OGPSS - The Oil that lies Offshore California

Last week I covered some of the early history of the development of the oil industry in California, and briefly mentioned the difficulties in integrating an ongoing oil industry into a thriving surface community. I thought to take this ongoing debate offshore this week, since one of the remaining most productive regions in California (???*) is actually offshore. It is also where the “Drill, Baby, Drill” argument runs into fervent environmental opposition.

Oil and Gas Fields off Santa Barbara (CA Conservation )

The events following the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last summer were probably the first times that most folk realized that there are not only seeps of oil on land which have been used to show where oil might be found, but that these also occur out in the Gulf and in the ocean. Part of the discussion last summer was about identifying some of the plumes of oil found in the Gulf, to ensure that they did come from the Macondo well, and not from the natural seeps that continue to flow to this day. These seeps are also found off the coast of California, with the most famous being those around Coal Oil Point just off Santa Barbara.

Seeps off Santa Barbara (Bubbleology – the COP Seep Field )

The presence of the seeps is detected onshore through the oil slicks that appear on the sea surface, and the tar balls that wash up on the beach. And without seeking to defend the oil industry, they were coming ashore before there was a well offshore CA, and will continue to come ashore long after the wells are abandoned. (Not that this will stop the protests). Natural gas can often also bubble out from these seeps, and with recent concerns over climate change, this is helping drive additional studies of them .

As oil exploration spread up through California from Los Angeles it reached the town of Summerland and the early wells were drilled onshore. However producers noticed that the wells nearest the coast were the more productive and so, in 1887 H.L. Williams ran a jetty out into the sea some 300 ft, and sank an oilwell from it. It came in as a producer and, as the postcard below shows, before long there were several such piers running out into the sea, with the longest being some 1,200 ft. Other companies tried to access the oil offshore through slanted drilling from onshore wells.

Tinted postcard of the oilwells off Summerland CA

The first fully offshore drilling platform and well was carried out in the Gulf of Mexico in 1947, a region I will come back to later, but it provided the tool to help further develop the resources off-shore in California. The first offshore well in California was drilled in 1956. (Platform Hazel) (which seemed to attract fish ). It was removed in 1996). Unfortunately those early wells were plugged and abandoned as the oil ran out before current regulations were in place. And so there is some concern at present that the 400 wells that lie along the coast from Summerland to Santa Barbara may have started leaking – as there has been a recent increase in oil coming ashore.

(the wells) were left for dead, with a wide variety of rather inadequate capping techniques such as using logs, trash, telephone poles, and rocks to block up the oil-spilling sea-floor sores.

Acknowledging this situation, the county’s head of the Office of Emergency Services, Michael Harris, told the supervisors “The wells were either just abandoned or capped inappropriately … really whatever they could do to stop the leaking was used.”

The ongoing questions as to where the oil is coming from (old wells or from natural seeps) is therefore a continuing concern along the Western Seaboard. But it was not the leakage from abandoned wells that has had the greatest impact on American oil production. That came on January 28, 1969 in the Santa Barbara channel, when the third worst oil spill in American history (after the Deepwater Horizon and Exxon Valdez spills) occurred on the Union Oil Alpha platform.

pipe was being extracted from a 3,500 foot deep well. The pressure difference created by the extraction of the pipe was not sufficiently compensated for by the pumping of drilling mud back down the well, which caused a disastrous pressure increase.

As the pressure built up and started to strain the casing on the upper part of the well, an emergency attempt was made to cap it, but this action only succeeded in further increasing the pressure inside the well. The consequence was that under extreme pressure a burst of natural gas blew out all of the drilling mud, split the casing and caused cracks to form in the seafloor surrounding the well. A simple solution to the problem was now impossible; due to the immense pressure involved and the large volume of oil and natural gas being released a “blowout” occurred and the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill was under way.

Around three million gallons of oil escaped before the injection of mud stopped the flow. Because the flow was so close to shore the oil reached nearby beaches along 35 miles of the coast, layering oil up to six inches thick onto them, and causing a catastrophe to local wildlife. Public outrage was immediate, and the Environmental Movement was given an immediate boost with the creation of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, and the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) followed in 1970. Within California the Coastal Commission was formed, and the State Land Commission banned offshore drilling in coastal waters for 16 years. The first Earth Day was held that year.

However, further offshore (beyond 3 miles) the Federal Government has jurisdiction and the first Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) well had been drilled in federal waters in 1967 (Platform Hogan). By December 2009 that platform had produced 20.4 million barrels of oil and about 20.8 billion cu ft of natural gas, with 12 wells in production on the platform. In 2003 23 of the 27 platforms offshore were in Federal waters and all supported multiple wells.

Drilling multiple wells from individual platforms is common in this region, and, among other things has the advantage of limiting the obvious visual impact of the rigs on the view. There is considerable concern over new drilling in coastal waters, and even drilling slant holes from existing wells to reach oil has been frowned on by the Lands Commission. There are moves in the US Congress to encourage more development off California, but it remains very controversial. Further the recent controversy over the impact from hydraulic fracturing of gas wells has now reached Santa Barbara and is raising concerns, even onshore.

It is difficult, at this time, to predict the future for this region – environmental pressure is great in restricting further development within the coastal areas under State control, and there are a number of known fields that lie within that limit. Beyond it lies the OCS where the pressure of rising prices might help encourage further drilling, sadly emotion may have greater impact than reality. At the same time with all this potential activity, the reserves offshore are seen by the EIA to be falling. (H/t jjhman )



However, as JoulesBurn noted in commenting on my last post, 77% of Californian production now comes from Kern County, and so we’ll have to wander up to Bakersfield next before leaving California.

Mississippi combined temperatures

There are 32 USHCN stations in Mississippi, from Aberdeen to Yazoo City, and there are two GISS stations on the list for the state, one at Meridian and one in Jackson..

Location of the USHCN stations in Mississippi

Downloading the data, the Meridian station has a record for the entire period. But the peak temperature in the city happened some time ago:

GISS temperature record for Meridian MS (GISS )

On the other hand the station in Jackson has only been recording data since 1948, and is another one of the truncated stations that seem so common in the list.

Historic temperature record for Jackson MS, (GISS )

As with Meridian, the recent temperatures do not appear to have been the highest within the station’s history.

There was just a little confusion as to where the two University locations cited were located, and, after checking the locations with Google Earth it turns out that State University is at Starkville, while University is at Oxford.

There is a difference between the GISS average and that of the USHCN sites., with the average being a 0.96 deg F increase in going to the GISS data.


The USHCN homogenized data does show that the temperature in the state has increased over the past 115 years, but only at the rate of 0.12 deg F per century. When one looks at the TOBS data, the raw data shows that the temperature in the state has fallen in that time frame, at a rate of about 0.76 deg F per century.


Mississippi has only a short coastal exposure to the Gulf of Mexico. It is 340 miles long and 170 miles wide. It runs from roughly 88 dg W to 91.67 deg W, and from 30. 22 deg N to 35 deg N. The center of the state has a latitude of 32.715 deg N, while the USHCN is at 32.8 deg N, and that of the GISS stations is at 32.32 deg N. The state has a mean elevation of 91.4 m, ranging from seal-level to 245.6 m above sea level. The USHCN network has an average elevation of 85.9 m, while the GISS pair average 96.6 m.

Looking at how the geography affects the temperature averages for the state, using the TOBS data, I start with the effect of changing latitude.


I use the TOBS data because it has not been manipulated as the homogenized data from the USHCN have been. The problem with the homogenized data is that it does a certain amount of averaging that can lower the correlation with geographic factors. And this can be illustrated, for example, by comparing the above figure, which uses the Time of Observation corrected raw data, with the plot using the homogenized values.


The correlation coefficient, which is 0.92 with the TOBS data, falls to 0.78 with the homogenized values for temperature.

Looking at Longitude:



The land falls, on average, as one moves west, and so the temperature rises. As I have mentioned before I believe, and this change in correlation supports it, that the correlation is an artifact based on changes in elevation.


The regression coefficient changes from 0.226 to 0.113 when the data is homogenized.

Looking at the effects of population, the trend is in the opposite direction to that in many states, falling as the cities grow in size.


Which leaves only the comparison between the homogenized data and the TOBS temperatures, over the century.

The OPEC June Monthly Oil Market Report is timely

With the turmoil in the Middle East and North African countries (MENA) now more evident in nature, the impacts on global oil production can be more rationally assessed. In this vein the OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) for June has now been released. The main feature article looks at the prospects for the rest of the year, and as Leanan caught in Drumbeat, one of the major concerns has to be that OPEC supply, at current levels (28.97 mbd), does not reach the anticipated average demand for the year (29.9 mbd). However, putting that in context, MOMR begins by noting that the price of the OPEC basket fell $8.15 in May, to $110/bbl, so that there are mixed signals in the air. Further OPEC currently report that they collectively supplied an average of 29.6 mbd in 2010, so that the increase in supply needed over last year is only 0.3 mbd.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, the disputes within OPEC have so far left the organization unwilling to sanction the increases needed to meet the anticipated imbalance. Whether this is a ploy by Saudi Arabia (KSA) to appear “friendly” to the customer, while bowing to majority rule and keeping supply tight enough to force prices higher, or whether the KSA will unilaterally release more oil is currently in question. The level of increase that KSA has suggested, 1.5 mbd, may appear to be larger than that needed to bring supply and demand into balance. Demand is, however, seasonal, and is expected to maximize in the third quarter, during which global demand is expected to rise some 2.3 mbd, with growth continuing with a further addition of 0.2 mbd in the fourth quarter. Thus, in that context, it is interesting to see how the MOMR reflects the current organizational view of the next six months.

OPEC anticipated levels of demand for 2011. (June MOMR)

OPEC continues, as it has in past months, to anticipate a global increase in demand of some 1.4 mbd overall, led by economic growth in China and India. Given that this is an average over the year, with second-half increases offsetting first-half declines (which includes the drop in demand from Japan) this explains the larger supply need that will be required to keep markets in balance in the second half, at which time Japan is anticipated to show more signs of recovery. The report notes that it is not only the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) nations that are seeing significant growth, but that, in part because they are now selling oil and gas on the international market, the Commonwealth of Independent States (the former FSU) will also see significant growth. Turkmenistan, for example, which is now selling natural gas into China, is projected to see growth of 8.1%. OPEC recognizes that increasing price will reduce demand, but are currently projecting that the range of this variation, should prices increase, would only be in the range of 200 kbd.

Expected y-o-y growth in the different sectors of petroleum products (June MOMR)

The particular growth in the diesel oil market is, in part, based on a projection that the continued drought in China will reduce the amount of hydro-electric power available, driving consumers to the use of diesel generators. It also recognizes that bio-diesel is entering the market, citing in particular Malaysia, but points out that even when the 5% biodiesel mix becomes national (it has just started to be available at stations), the production levels will be 10 kbd which, against a market demand of 542 kbd, makes it effectively insignificant. Internal Middle Eastern demand for oil is expected to rise to 7.4 mbd.

Increase in demand for oil products in selected countries of the Middle East (MOMR)

Given these increases in demand, it continues to be interesting to see where OPEC anticipates that the additional supply will come from. Non-OPEC sources are expected to produce about 0.7 mbd of the increase, so that if the demand increase of 2.3 mbd is to be met, this would explain, roughly, where the KSA suggestion of an increase of 1.5 mbd in production comes from . (And in that context the 28.97 mbd produced by OPEC in May was up some 171 kbd over April). Yet, if one looks at the overall OPEC view of where this year’s supply is to come from, it is particularly interesting to note the projection of no sensible growth in the 2011/2010 interval from the Middle East.

Expected supply growth by region for three consecutive years, ending 2011 (MOMR)

The regions that are expected to contribute most to the growth are North America, increasing by 240 kbd; Latin America with a 290 kbd growth; and the CIS countries producing an additional 140 kbd. There are also declines, so that overall non-OPEC growth is set at 660 kbd.

United States production is anticipated to grow from 8.69 mbd in the first quarter to 8.74 mbd in the fourth, with growth coming from increased output from the Bakken and Eagle Ford shales, biofuel growth, and an increase in NGL supplies. Canadian production will increase by 140 kbd, ending the year at 3.6 mbd. Mexican production will fall slightly, 30 kbd, and will average 2.93 mbd for 2011.

In Latin America the main gains will come from Colombia, which will increase production by 110 kbd to average 0.91 mbd for the year. Brazil is projected to have the highest growth outside of OPEC, with a growth of 190 kbd, to average 2.85 mbd in 2011.

Recognizing that Yemen is now in flux, and that production is falling, along with the loss from Lybia (unmentioned) one presumes that OPEC policy is that these losses will be made up within the organization to keep overall production from the Middle East relatively constant.

Growth from the Former Soviet Union countries is focused on that from Russia and Kazakhstan, which together will provide the additional volumes that will, on balance, increase production from this region by 140 kbd in 2011 over the average for 2010. However of this the increase from Russia over the rest of the year is trivial (50 kbd) with growth coming from the Uvat and Verkhnechonskoye fields. (Stuart Staniford is somewhat skeptical that we can see much further growth, albeit production in May averaged 10.25 mbd.)

Of course these projections do not take into consideration the current controversy within OPEC itself over the relative benefits of increasing production over those for holding production and watching the price rise, an argument best made by those who can’t increase production due to their field conditions. In short this is an ongoing movie, with this MOMR providing just a snapshot in time of the conditions, as they continue to change. But it does help in the understanding of the overall current picture. We will wait to see what next month brings. But for those curious, the MOMR does include tanker traffic numbers, and they can be interpreted, though not, I'm afraid, by me.

OPEC in disagreement, the Saudi dilemma

OPEC Ministers, meeting in Vienna, have apparently had one of their more divisive discussions of recent times over the question of raising pumped volumes.

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates wanted an increase to dampen an oil price that has gained 25pc since tensions erupted in the Middle East this spring while Libya, Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Venezuela, Iraq and Iran wanted to keep production unchanged.

The two camps are reported to be so far apart as to threaten the structure of the organization. While the lack of agreement (for the first time in 20 years) officially means that there will be no increase in the quotas of the different countries, Saudi Arabia may, unilaterally, move to increase production in order to meet growing demand and stop the steady increase in price. In the short term, however, the lack of agreement has had the immediate effect of increasing prices.

The proposed increase in volume was 1.5 mbd, which is roughly in agreement with the OPEC projection made through their Monthly Oil Market Reports, of a 1.4 mbd anticipated growth in demand this year. That estimate of demand growth recognized the 0.5 total drop in demand from Japan, though offsetting this with greater growth from China, and anticipating repair of the Japanese refineries. (The next report won’t be out until Friday). Given that we are now in the summer driving season for the largest customers, where demand has normally risen, the move, proposed by Saudi Arabia, would at first sight seem a rational step to keep prices under control.

But given the lack of agreement, the question remains as to whether Saudi Arabia (KSA) and its allies at the OPEC table will increase production in defiance of the rest. Bear in mind that should they have the increase, and prices fall, then those countries that don’t (or can’t) increase production lose money as the price falls. However, if the price rises too much, then the world could be kicked back into recession, and global demand could fall, making everyone lose money on smaller volume.

One has only to look at the latest gas prices in this week’s “This Week in Petroleum” to anticipate how this question over the available supply of crude may well kick the graph back into an upward trend.

US Gas Prices (TWIP )

Demand for gasoline flickered when the price peaked, but then despite the price, and with vacation time beginning, demand has returned to last year’s numbers and may well continue to increase over the next six weeks, following that curve. That depends on how the price changes. Any indication of more oil may hold it at current levels, but without that, as demand grows globally, then without supply to meet it the price will rise until a new balance is reached.

Demand for Gasoline in the USA (TWIP )

But this brings us back to the question as to how great a price increase the world can stand, and concurrently, whether OPEC could sustain a 1.5 mbd increase in production. This really (in terms of a significant step) throws the ball back into Saudi Arabia’s court, since they are the one nation that could provide the increase in volume. And certainly in the short term there are enough wells and fields that could have production increased to give the extra volume.

Life is, however, not that simple. To bring additional complexity to the discussion Goldman Sachs has been suggesting that OPEC production will top out next year, and then begin to dwindle. Since OPEC are sensibly the only folk capable of increasing production significantly to meet growing market demand, that prediction had already roiled the market a little. Non-OPEC production has risen 0.8 mbd in the first quarter, y-o-y, but the gains from the US may be over, at the moment.

US Production of crude (TWIP)

However Saudi Arabia will not over-produce in the short term to hurt the long term production from their fields, thus gains in production in the out years will have to come from new developments. Manifa is the most immediate answer as to where the additional oil will come from, according to the new (2010) Aramco annual review. But with that oil requiring special refineries to process that aren’t anticipated to be available until 2014 for the first, and the second still not finalized, that only gets the increase to 0.4 mbd. There is some additional production that is anticipated from Safaniya, another heavy crude source, but that is directed towards planned refineries at Yanbu and Jazan, but the former is scheduled for 2014, while the latter won’t be ready until 2017. The four new oil fields (Namlan, AsSayd, Arsan and Qamran) that Aramco announced will also take time to develop. As a result the increased production that will come from Saudi Arabia are unlikely to rise much above that available from the recent development of Khurais and Khursaniya, which totals some 1.7 mbd. Some of that new production will concurrently have to offset some of the declining production in older fields

Overall production will be limited to 12 mbd, acknowledged as the maximum sustainable rate for the country, but that number includes domestic use, which is already at 800 kbd and rising.

Unfortunately the 1.5 mbd proposed for the OPEC increase will likely also include any offsetting increased production to compensate for countries in turmoil in the MENA. So, as none of those countries is looking as though stability has yet been conclusively re-established, the combined picture was not really looking that good before we got the news from Vienna.

OGPSS - The Oil under Los Angeles

The development of oil in Texas produced, in its time, the four richest men in the world (H.L. Hunt, Sid Richardson, Roy Cullen and Clint Murchison) and the single richest acre of oil production at Kilgore but is not where the greatest number of productive fields of oil per acre, or perhaps the most expensive acre in the country lies. (And the current richest American, Harold Hamm, incidentally is now from Oklahoma - oh, tempora ). That expensive acreage is found in and around Los Angeles in California, and so it is California that I will write about today.

Oilfields of Los Angeles County (Source via Los Angeles Almanac is California Dept. of Conservation, Division of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources.

Oil fields under Los Angeles and environs ( CLUI )

The first productive oil well in California was drilled in the northern part of the state in the Mattole River Valley in 1865, after an initial well had been tried in 1861. The oil was taken west to San Francisco for refining and apparently sold for $1.40 a gallon. This started the production in the state, but it was not until the Southern California fields around what is now Los Angeles began to develop that Californian production became a significant player on the national stage.

Many of the early discoveries of oil relate back to the oil seeps that percolated up through the ground, and indicated that oil could be found, not too far beneath them. One of the more famous of these is known as the La Brea Tar Pits now surrounded by Los Angeles, and next door to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art . The tar has been trapping animals since before the days of the mammoth, and is an ongoing site for archeological work, mainly on the residual skeletons, blow fly puparia, and other relics that have been preserved by the tar.

The first successful commercial well was the one known as Pico No 4, which was originally drilled in the 1870’s and not shut-in until 1990, giving a start to the first oil town, Mentryville, in the state. It led to the development of the Los Angeles Basin, of which:

As attorney for the petroleum industry, Bruce Webster, once commenting to Los Angeles magazine about an oilfield, said, “They ruined a perfectly good oilfield by building a city on top of it.”

The first well was apparently drilled using the sharpened end of a eucalyptus tree, in 1892, by 1894 there were 80 wells in the area, and by 1897 some 500. Unfortunately Emma Summers, who owned half the production in 1900 was not a relative. She became known as “California’s petroleum Queen,” owning fourteen wells.

Her wells produced 50,000 barrels each month. At first she sold her oil through local brokers, but eventually took on that challenge in addition to managing her supplies, 40 horses, 10 wagons and a blacksmith shop. Summers sold her oil to downtown hotels, factories, Pacific Light & Power Co. and railroads.

Emma Summers – California’s Oil Queen (Petroleum History Resources)

As the production of oil grew from 4 million barrels in 1900 to 77 million in 1910, so the city over the fields also grew, tripling in size over that decade. This has led to some conflict, and there is an interesting video showing how some of this has ultimately been resolved, with oil rigs camouflaged within the community.

As the original field began to deplete, exploration brought in other fields starting with Huntington Beach, in 1920. The first well there was not that encouraging, but the second came in at 2,000 bd, and the community rapidly grew. It is here that directional drilling was first used, to reach out to the tidal region off-shore . The town was initially largely stripped of the original buildings as the oilfield developed, and I am indebted to Debbie Cook for this map, which shows active (black) and capped wells for the city in more recent times, and gives some sense of well density.

Wells in Huntington Beach CA (Debbie Cook)

As with many fields the original high production from a relatively small number of wells was not matched in later years, as the number of wells grew.

Huntington Beach oil production (Debbie Cook )

Huntington Beach was followed by Santa Fe Springs, which went through a similar transformation. An initial well proved the field in 1919, and this was succeeded by the Bell #1 that came in at 2,500 bd. By 1929 it was the state’s largest oil producer, covering 1400 acres of land and it was producing some 275,000 bd.

It was followed by the Signal Hill discovery which began with the Alamitos #1 well, which came in on June 23, 1921, but caved in and had to be cleaned before establishing a production of 1,000 bd, with an ultimate recovery of some 700,000 bbl.

Oil promoters were selling shares of wells that had not yet been drilled. Signal Hill was to prove so prolific that, almost unbelievably, many of those buyers actually made money on their investments. The next-of-kin of persons buried in the Sunnyside Cemetery on Willow Street would eventually receive royalty checks for oil drawn out from beneath family grave plots.

By 1923 it was producing some 259,000 bd from some 300 wells, in comparison with Huntington Beach, which was then at 113,000 bd and Santa Fe Springs at 32,000 bd. In combination they were producing, at the time, a quarter of the world’s petroleum. And, in a foreboding of the future problems of over production, this was the first year in a decade that supply exceeded demand.

The Long Beach field, of which Signal Hill was a part, went on to produce over 900 million bbl of oil by 1980.

California’s overall oil production peaked in 1985, and is currently declining at around 3.3% a year, with 2009 production at around 630,000 bd, with the largest production at that time coming from the Midway-Sunset field at some 93,600 bd average production. In 2009 there were 2,570 wells completed to production in the state.

The last 50 years of California’s oil production (CA Dept of Conservation).

There are, however, some other aspects to the fields in California, that I don’t have space to cover in this post, and so I shall return to the topic next week.

Tennessee combined temperatures

Tennessee has 15 USHCN stations ranging from Clarksville to Waynesboro. It also has three GISS stations on the list; Chattanooga, Knoxville and Nashville.

Location of the USHCN stations in Tennessee (CDIAC )

The first thing, as always, is to download the temperature data. This week there are no surprises, although even the GISS averages show that there has not been much change in the temperature of the state over the past century or so.

Average annual temperature for the GISS stations in the state of Tennessee

An average increase in temperature of 0.16 deg F per century is hard to get excited over. (And note that the temperature was more consistently higher in the 20’s and 30’s an embarrassment that starting new series post 1948 will manage to conceal from the typical audience).

The difference between the GISS average and the USHCN homogenized average is also fairly consistent at 2 deg F.


Looking at the TOBS raw data for the temperature average, this shows that, prior to homogenization, the temperature of the state has actually declined over the past century (by about half a degree), interesting!


Tennessee is 440 miles long, and 120 miles wide. The geography of the state is that it lies roughly between 81.6 deg W and 90.5 deg W, and between 35 deg N, and 36.68 deg N. The center of the state lies at Latitude 35.79 deg N. The average USHCN station latitude is 35.8 deg, while for the GISS stations it is at 35.71 deg. The mean elevation of the state is 274 m (from 54 m to 2,024 m). The USHCN average is 253 m, and that of the GISS stations 231 m. (Peeking ahead the correlation with elevation gives a temperature rise of 0.85 deg F per 100 m, so that 20 m intervals should change temps by 0.17 deg F).

Examining the effects of the geography on the temperatures around the state:


There is not a particularly good correlation with latitude for this state, the low temperature at Crossville (the point just above 54 deg) is not immediately explicable.

I no longer think Longitude is important, and given that land gets lower as one moves West, this explains the correlation that appears to exist for Tennessee.


Since the trend changes when the elevation increases, moving further west in other states, I continue to think this unimportant. In contrast, the elevation correlation is important (see above). And when one looks, one sees that Crossville happens to be the highest station in the state, thus explaining the low temperature reading.


The changing populations that have grown up around the different stations continue to suggest a possible cause for the difference between the GISS and USHCN stations, bearing in mind that the GISS stations are all in larger cities that the largest (Clarksville) of the USHCN stations. The average for GISS is 320,641, while that of the USHCN stations is 26, 568. Using the recent 5-year average against the populations from citi-data, (where all stations are found this time) I get:


Again Crossville has the lowest temperature, though because of the shorter period, the value is higher in this case.

And then there is also this:

Political will amidst climate uncertainty

I don’t expect that there will be many tsunamis in Germany over the next century, nor, apart from the occasional man-made earthquakes that can come from potash mining, do I expect the country to suffer any major damage from an earthquake. Seriously, I rather suspect that the German government has the same view of the future. But that has not stopped them from deciding to close all nuclear power stations within the next eleven years, using the recent events in Japan as one of the justifying reasons.

Germany gets about 25% of its current energy supply from nuclear power, and about 17% comes from the sustainable sources such as solar and wind. But the problem, in part, is that these become unreliable sources in winter, with lower wind speeds and shorter, darker days. Yet, without a balance sheet having been presented that will show where the lost power will come from, the decision has been made, on apparently political grounds, that nuclear must go.

There comes a time in the affairs of Government when a commitment is made to a policy that makes it virtually impossible for those in charge to later reverse the decision. This decision by the German government is one such probably irrevocable decision, and it seems that the step that the British Government recently made in their commitment to a “green” anti-carbon future for the UK, is another.

A limit on the total amount of greenhouse gases to be emitted by the UK between 2023 to 2027 has been proposed to cut Britain’s emissions by 50% from 1990 levels.

The ultimate goal is to get the emissions down 80% by 2050. The evidence that these “green” technologies will support existing levels of power and production is becoming more debatable. Thus the powers-that-be anticipate that there should also be a cut in energy demand from the general populace. In the case of Germany this target is about 10% of their current consumption.

The commitments to turn away from existing technologies with the capacity to supply energy at an acceptable financial price, and instead to rely on wind and solar, technologies that are not as consistent in providing power when needed, comes at a time when there has been enough experience with sustainable power that the advantages and disadvantages are becoming more evident. Though, before discussing that I should explain that, writing as I do about coming shortages of oil, the reality is that the world is going to need whatever energy supplies it can find in the coming years and that includes energy from wind, solar, geothermal and hydro.

But there is a growing question as to the real practicality of some of the “green” solutions being proposed, and also questions on their cost. One such, for example is the book “The False Promise of Green Energy”. This epitomizes a growing body of criticism that takes a hard look at the costs and energy actually produced by the “green revolution” and concludes that they not nearly as beneficial in reality as they have been made out to be. I don’t agree with a lot of the philosophy that drives the Foundation that published the study, leaving the energy future to the marketplace to find answers to me indicates a failure to understand the size of the problem that is developing. Nevertheless the book does raise some legitimate concerns over the drive to commit to the “energy solution of the day.” For a while at the end of the last Administration in the United States, cellulosic ethanol was going to be that White Knight. Mandates were to provide a market to justify the investment in large plants required to have any increment on national supply. Well it turns out that those getting the money were more optimistic than realistic, and those targets have been scaled back.

Today the solution of choice still remains wind power. The cost has come down, and particularly on-shore, the reliability of the plant has gone up. Unfortunately the other partner in the success of the technology is a natural one, and the consistency and strength of the wind to drive the wind turbines has not been as good. The John Muir Trust examined the record,, and reported last January,

The research found over 395 days, the wind farms could have produced 17,586,000 MW hours of energy running at full capacity. In reality, 3,881,900MW hours was generated, equivalent to 22.07 per cent.

And over the past two years, wind generation across the sites fell below 20MW on 123 separate days for a combined duration of 25 days. For a total of nine days, output dipped below 10MW, barely enough power to boil 3,300 household kettles.

More recently the Telegraph has noted

The Coalition has drawn up plans to open more wind farms in an effort to meet Britain’s European Union target of providing 15 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.More than 3,600 turbines are expected to be installed in offshore wind farms over the next nine years.

But statistics suggest that the winds that sweep across the British Isles may be weakening. Last year, wind speeds over the UK averaged 7.8 knots (8.9mph), a fall of 20 per cent on 2008, and well below the mean for this century, which stands at 9.1 knots (10.5mph).

If the current power systems (often nuclear and coal) are to be done away with, as the current European Governments seem set on achieving, then they should, were they morally responsible, also indicate the sources, costs, power and true likelihood of being able to replace existing power plants with a viable alternative. Those answers are often given in general terms and rely on projections (such as, for example, that wind will produce 30% of nameplate capacity) that are now being shown to be wrong. This seems a more certain way of destroying the future of our children than the threat of carbon dioxide level rise, though one would have to look hard to find many that recognize this reality. Politicians have grasped an approach and now use the threat of climate change to justify policies that cannot be easily undone.

The same is equally true about the opinions of the validity of the models that are used to justify these decisions. Changes in the reliability of the models, as data is acquired and time passes are often largely not to be admitted. For example, one of the more prevalent aspects of the global warming argument is that the accelerating rise in sea level is going to lead to the swamping of land around the globe well within this century. That later prediction has largely been based on models, but a series of buoys was placed around the world to give a more accurate assessment of the rise in sea-level. As this data has become more widely available and over a longer time, so it has been possible to discern the trend.

Sea level change over the past eighteen years (U of Colorado )

If one looks at the second half of the plot (green and orange) it is possible to conclude that, if anything , the rate of sea level rise is slowing down. This despite the increased quantities of carbon dioxide that have been added to the atmosphere.

That view of this data by Dr James Hansen, the “guru” of the AGW world, has now been announced through the Goddard Institute for Space Science (GISS) in the form of a paper “Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Implications” . And while it lays the blame on the slow-down on volcanic activity and a solar minimum, nevertheless it recognizes the phenomenon

Although the accuracy of ocean heat uptake in the pre-Argo era is inherently limited, it is clear that heat uptake in the Argo era is smaller than it was during the 5-10 years preceding full Argo deployment, as discussed by Trenberth (2009, 2010) and Trenberth and Fasullo (2010).

Yet with this evidence of a stability in the ocean temperature, the IEA has just announced a major increase in CO2 emissions, which leads them to predict that the temperatures will rise, around the globe, by 4 deg C by 2010, and that many of us will drown.

It would seem that even as the science becomes less certain, so the politicians who cling to it, become more determined to implement an answer that may no longer be correct.

Incidentally I was down in Florida last week, and one of those I met with was bemoaning that the oranges that used to be grown in Northern Florida (Jacksonville) can now only be grown economically further south in the state due to the colder climates of recent years, ah!