temperature of “B” tends to be depressed vs the baseball field during daylight hours, presumably due to evaporative cooling of the soggy field. The effect is reversed a bit in the late afternoon, possibly when the dry baseball field is radiatively cooling faster than the soggy field.

The soggy field appears to be due to changes in drainage following a yearlong construction project nearby. This change in drainage and probably ground cover was subtle in nature and may have stretched over some time, something which may or may not be detected by a discontinuity algorithm. In this instance it was cooling but my conjecture is that most drainage changes are towards drying, and warming, not wetting and cooling.

These seven days in May are affirmations that it is a bad idea to have sensors in the vicinity of human-induced microsite changes. Changing drainage, repaving the parking lot, aging of the parking lot, changes in parking patterns, etc can all have an effect. The size of the effects in a given year may depend on rainfall, wind anomalies, etc, making it difficult to detect a discontinuity. 

More to come. 

Biofuels, BBQ’s, and Texas

Corn: it’s-not-what’s-for-dinner. Signs of the times I guess. I saw an odd story yesterday from Armarillo TV station KDFA titled:

Barbeque Costs Heating Up

Memorial Day cookouts could cost you more this weekend as food prices continue to rise.  According to economist, food inflation is the highest it’s been in two decades. Forcing shoppers to dig deeper in their pockets for their holiday bashes.  

Complete story here

Then I saw this article this morning in the WSJ:

A Texas Timeout on Biofuels
Wall Street Journal May 24, 2008; Page A10

The state of Texas is now in official opposition to the federal ethanol mandate. Governor Rick Perry has petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency for a one-year reprieve, and the reason is simple and increasingly familiar: Washington’s ethanol obsession is hurting the state.

We all know that corn farmers everywhere love ethanol. Don’t tell that to Texas cattle ranchers. Because of the mandate to add this biofuel to gasoline, ranchers are being forced into bidding wars with ethanol plants for the grains they feed their cattle. They don’t appreciate being hammered on price because of a subsidy to corn growers. Thus, Governor Perry’s petition.

Complete story here

Don’t mess with Texas. Perhaps they’ll be the ones that will put this biofuels nonsense back in the closet until the market can figure out how to meet ethanol demand without compromising the food supply.

Weather Picture Of The Day - relaunched as a blog

Weather Picture Of The Day is a Website that I started back in the year 2000 as a way to provide interesting weather content for the public. Digital Photography was becoming of age and many people had cameras and could capture great snapshots.

Unfortunately, it became a victim of its own success. It took huge amounts of bandwidth to keep running, plus it required quite a bit of daily support. All this impacted my main business, www.weathershop.com negatively even though it did generate some sales due to the meager advertising we placed on it for weather stations and weather gadgets. So, rather than continue to let it impact our business bandwidth and support requirements, I opted to shut it down in 2004 until a better solution could be found.

Enter WordPress and the blog engine. This website, www.wattsupwiththat.com has become a great success and has no impact on my business bandwidth. So I’ve decided to try Weather Picture Of The Day on wordpress.com to see how it goes.

I know there is an interest, I know that digital cameras abound, so give us your best shot and let us share it with the world! See the Submit Photo page.

I’ll be making additions to the website as we go along, and may have some contests and prizes coming in the future. We also hope to add more to our free screen saver and to offer specialized RSS and photo feeds to allow inclusion of free WPOTD content into other weather websites.

In the meantime, help spread the word, tell a friend!

- Anthony

San Francisco approves greenhouse emissions tax on business

From the “pay and your sins shall be forgiven” department…

FROM KTVU-TV in Oakland:

Officials Approve Controversial Greenhouse Gas Tax

SAN FRANCISCO — Air pollution regulators in the San Francisco Bay area voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to approve new rules that impose fees on businesses for emitting greenhouse gasses. 

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s board of directors voted 15-1 to charge companies 4.4 cents per ton of carbon dioxide they emit, an agency spokeswoman said. 

Experts say the fees, which cover nine counties in the Bay Area, are the first of their kind in the country. The new rules are set to take effect July 1. 

The modest fee probably won’t be enough to force companies to reduce their emissions, but backers say it sets an important precedent in combating climate change and could serve as a model for regional air districts nationwide. 

“It doesn’t solve global warming, but it gets us thinking in the right terms,” said Daniel Kammen, a renewable energy expert at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s not enough of a cost to change behavior, but it tells us where things are headed. You have to think not just in financial terms, but in carbon terms.” 

But many Bay Area businesses oppose the rules, saying they could interfere with the state’s campaign to fight global warming under a landmark law signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006.

Read the complete story here

NOAA Predicts a Below-Normal Eastern Pacific Hurricane Season

While the forecast for the Atlantic Hurricane season is active and for 12-16 named storms, the Pacific forecast is just in time to coincide with recent pronouncements of no link between global warming and hurricane frequency, this just in:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - May 22, 2008

*** NEWS FROM NOAA ***
NATIONAL OCEANIC & ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
WASHINGTON, DC

Contact: Carmeyia Gillis 301-763-8000, ext. 7163

NOAA Predicts a Below-Normal Eastern Pacific Hurricane Season

       NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center today
announced that projected climate conditions point
to a below-normal hurricane season in the eastern Pacific this year.
       “Living in a coastal state means having a
plan for each and every hurricane season. Review
or complete emergency plans now - before a storm
threatens,” said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C.
Lautenbacher, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce
for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator.
“Planning and preparation is the key to storm survival and recovery.”

       The Climate Prediction Center outlook
calls for a 70 percent probability of a below
normal season, a 25 percent probability of a near
normal season, and a 5 percent probably of an above normal season.

       Allowing for forecast uncertainties,
seasonal hurricane forecasters estimate a 60 to
70 percent chance of 11 to 16 named storms,
including five to eight hurricanes and one to
three major hurricanes (category 3, 4, or 5 on
the Saffir-Simpson scale).
       An average eastern Pacific hurricane
season produces 15 to 16 named storms, with nine
becoming hurricanes and four to five becoming major hurricanes.

       Among the factors influencing this year’s
eastern Pacific outlook are the multi decadal
signal - the atmospheric conditions that have
decreased hurricane activity over the eastern
Pacific Ocean since 1995 - and the expected
lingering effects of La Niña.
       “La Nin?a conditions have weakened since
February and may become neutral by summer’s end,”
said Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane
forecaster at the center. “We typically see less
hurricane activity in the eastern Pacific when La Nin?a is active or neutral.”
       “The outlook is a general guide to the
overall seasonal hurricane activity,”
Lautenbacher said. “It does not predict whether,
where or when any of these storms may hit land.
That is the job of the National Hurricane Center after a storm forms.”

       Bill Read, director of NOAA’s National
Hurricane Center, said, “Our forecasters are
ready to track any tropical cyclone, from a
depression to a hurricane, which forms in the
eastern Pacific. We urge coastal residents to
have a hurricane plan in place before the season
begins and NHC will continue to provide the best possible forecast.”

         Eastern Pacific tropical storms most
often track westward over open waters, sometimes
reaching Hawaii and beyond. However, some
occasionally head toward the northeast, and may
bring rainfall to the arid southwestern United
States during the summer months. Also, during any
given season, one or two tropical storms can
affect western Mexico or Central America.
Residents, businesses, and government agencies of
coastal and near-coastal regions should always
prepare prior to each and every hurricane season
regardless of the seasonal hurricane outlook.

       The eastern Pacific hurricane season runs
from May 15 through November 30, with peak
activity from July through September.
       The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce
Department, is dedicated to enhancing economic
security and national safety through the
prediction and research of weather and
climate-related events and information service
delivery for transportation, and by providing
environmental stewardship of our nation’s coastal
and marine resources. Through the emerging Global
Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA
is working with its federal partners, more than
70 countries and the European Commission to
develop a global monitoring network that is as
integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects.

On the Web:
NOAA Eastern Pacific Hurricane Season Outlook:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/Epac_hurr/Epac_hurricane.html
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/
NOAA’s National Hurricane Center: http://www.hurricanes.gov/

- 30 -