NC Media Watch

Joe says no El Nino, at least till 2012

Russ Steele

Now did you like our last La Niña winter? While it is warm and toasty you might spend a few hours getting ready for another La Niña winter according to Joe Bastardi.  Get in some extra wood, buy a snowblower and sign a contract to get the drive way plowed. Another La Niña winter is on the way!

The SST will fall, as it did in the cold event of 08-09 back to levels  that will spur even a greater global temp drop. The forecast for a return to normal for the spring of last year was right, there was a bounce up, that will also end, and the forecast now is for global temps as measured by objective sats to fall as low as -.25 C  by March.   And the models are now showing it,  both the fall of ENSO3.4 temps and global temps.

More details at WUWT.

The latest from the Pew Research - GOP gaining

Russ Steele

Across the nation, white voters are aligning themselves with the GOP according to a survey by the Pew Research Center.  One of our local left bloggers claims that Nevada County is going purple. I wonder if this trend identified by the Pew Research Center is also true in Nevada County?


Exit Question:  Do you think the Pew findings apply to Nevada County?

Cost of CARB: The Nations gas prices are rising to California levels

Russ Steele

The global price of crude oil is moving side ways:


The price of gas in the US is approaching that of California and Nevada County:


Diesel prices are continuing to rise.

 

Exit Question: Why are the US gas prices catching up with California?

Looking for signs of economic recovery in California (updated)

Russ Steele

Editor: More data was added, with a link to an LA Time story on CA employment.

California now has the second highest unemployment in the nation, only Nevada has a higher rate.  While news reports indicate Silicon Valley companies are hiring, some Bay Area counties saw unemplomnent rise from May to June. On the otherhand, two Counties saw a decline in unemployment, San Beninto County saw a 0.8 decline and San Mateo County a 0.7 decline.  

Here are some June 2011 unemployment numbers for other California Counties from CA EDD, with the May numbers in parentheses. The trend is toward more unemployment.

Bay Area Counties:

• San Francisco County, 9.0 percent (8.4 percent)

• San Mateo County, 8.0 percent (8.7 percent)

• Santa Clara County, 10.3 percent ( 9.7 percent)

• San Benito County, 15.8 percent (16.6 percent)

Local  Unemployment:

• Nevada County, 11.4 percent (11.1 percent)

Central Valley Counties:

• Butte County, 14.1 percent; (12.9 percent)

• Fresno County, 16.8 percent; (16.0 percent)

• Kern County, 15.3 percent; (15.0 percent)

• Kings County, 16.7 percent; (15.2 percent)

• Madera County, 15.2 percent; (14.5 percent)

• Merced County, 18.7 percent; (17.8 percent)

• Sacramento County, 12.6 percent; (11.8 percent)

• San Joaquin County, 16.7 percent; (16.2 percent)

• Stanislaus County, 17.2 percent; (16.7 percent)

• Tulare County, 15.8 percent; (15.1 percent)

• Yolo County, 12.1 percent; (11.8 percent)

• Yuba County, 18.3 percent; (17.0 percent)

When the ARRA stimulus program began, California unemployment was 10.1 percent. After spending $17 billion of the $30 billion dollars awarded to California, the states unemployment rate is now at 12.1 percent, up from 11.4 percent.  I guess the stimulus did more harm than good. 

Exit Question: When will we see signs of true economic recovery?

Our near record snow fall may have started in Iceland, Russia, and Alaska

Russ Steele

The snow on Mt. Baker Washington is still five stories tall in the pass, the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park had the lastest opening ever, and record snow fall on Mt. Shasta have the glaciers moving again.

Northern hemisphere volcanos have been very active in Iceland, Russia, and Alaska over the last two years.  These volcanos may have had more of an impact on our climate than we originally thought.

New studies show that volcanic eruptions can eject up to 100 million times more ash than previously thought. One million times! The ash seeds cloud formation, leading to more rain and snow.

A team of researchers in France monitored Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which, beginning on March 20, 2010, ejected an enormous plume of ash into the atmosphere that soon spread across Europe.

The researchers then analyzed how many secondary particles this ash generated as it reacted chemically with other components of the atmosphere.

Their new data showed that when sulphuric acid particles become large enough, they can behave as seeds for cloud formation, thereby increasing the amount of precipitation.

In addition, such seeding particles can form at lower altitudes and farther away from volcanoes than past studies had suggested, causing changes in local and regional weather.

The findings, published online on July 11 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, here, point to the potentially broader climate influence that volcanoes could have.

It was a combination of low solar activity in 1800 and long series of eruptions by Mount Tambora in 1815, that created a year without a summer in 1916 in the Northern hemisphere.  Now the question, is could a series of seperate volcanos across the hemisphere produce enough ash and secondary particles to produce a future year without a summer?  We live in interesting times.

Over the e-mail transom: Tribute to Staff Sergeant Russell Jeremiah Proctor

Russ Steele

A regular reader sent me to this YouTube video and I want to share it with you. We must not forget the sacrifice that our young people are making for the security of this nation.



The text of this tribute can be found here.

Cost of Obama: Gulf Oil Slowdown Costing 230,000 Jobs!

Russ Steele

The House of Representative has published a report that examines the lost jobs that are the results of Obama's regulatory policies:

The oil lease regulatory process is holding holding back oil exploration and production activity in the Gulf of Mexico. This delay is preventing economic benefits that will spread past the gulf states, to the entire country  if only the gulf oil activity activity were allowed to  match industry capacity.

ooo

The study looks at the plan and permit levels in the six months following the lifting of the deepwater activity moratorium in October 2010. The analysis finds a:
    •    250% increase in the backlog of deepwater plans pending governmental approval
    •    86% drop in the pace of regulatory approvals for plans
    •    60% drop in all GoM drilling permits
    •    38% increase in the time required to reach each regulatory approval required.
   
One unexpected finding from the study was that “an increase in oil and gas activity reverberates throughout the broader economy,” said James Diffley, senior director of IHS Global Insight’s U.S. Regional Economic Group. “Each new hire (in the Gulf) results, on average, in more than three additional jobs in an array of industries around the country” – not just in the Gulf region.

You can read the rest of the report here.  In Spain they discovered that the creation of green jobs destroyed 2.5 jobs in the regular work force. According to this report one job in the oil industry creates three jobs in industries across the nation. Seems clear to me, that Obama should be focused on drilling for oil and gas and not spending taxpayer funded subsides to build wind and solar energy facilities. Facilities that raise the price of energy and kill jobs in other industries across the nation.

Are these changes in the climate caused by fewer sunspots?

Russ Steele

According to Henrik Svensmark's theory, cosmic rays impact the formation of clouds on the earth. The cosmic rays come from the cosmos.  However, the solar wind modulates the number of cosmic rays that reach the atmosphere. When the sun is very active, with multiple sun spots, the solar wind is much stronger and deflects some of the cosmic rays.  A quiet sun, with fewer sunspots, results in more cosmic rays reaching the lower atmosphere.

More comic rays = more clouds = a cooler planet.

Solar Cycle 23 was long and drawn out with a slow start to Solar Cycle 24,  as shown in this graphic. You can also see that SC-24 is projected to be much lower in intensity than SC-23. The accumulative result is a weaker solar wind and more cosmic rays reaching the atmosphere.


With fewer sunspots, there should be more cosmic rays and more clouds according to the theory.  The question in my mind, are we seeing any signatures in the climate that indicate more clouds are cooling the planet?

Here are two data plots for your consideration, starting with ten years of average US temperatures.


Here is a plot of sea levels, which as you can see they are declining, indicating the oceans are cooling, however, these changes are lagging behind the decline in the sun spots. Just like it takes while for kettle on the stove to cool once the heat is removed, the oceans should also take some time to adjust to more cloud cover which is blocking the suns heat. 


The question is, are these changes the result of fewer sunspots and more cosmic rays that have created cooling clouds or some other factors. Stay Tuned! 

Over the e-mail transom: Grinding Down America

Russ Steele

A regular reader sent me this video.  As a cold war vet, I am have a hard time refuting the facts presented in the video, perhaps some of NCMW's readers have read the documents referenced in the video and can provide more insight.

 

When the facts do not lie

Russ Steele

What else can you say? I wonder is there is a similar chart for California jobs, after AB32 was passed?