Following my detour through California after attending the 9th International Conference on Climate Change in Las Vegas, I’m finally back home to find low temperatures in the 50s in Alabama (was Al Gore in town?).

Here are the two presentations I gave. The first presentation briefly summarized our published paper on the role of El Nino in causing about 1/2 of the global-average warming we have seen since the 1950s, and the resulting reduced equilibrium climate sensitivity estimate of 1.3 deg. C.

The second presentation was a very basic overview of what I think we know about “global warming” (almost nothing), and my vexatious consternation over the dearth of scientists who are willing to call for more atmospheric CO2, given all of the observed benefits to humanity and nature. Where is the scientific objectivity on this issue?

Here’s the (mildly entertaining) video of the 2nd talk:


Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream

After attending Heartland’s 9th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC9) in Las Vegas, we drove into the Ivanpah solar generating facility near the Mojave Desert in southern California.

Here’s a Google Earth view, with the location I drove to for a couple of photos:

Ivanpah solar generating plant as depicted by Google Earth, and the location where I took photos from.

With over 170,000 mirror assemblies reflecting sunlight onto 3 steam generating units, the plant is advertised to generate a peak power level of 390 MW.

There were storms in the area, and some of the surrounding land was actually flooded. Only one of the 3 solar arrays was illuminated through a break in the clouds when I was there, seen in this zoom photo:

Northernmost Ivanpah generating tower, surrounded by partly sunlit mirrors.

This wider-angle photo now shows better solar illumination of the far tower, which is accompanied by concentrated sunlight scattered by aerosols in the air around the tower:

Two of the 3 Ivanpah units, with the far unit being illuminated by the sun.

The facility cost $2.2 billion, and Google was even a partial supporter early in the project. It would be interesting to hear how much energy the facility actually generated after a year of operation.

The 9th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC9), organized by the Heartland Institute, is just getting started in Las Vegas, at the beautiful and sprawling Mandalay Bay hotel, casino, and conference center:

Mandalay Bay Hotel, Casino, and Conference Center in Las Vegas.

Follow me…it’s a loooong walk…

Roy Spencer, Bill Gray, and Marc Morano

Weather Channel co-founders John Coleman and Joe D’Aleo

Heartland Institute president Joe Bast opens the conference.

WeatherBell’s Joe Bastardi and Cato’s Pat Michaels

Austrian rapper Kilez More.

On the day we celebrate our liberties, it is ironic — and troubling — that the EPA is attempting to get the authority to garnish the wages of citizens if they are fined for violating EPA regulations.

As described in this article, just the building of a pond on your property that did not get approval from all of the federal agencies who want to interfere with your personal property rights could lead to the government garnishing your wages. No appeal or due process if you want to challenge the EPA’s decision.

It doesn’t matter if the local wildlife loves your new pond. The government can demand you destroy it…or else.

Happy 4th of July.

Refresh the page for the latest:

Latest radar loop:

Our Hurricane Arthur page at Weatherstreet.com.

The Version 5.6 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for June, 2014 is +0.30 deg. C, down slightly from May (click for full size version):

The global, hemispheric, and tropical LT anomalies from the 30-year (1981-2010) average for the last 18 months are:

YR MON GLOBAL NH SH TROPICS
2013 1 +0.497 +0.517 +0.478 +0.386
2013 2 +0.203 +0.372 +0.033 +0.195
2013 3 +0.200 +0.333 +0.067 +0.243
2013 4 +0.114 +0.128 +0.101 +0.165
2013 5 +0.082 +0.180 -0.015 +0.112
2013 6 +0.295 +0.335 +0.255 +0.220
2013 7 +0.173 +0.134 +0.211 +0.074
2013 8 +0.158 +0.111 +0.206 +0.009
2013 9 +0.365 +0.339 +0.390 +0.190
2013 10 +0.290 +0.331 +0.249 +0.031
2013 11 +0.193 +0.160 +0.226 +0.020
2013 12 +0.266 +0.272 +0.260 +0.057
2014 1 +0.291 +0.387 +0.194 -0.029
2014 2 +0.170 +0.320 +0.020 -0.103
2014 3 +0.170 +0.338 +0.002 -0.001
2014 4 +0.190 +0.358 +0.022 +0.092
2014 5 +0.327 +0.325 +0.328 +0.175
2014 6 +0.303 +0.315 +0.290 +0.509

The global image for June should be available in the next day or so here.

Popular monthly data files (these might take a few days to update):

uahncdc_lt_5.6.txt (Lower Troposphere)
uahncdc_mt_5.6.txt (Mid-Troposphere)
uahncdc_ls_5.6.txt (Lower Stratosphere)