Miliband’s wind farms could cripple UK ‘Iron Dome’ anti-missile systems, defence experts warn

Posted: March 15, 2026 by oldbrew in Electro-magnetism, Energy, government, net zero, News, opinion, turbines, wind
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Unintended consequences for dogmatic net zero advocates to try and explain away. Quote: “It’s fair to say wind-farms and radar are not a great mix.”
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Britain is a ‘sitting duck’ in the face of drone attacks because Ed Miliband’s wind farms interfere with radar-based defensive domes, senior defence sources have claimed.

Ministers have been warned the UK lacks any equivalent to Israel’s famous ‘Iron Dome’, which gives it the capability to intercept ballistic missiles at high altitude from 40 miles away, says the Daily Mail (via MSN).

Military chiefs have called for the Treasury to allocate the estimated £10billion required for the system – but have so far been promised only £1billion to scope out options.

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Earth’s Spin ‘Is Slowing at a Pace Not Seen in Millions of Years’ – but last year it was speeding up?

Posted: March 14, 2026 by oldbrew in Measurement, media, News
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Media in a spin?
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Published March 13, 2026
The new study described this “almost unprecedented rate of increase” in the length of an average day as a quantifiable consequence of Earth’s rising oceans, says Gizmodo.
. . .
Published June 23, 2025
Earth’s Rotation Just Hit a New Record— Here’s What That Means for Us

The Earth is spinning faster than ever, and it could lead to the shortest day on record, says the Daily Galaxy.

Tropical timings – a 983-year or ‘Eddy’ cycle

Posted: March 12, 2026 by oldbrew in Cycles, data, research, solar system dynamics
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Using planetary data from our tropical timings posts we offer a formula for this proposed cycle. Here’s a reference to it by Nicola Scafetta from the PRP paper: The complex planetary synchronization structure of the solar system – ‘the quasi-millennial oscillation (∼ 983 yr) found in both climate and solar records (Bond et al., 2001).’

See also Figure 7[B] below where ‘Harmonic P=983 yr’.
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In a more recent paper: Reconstruction of the Interannual to Millennial Scale Patterns of the Global Surface Temperature (2021), Scafetta says [bold added]:

Note that the millennial temperature oscillation, which was theoretically estimated to be 983 years (Scafetta [72]), is skewed having theoretical maxima in 1077 and 2060 (which were determined from astronomical considerations), and a minimum in 1680 during the Maunder solar grand minimum. This is why Equation (7) could represent the millennial oscillation using two truncated harmonics: note that 1206/2 + 760/2 = 983. The skewness is likely induced by additional multi-secular oscillations that are ignored here [2]. The reported equation is valid only within the interval 1077–2060 because it describes only one temperature millennial cycle.”

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Antarctic sea ice rebounds in 2026, nearing average after four years

Posted: March 10, 2026 by oldbrew in Natural Variation, satellites, sea ice, Uncertainty, wind
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This looks a lot like natural variation. Here it’s called ‘the 16th smallest’ since 1979, another way of saying about a third of the years since then were ‘smaller’. Hardly a convincing or even obvious decline of any great significance. How can any of this be realistically connected to human activities?
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Antarctic sea ice coverage has likely rebounded this year, coming closer to its annual summer average after four years of extreme lows, US scientists said Monday.

The area covered by Antarctic sea ice likely reached its annual minimum level at 2.58 million square kilometers (996,000 square miles) on Feb. 26, according to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Every year Antarctic sea ice reaches a minimum level during the Southern Hemisphere’s summer, so this is the point that scientists measure it for annual readings, says Phys.org.

This year’s level ranks as the 16th smallest since satellite measurements began in 1979.
. . .
The NSIDC cautioned that the 2026 figure is preliminary, noting that “continued melt conditions or strong onshore winds could still push the ice extent lower.”

“This year’s return to less extreme conditions is not unexpected given the large year-to-year variation of Antarctic sea ice seen in the satellite record,” said Walt Meier, scientist at the NASA NSIDC Distributed Active Archive Center.

Full article here.
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Image: Antarctic sea ice [image credit: BBC]

New Study: Ice Core Data Shows Modern Warming Is Statistically Unremarkable

Posted: March 7, 2026 by oldbrew in Analysis, data, Natural Variation, Temperature
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This article cites a post at NoTricksZone (here), which in turn cites the work of Professor Les Hatton: (Is a 1.1°C Rise in a Century Unusual? A Study of Interglacials in the Epica-Vostok Dataset). The study concludes: ‘The current interglacial is nothing special. It is currently still more than 3°C cooler than the peak of the last one about 130,000 years ago (which was by assumption entirely free of anthropogenic effect) and the degree of variability in this data is much the same now as then. Given then that a rise of 1.1°C is quite commonplace in this current interglacial and that none of the earlier occurrences could have been affected by anthropogenic activity, this raises the question of why we are trying to attribute the current rise to anthropogenic effects as if it was unusual.’ — ‘We’ meaning the IPCC and its supporters of climate alarm, who propose that a strong greenhouse effect in the atmosphere suddenly took off in the 19th century when the industrial age got going, overtaking everything else in importance to the state of the global climate.
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There is nothing unprecedented or even significant about modern warming magnitudes or rates, says Climate Dispatch.

A new statistical probability analysis (Hatton, 2026) using Vostok temperature data indicates the reported 1.1°C global warming over the last century (since the 1920s) is “not even unusual” within the context of the last 20,000 years, as “16% of the centuries since the end of the last Ice Age show a rise at least as big [1.1°C] as the current century.”

As current warming rates are “quite commonplace,” this calls into question the push to attribute temperature changes to human activity.

Antarctic ice cores are routinely used to represent not only global-scale CO2 records, but also global temperature records over the last 800,000 years.

Interestingly, if we compare modern Antarctica to paleo Antarctica, we learn “no continent-scale warming of Antarctic temperature is evident in the last century.”

Continued here.
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Image: Ice core sample [credit: Discovering Antarctica]

Tropical timings – another look at the Pease/Glenn paper on solar and Jose cycles

Posted: March 2, 2026 by oldbrew in Cycles, data, research, solar system dynamics
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In this Talkshop post (2016): Gerry Pease Links Improved and Updated Solar-Planetary paper, the abstract of the linked paper (title: Long Term Sunspot Cycle Phase Coherence with Periodic Phase Disruptions) says:

Figure 3 shows that all of the barycentric solar torque cycles in the 179 year Jose Cycle 1878-2057 (red) are surprisingly phase and magnitude coherent with the torque cycles in the previous Jose Cycle 1699-1878 (blue).

Note: the Jose Cycle is a period equivalent to that of 9 Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions (alternatively, of 15 solar barycentric orbits).

The paper also says, on page 4:

The period 1968 to 1976 is sunspot phase coherent with 1789 to 1797 and also with 1610 to 1618 if the uncertainties of sunspot cycle reconstructions for that time period are taken into account.

On page 8, section 1.2 Sunspot Cycle Phase Disruptive Periods (Figures 13-18) says:

The next six figures (Figures 13 – 18) show the solar paths during and immediately after the Figure 5 torque plateaus of 1609-1618, 1787-1796, and 1966-1976.

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Ocean carbon ‘major blind spots’ may (or must?) skew climate forecasts

Posted: February 27, 2026 by oldbrew in climate, Critique, data, modelling, Ocean dynamics, predictions, Uncertainty
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After decades of peddling carbon dioxide scares – this ‘glaring uncertainty’ emerges. We read: ‘Climate models built on incomplete data’. Hardly news, in general terms, as that’s one reason for having models in the first place. But if ‘major blind spots remain in our scientific understanding of this process’ (ocean carbon storage), with significant discrepancy levels cited (10-20%, sometimes more) any attempt to use climate models for government policy must surely be flawed from the start.
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A new report by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO reveals a critical lack of understanding of how the ocean absorbs and stores carbon, says Phys.org.

This glaring uncertainty about our planet’s largest carbon sink threatens to skew current climate predictions, and hamper our ability to develop effective mitigation and adaptation strategies in the coming decades.

The report also lays out a roadmap to bolster international cooperation, strengthen ocean carbon monitoring and update climate models accordingly.

“The ocean is one of our strongest climate allies, absorbing a large share of the carbon we emit,” said Khaled El-Enany, UNESCO Director-General. “Yet we still lack a full understanding of how this natural defense functions—or how long it can endure. Coordinated global monitoring of ocean carbon absorption is therefore essential and urgent.

“This report reaffirms UNESCO’s commitment to supporting Member States in developing climate policies based on robust science to advance this goal.”

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UK winter nowhere near a record breaker despite relentless rain and storms, says BBC

Posted: February 27, 2026 by oldbrew in Analysis, MET office, Natural Variation, weather
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While some parts of the country have had a very wet winter and significant flooding, others have actually been drier than normal, as Ben Rich explains. Blocking patterns in the jet stream again. Still the usual evidence-free waffle (‘according to the Met Office’) about greenhouse gases at the end of the article though.
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If you have been hit by relentless rain and flooding this winter you might well be expecting the weather to have broken some records.

Provisional statistics from the Met Office show that is not the case, with rainfall so far this season, for the UK as a whole, just 9% above average overall – wet, but far from the wettest.

However those national figures mask some huge regional variations. Some parts of southern England are on course for their second-wettest winter on record, while much of north-west Scotland has been significantly drier than normal.

It is largely down to a blocked weather pattern that sent rain into the same parts of the country repeatedly for much of the winter and left others predominantly dry.

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‘Disaster’! Climate groups slam Germany for scrapping renewable heating law

Posted: February 26, 2026 by oldbrew in climate, Emissions, Energy, net zero, Politics
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“Habeck’s heating hammer” set to bite the dust. Maybe net zero zealotry is not the complete answer to modern energy supply after all, despite what its supporters keep claiming.
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A revision of an existing law will now allow homeowners to use oil and gas as heating fuel instead, says Euronews.

Germany’s government has drawn heavy criticism from environmental groups after it agreed to remove parts of a controversial law on heating homes.

The legislation previously stated that newly installed heating systems were required to use at least 65 per cent renewable energy – such as a heat pump.

The reform will now allow homeowners to use oil and gas instead.
[Talkshop comment – some amount of biofuel or biogas may be added].

One critic has called the move “an unconditional fulfilment of all the wishes of the fossil fuel lobby”.

The law on renewable heating sources was passed in 2023, and hailed by climate experts as one of the most ambitious goals of the centre-left-led government in power at the time.

But critics pointed to the challenges presented by rising inflation, with one newspaper calling the bill “Habeck’s heating hammer”, referring to the legislation’s author, Robert Habeck of the Green Party.

Full article here.
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Image: German wind ‘farm’

Are The Strongest Nor’easters Getting Stronger? What The Data Actually Shows

Posted: February 25, 2026 by oldbrew in alarmism, Analysis, climate, data, media, propaganda, research, Uncertainty, weather
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‘How scientific uncertainty morphed into media certainty’ – some climate industry propaganda tactics exposed, featuring the well-known US Nor’easters.
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As New England digs out from a historic blizzard, today’s post takes a deep and technical dive into recent research — Chen et al. 2025 — claiming that Nor’easters have become detectably more intense over recent decades, says Roger Pielke Jr. @ Climate Dispatch.

That research asserts:

Our analysis of nor’easter characteristics reveals that the strongest nor’easters are becoming stronger . . .’

Taking advantage of AI tools, I have replicated and extended the analysis. As is far too common in high-profile climate research, the top-line claims of the paper do not survive scrutiny.

Public commentary by the paper’s senior author and subsequent media reporting provide a case study in how uncertain and ambiguous findings are turned into strong claims expressed with absolute certainty.
. . .
The bottom line: Chen et al. take on a worthwhile question, but its headline claims, and those that followed publication, go meaningfully beyond what the data can currently support.

Follow-on public discussion by its senior authors and in the media depart even further from what evidence and analysis can support. Worthwhile findings of uncertainty and ambiguity are transformed into unquestioned certainty in support of a narrative that everything is getting worse.
. . .
The supplementary analysis to Chen et al. includes information that dramatically undercuts the headline findings that were picked up and amplified by the media.

Full article here.
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Image: Nor’easter [credit: NOAA]

Rethinking climate change: New paper by Nicola Scafetta

Posted: February 21, 2026 by oldbrew in climate, IPCC, modelling, Natural Variation, net zero, opinion, predictions, research, Temperature
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Highlights:
•This paper discusses a number of key open issues in climate science.

•It argues that global climate models still fail on natural variability at all scales.

•Global climate models also likely exaggerate ECS [equilibrium climate sensitivity] and downplay solar influences.

•Empirical alternatives project moderate warming, challenging Net-Zero policies.

•New models that better reflect natural climate drivers and variations are needed.
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Current global climate models (GCMs) support with high confidence the view that rising greenhouse gases and other anthropogenic forcings account for nearly all observed global surface warming—slightly above 1°C—since the pre-industrial period (1850–1900), writes Nicola Scafetta @ Phys.org.

This is the conclusion presented in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) published in 2021.

Moreover, the GCM projections for the 21st century, produced under different socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), underpin estimates of future climate impacts and guide net-zero mitigation strategies worldwide.

The prevailing interpretation is that only net-zero climate policies can keep future climate change-related damages within acceptable limits.

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US to West’s energy watchdog: scrap net zero focus or we’ll quit

Posted: February 20, 2026 by oldbrew in Emissions, Energy, government, net zero, News, Politics
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Good luck trying to prise the EU, UK and a few others away from their pointless and damaging net zero climate obsessions. The only zero to date is the effect on temperatures, despite massive expense and widespread environmental damage.
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PARIS: US Energy Secretary Chris Wright gave the International Energy Agency on Thursday a one-year deadline to scrap its support of goals to reduce energy emissions to net zero or risk losing the United States as a member, reports Business Recorder.

European countries played down the threat at the agency’s biennial meeting and restated their commitment to pursuing cleaner fuel. [Talkshop comment – being clean was never the point of net zero].

In 2015 the US and nearly 200 other countries signed the Paris Accords, an international pledge to limit global warming by burning less oil, gas and coal, with a goal of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

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Study finds reduction of aerosols and cloud cover drives increase in solar radiation in Europe

Posted: February 18, 2026 by oldbrew in aerosols, atmosphere, Clouds, Natural Variation, research
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More sun reaching the ground raises the temperature, no trace gas variation necessary. Projects to reduce, or slow the increase of, carbon dioxide look irrelevant in the face of the data.
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Solar radiation warms and illuminates our planet, says Phys.org.

It is the primary driver behind the movement of clouds and wind, helps keep us warm, and governs activity through daily and seasonal cycles.

However, over the past 30 years, a complex combination of reduced atmospheric aerosol pollution (tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere), global warming [Talkshop comment – circular argument], and changes in cloud cover has led to a significant increase in solar radiation levels in Europe, according to a new study co-authored by the University of Málaga (UMA), the University of Murcia (UMU), and Solargis, a solar-sector company specializing in data and software.

The data show that solar radiation reaching the European surface increased by 2.4 watts per square meter per decade (equivalent to a total of 4.8%) during the period from 1994 to 2023.

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Tropical timings – planetary science from Canada confirms Talkshop data

Posted: February 15, 2026 by oldbrew in data, Maths, solar system dynamics
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Support for the Talkshop ‘tropical timings’ series of posts comes in an article: Heliocentric Conjunctions of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune for the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in 2003, published by NASA.

Author Jim Decandole (JD) calculated his own planetary data for the four giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune). The results agree with the solar simulator we’ve been using to verify our own ‘tropical’ numbers.

In his own words [image credit – researchgate.net]:
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Trump Admin ‘Delivers Single Largest Deregulatory Action in U.S. History’

Posted: February 13, 2026 by oldbrew in atmosphere, Emissions, government, Legal, News
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The Oval Office


As expected, the EPA now says ‘flawed legal theory took the agency outside the scope of its statutory authority in multiple respects.’ AP News says: ‘The repeal eliminates all greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and trucks and could unleash a broader undoing of climate regulations on stationary sources such as power plants and oil and gas facilities, experts say. Legal challenges are near certain.’ The battle continues.
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EPA press release:
WASHINGTON – Alongside President Trump in the White House’s Roosevelt Room, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history. In this final rule, EPA is saving American taxpayers over $1.3 trillion, eliminating both the Obama-era 2009 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Endangerment Finding and all subsequent federal GHG emission standards for all vehicles and engines of model years 2012 to 2027 and beyond.[etc.]
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Sky News: Trump ‘guts climate laws’ by abandoning acceptance that greenhouse gases endanger health

Donald Trump has just gone for the jugular of climate legislation.

MPs fear data centre boom could derail Miliband’s net zero plans

Posted: February 12, 2026 by oldbrew in data, Emissions, Energy, government, net zero, Politics
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The public finds his net zero plans derail their budgets when it comes to energy bills. Climate obsession and data centre expansion both squeeze power availability, one due to intermittency and the other to its 24/7 high consumption.
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Ed Miliband has been urged to explain whether a planned boom in energy-hungry data centres has been factored into his plans to deliver net zero carbon emissions, says BBC News.

In a letter to the energy secretary, Labour MP Toby Perkins, who chairs the Environmental Audit Committee, said data centres are a “key area of concern” in hitting the emissions target.

Data centres are giant facilities full of powerful computers used to run digital services, such as streaming and artificial intelligence (AI).

The government has backed plans for many more to be built to help turn the UK into an “AI superpower”, despite the large amounts of electricity needed to run them, including from gas-powered generators. [Talkshop comment – gasp!]

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Residence time of Hunga stratospheric water vapour perturbation quantified at 9 years

Posted: February 10, 2026 by oldbrew in atmosphere, research, satellites, Temperature, Uncertainty, volcanos
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A return to ‘pre-Hunga’ conditions is expected around 2030, according to a paper by Zhou et al, which says: ‘Despite its critical importance for accurately predicting the near-term climate impact, estimating how long the Hunga-injected excess stratospheric water (HEW) will persist has been challenging.’ Various theories and claims have emerged (e.g. see this Talkshop post) since the eruption, concerning its potential and/or actual effects. The authors state: ‘Water vapour, as one of the most prominent greenhouse gases [1], can effectively alter radiative forcing and influence global surface temperature once it enters the stratosphere [2].’ An earlier study was said in a report to have found that ‘This underwater volcano’s impact has now been linked to measurable cooling across the Southern Hemisphere as well as other unusual atmospheric changes.’
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Abstract
The January 2022 eruption of the Hunga volcano (20°S) injected 150 Tg of water vapour into the middle atmosphere, leading to an increase in the stratospheric water burden of 10%, unprecedented in the observational record. In the first two years post eruption the stratospheric burden hardly changed, leaving the residence time of volcanically injected water vapour, a key control on its climate impact, uncertain. Here, using satellite observations, we show a substantial decline from 2024 to early 2025, the largest drop since the eruption. Comparison with 3-D numerical model simulations shows that the long-term removal of the Hunga water has now entered a new phase, with stratosphere-troposphere exchange playing an increasingly important role, exceeding Antarctic dehydration in 2024. We estimate that the additional stratospheric water vapour is now decaying steadily with an e-folding time of 3 years and will reach the observed pre-Hunga range of variability around 2030.
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Image: Hunga Tonga eruption

Update from Thwaites Glacier: when science doesn’t go your way – British Antarctic Survey

Posted: February 8, 2026 by oldbrew in data, Geology, glaciers, Ocean dynamics, research, sea levels
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The scientists are in effect investigating the disputed hypothesis that if Thwaites Glacier goes, the glaciers being ‘shielded’ behind it could or would soon follow. Even Wikipedia points out that this idea has its opponents in some science quarters.
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Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and South Korea (KOPRI) have concluded a highly ambitious field operation at Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica, after instruments deployed during hot-water drilling became lodged within the ice during the final stage of the mission.

The international team was working to install long-term oceanographic instruments beneath Thwaites Glacier, one of the most remote, rapidly changing and unstable glaciers in Antarctica, says the BAS.

The instruments were designed to provide the first sustained measurements of ocean conditions beneath the glacier’s fast-moving main trunk — data that are critical for improving predictions of future ice loss and global sea-level rise.

Thwaites Glacier plays a key role in the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. [Talkshop comment – some scientists believe].

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Sea level paranoia: Why scientists want to build a wall along the ‘Doomsday Glacier’

Posted: February 6, 2026 by oldbrew in alarmism, climate, geo-engineering, sea levels
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Another round of alarmist fearmongering supposedly in the name of science, this time at the old favourite of the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica, which is in a region known to be loaded with underwater volcanoes. The plan is said to be ambitious, but some might say an 80 km wall in the ice tests the boundaries of sanity.
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The ‘Doomsday Glacier’ already contributes four per cent of annual sea level rise, but can the consequences of climate change be barricaded off? – asks Euronews.

A global group of scientists, engineers and policy experts has unveiled an ambitious plan to build a wall along the ‘Doomsday Glacier’ as flooding fears continue to grow. [Talkshop comment – whose fears?]

Located on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, Thwaites Glacier earned its apocalyptical name due to its potential impact on sea levels. Covering a vast 192,000 km², making it comparable in size to Great Britain, the glacier is melting at an unprecedented rate due to human-fuelled climate change.

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UK Government to unlock advanced nuclear to grow economy — press release

Posted: February 5, 2026 by oldbrew in Energy, government, net zero, News, Nuclear power
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Government publishes Advanced Nuclear Framework to get pioneering nuclear technology off the ground, says the official press release. Will any of this lead to new power sources in time to meet ever-rising demand, with an increasingly intermittent ‘net zero’ electricity grid plus ongoing retirement of old nuclear sites in the next ten years or so? They sell nuclear as ‘clean energy’ but the cost of its own clean-up is massive.
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Summary:
— Plans to speed up building of pioneering nuclear technology to power AI boom and grow economy with clean energy
— Government to recognise most credible advanced nuclear projects to help unlock private investment and get projects off the ground
— New nuclear projects could create thousands of jobs across the country as part of nuclear “golden age”

Britain could see some of the world’s first advanced nuclear power stations powering factories and AI data centres, as part of the government’s “golden age” of nuclear to support jobs, drive growth and protect billpayers with homegrown clean energy.

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