Why the Current Economic Slowdown Won’t Show Up in the Atmospheric CO2 Record

by Rotter, from Spencer, May 15, 2020 in WUWT


May 15th, 2020 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

[UPDATE: MISSING IMAGES INSERTED]

Summary: Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) continue to increase with no sign of the global economic slowdown in response to the spread of COVID-19. This is because the estimated reductions in CO2 emissions (around -11% globally during 2020) is too small a reduction to be noticed against a background of large natural variability. The reduction in economic activity would have to be 4 times larger than 11% to halt the rise in atmospheric CO2.

Changes in the atmospheric reservoir of CO2 occur when there is an imbalance between surface sources and sinks of CO2. While the global land and ocean areas emit approximately 30 times as much CO2 into the atmosphere as humans produce from burning of fossil fuels, they also absorb about an equal amount of CO2. This is the global carbon cycle, driven mostly by biological activity.

Fig. 2. Monthly CO2 data since 2015 from Mauna Loa, HI after the average seasonal cycle is statistically removed.

ADDENDUM: How much of a decrease in CO2 emissions would be required to stop the atmospheric rise in CO2?

 

Continuer la lecture de Why the Current Economic Slowdown Won’t Show Up in the Atmospheric CO2 Record

Scientists “Discover” Largest Shield Volcano on Earth

by D. Middleton, May 15, 2020 in WUWT


And it’s not Mauna Loa…

UH researchers reveal largest and hottest shield volcano on Earth
Posted on May 13, 2020 by Marcie Grabowski

In a recently published study, researchers from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology revealed the largest and hottest shield volcano on Earth. A team of volcanologists and ocean explorers used several lines of evidence to determine Pūhāhonu, a volcano within the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, now holds this distinction.

Geoscientists and the public have long thought Mauna Loa, a culturally-significant and active shield volcano on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, was the largest volcano in the world. However, after surveying the ocean floor along the mostly submarine Hawaiian leeward volcano chain, chemically analyzing rocks in the UH Mānoa rock collection, and modeling the results of these studies, the research team came to a new conclusion. Pūhāhonu, meaning ‘turtle rising for breath’ in Hawaiian, is nearly twice as big as Mauna Loa.

“It has been proposed that hotspots that produce volcano chains like Hawai‘i undergo progressive cooling over 1-2 million years and then die,” said Michael Garcia, lead author of the study and retired professor of Earth Sciences at SOEST. “However, we have learned from this study that hotspots can undergo pulses of melt production. A small pulse created the Midway cluster of now extinct volcanoes and another, much bigger one created Pūhāhonu. This will rewrite the textbooks on how mantle plumes work.”

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University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology

The Sun Has Entered ‘Very Deep’ Solar Minimum

by Unilad/GWPF, May 15, 2020


The lack of any sunspots suggests the current solar minimum is one of the ‘deepest’ in 100 years.

The sun has been reported to have a ‘very deep’ solar minimum with 100 days of 2020 not seeing any sunspots on its surface.

Astronomer Dr Tony Phillips says the current lack of sunspot counts suggests the current solar minimum is one of the ‘deepest’ of the past century.

A sunspot is an area of magnetic activity on the surface of the sun – also known as storms – and appear in areas of darkness. They play a huge part in the sun’s activity, including birthing solar flares and coronal mass ejections.

A solar minimum occurs when zero sunspots are spotted, but, before you start panicking and thinking this is a bad thing, solar minimums are all part of the sun’s cycle and occur every 11 years or so.

NASA first recorded no activity on the sun last summer and it is thought to have continued to be without sunspots ever since. Solar minimums usually consist of 12 months of little sunspot activity.