Errors in IPCC climate science

There have been reports on increased sunspot activity in April and the Cycle 24 peak has been widely predicted to be in the next few months.
The RI number just out from Solar Influences Data analysis Center – RWC Belgium – Royal Observatory of Belgium is a tad below what I was expecting.

The chart has both April updates now. – The SWO SS# is 112.8 for April.
There is an issue that with modern technology we are counting smaller and smaller sunspots than was possible hundreds of years ago. So the sunspot time series are probably not homogenous. A reader has sent in this YouTube clip which explains some of the issues for those not up to speed with solar science.

A reader sent me this priceless NASA prediction of a “…30% to 50% stronger…” Solar Cycle 24. A timely reminder of how wrong these highly paid experts and huge taxpayer funded organizations can be. Somebody might have a URL to a chart showing the several NOAA/NASA failed predictions of the last half decade.
Readers can check my Solar category and you will see posts going back to late 2006 that have stood the test of time.
Readers can plot for themselves on this first chart of sunspot numbers since 1750 – just how wrong NASA were in 2006.

This chart of mine shows latest monthly numbers through February 2013.

Experienced solar observers have been predicting the solar max for Cycle 24 will be around May this year.

That may turn out what happens and we have a “rabbit ears” pattern formed. Time will tell but just now who would bet on it ?
My earlier posts on Cycle 24 which extend back to late 2006.

Anthony Watts has the story that the latest IPCC Second Order Draft of AR5 (the next IPCC report), Working Group 1 (“The Scientific Basis”) acknowledges strong evidence for solar forcing beyond total solar irradiance (TSI)
This quote from AR5 – “The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link.”
The AR5 draft is being leaked here.
Maybe the IPCC might cotton on to the additional reality that our current very weak solar cycle 24 is not exactly portending warmer times.

I bet the numbers behind this debacle are horrendous – to get the GreenLabor Govt to act this fast. I see Minister Combet claims – “The overall reduction in 2013 electricity bills is estimated to be in the order of $80 million to $100 million.” So assume 5 million households – only $20 per bill.
What a joke – the damage to our hip pockets from a decade of mad Green electricity schemes is way worse than that. Voters have to vote GreenLabor out then look for a double dissolution to clean out the Senate and campaign for a major slash & burn of all wasteful Green schemes damaging our electricity grid. Nothing less will have a hope of stabilizing electricity bills.

Just noticed that the SWO sunspot number published by NOAA increased for April while the RI number published by the ROYAL OBSERVATORY OF BELGIUM decreased.

Just eyeballing the graph it looks to be a significant difference of opinion.
I notice the NOAA show the 10.7cm flux decreased too – which tends to go with a decrease in sunspots. Link to my earlier posts – there is a chain back to Dec 2006 when I first posted on diverging predictions for solar cycle 24. Then in March 2007 I posted David Archibald’s provocative article The Past and Future of Climate – where David correctly predicted a long solar minimum between cycles 23 & 24 and a weak cycle 24.

Last night on the ABC (Australian Govt owned TV channel)- Q & A usual GreenLeft-fest – I saw Bob Brown say that the never built hydro dam on the Franklin River (thats Tasmania) – would have had a 184MW capacity. What knocked me out was his claim that this(184MW) was one fifth of a baseload solar power station. Viewers should have been made aware that Bob was speaking about “planned projects” or “hypothetical projects”.
According to Google the largest solar power station in the World is ANDASOL in Spain using CSP to heat molten salt – which comes in at 150MW.
There is the “planned” 1,000 MW Blythe solar power plant in the Mojave desert but that seems to be converting to strait PV – so no night-time power there – can hardly be termed “baseload”. Not to mention the fact that the owners have filed for bankruptcy according to the LA Times – 3 April 2012. So Bob Brown is quoting numbers of a “hypothetical” solar plant. Typical Green propaganda – pie-in-the-sky hopes.
Here is the question he was answering on Q & A.
HYDRO POWER
“Sue Bastone asked via video: Good evening Senator Brown. As electricity prices continue to rise in Tasmania do you ever feel the slightest bit guilty about putting a river before people when you led the campaign against damming the Gordon below Franklin? Surely our environment would have been better off with hydro powered electricity than having to import power from dirty coal powered generation on the mainland and wouldn’t we be financially better off? Perhaps locking up huge areas of Tasmania’s forests is equally short sighted.”
I will try and get the script of Bob Brown’s reply later today from the Q & A webpages.

New paper -
“The long sunspot cycle 23 predicts a significant temperature decrease in cycle 24″ – Jan-Erik Solheima, Kjell Stordahlb, Ole Humlum. Full paper to read – if only all scientific papers were so easy to access.
A 1 °C or more temperature drop is predicted 2009–2020 for certain locations. Solar activity may have contributed 40% or more to the last century temperature increase.
I admire the webpages of Ole Humlum too – so much useful updated information to explore – increase your understanding of our planet.

HT to Val Majkus.
The paper “Simulations of Scenarios with 100% Renewable Electricity in the Australian National Electricity Market” by Elliston et al. (2011a) (henceforth EDM-2011) has been analyzed by Engineer Peter Lang in his paper, “Renewable electricity for Australia – the cost”. Peter Lang is a retired geologist and engineer with 40 years experience on many types of energy projects throughout the world.

For the EDM-2011 baseline simulation, and using costs derived for the Federal Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism (DRET, 2011b), the costs are estimated to be: $568 billion capital cost, $336/MWh cost of electricity and $290/tonne CO2 abatement cost. That is, the wholesale cost of electricity for the simulated system would be SEVEN times more than now, with an abatement cost that is THIRTEEN times the starting price of the Australian carbon tax and THIRTY times the European carbon price. (This cost of electricity does not include costs for the existing electricity network). Peter has provided an Excel spreadsheet of calculations – which readers can use to do their own analysis.

This proposition to provide 100% Renewable Electricity for Australia is very expensive pie in the sky IMHO – typical of the GreenLeft – and on current technologies could not deliver stable grid power as we now know it.
So – if you want brown outs, black outs and more expensive electricity, Vote Green.
- if you particularly want more expensive peak hour electricity, Vote Green.
- if you want to be getting up in the middle of the night when you might be able to afford to run appliances, Vote Green.
- if you will enjoy owning a portable engine driven Electricity Generator, Vote Green.
- if you will enjoy the sound and smell of portable engine driven Electricity Generators all over your suburb, Vote Green.
- if you are mechanically handy and will enjoy rigging up a household wind powered generator and like the idea of paying for that plus banks of large and heavy batteries, then paying for their upkeep and replacement, Vote Green.
- the Elliston et al plan requires an increase of wind farms by a factor of 16.8 times – so if you like the idea of that – vote Green.
Readers might suggest other reasons to vote Green.

New book – Our Explosive Sun includes 143 color illustrations and photos of the Sun, several of
which were made especially for the book and have never been published before.
Additional material, available via Springer Extras, includes a large number of
animations and video material. A PowerPoint presentation of the book is a useful
resource for teachers.
Sent in by Pål Brekke