The sun has gone completely blank. There are currently no visible sunspots ‚Äì a sure sign of an approaching solar minimum ‚Äì and this is the first spotless day on the sun since 2014. In fact, there has been only one spotless day on the sun since 2011 ‚Äì until today that is. The current solar cycle is the 24th since 1755 when extensive recording of solar sunspot activity began. Solar cycle number 24 is the weakest solar cycle in more than a century with the fewest sunspots since cycle 14 peaked in February 1906. –Paul Dorian, Vencore Weather, 4 June 2016
From June 1997 to January 2016 global temperatures made a pause. The powerful El Ni√±o event of late 2015 has temporarily ended the warming pause. Using UAH satellite data, since March the temperature has been falling as the warming effects of the recent El Ni√±o fade. Since the El Ni√±o has faded, the oncoming projected cooling La Ni√±a is expected to arrive over the coming months: El Ni√±o is dead, La Ni√±a lives! ‚Äì ENSO update May 2016. Thus it may be only a question of months before the global warming pause resumes and the Earth cools with the weak sun. –Schneefan, No Tricks Zone, 4 June 2016
Activist scientists and lobby groups have distorted surveys, maps and data to misrepresent the extent and impact of coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, according to the chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Russell Reichelt. A full survey of the reef released yesterday by the authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science said 75 per cent of the reef would escape unscathed. Dr Reichelt said there had been widespread misinterpretation of how much of the reef had died. “Based on our combined results so far, the overall mortality rate is 22 per cent — and about 85 per cent of that die-off has occurred in the far north between the tip of Cape York and just north of Lizard Island, 250km north of Cairns. Seventy-five per cent of the reef will come out in a few months time as recovered.” –Graham Lloyd, The Australian, 4 June 2016
A new study claims to shed some light on the Antarctic’s resilience to global warming. Climate models predict that global warming should be most evident at the poles. But sea ice in the Antarctic has not been melting but has actually increased. —GWPF Climate Briefing, June 2016
ENGLAND is simply not windy enough to justify more onshore wind turbines, the head of the industry’s trade body admitted yesterday. Hugh McNeal, the chief executive of RenewableUK, said that ‚Äì while there was still a case for more onshore farms elsewhere in the UK ‚Äì wind speeds in England were just not strong enough for new turbines to make economic sense. Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Forum, said Mr McNeal’s comments were a ‘cry by a desperate lobbyist who is conceding that wind turbines can only survive if the Government continues to hand out the cash’. He added: ‘But it is ordinary families that are paying for these subsidies and they continue to rise ‚Äì renewables are predicted to cost us ¬£8billion in subsidies by 2020.’ –Liz Hull, Daily Mail, 6 June 2016
Two investors are betting they can make a profit from coal by burning hardly any of it. Daniel Kretinsky, 40, and Patrik Tkac, 43, are trying to capitalize on Europe’s rapid expansion into renewables by embracing the fuel, a mainstay of European energy before efforts to curb global warming, in its new role as a backup for when the wind dies down and the sun fails to shine. They’ve secured a deal in a U.K. auction where the biggest payout will be about $87 million for keeping a plant on winter standby. Such backup provisions may mean subsidies and taxes will make up almost half of European electricity bills by 2020, he said. That’s up from about 36 percent now, according to Eurelectric, the utility lobby group. –Mathew Carr, Ladka Mortkowitz Bauerova and Rachel Morison, Bloomberg, 3 June 2016
