Full-time professor at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium
apreat@gmail.com
apreat@ulb.ac.be
• Department of Earth Sciences and Environment
Res. Grp. - Biogeochemistry & Modeling of the Earth System
Sedimentology & Basin Analysis
• Alumnus, Collège des Alumni, Académie Royale de Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux Arts de Belgique (mars 2013). http://www.academieroyale.be/cgi?usr=2a8crwkksq&lg=fr&pag=858&rec=0&frm=0&par=aybabtu&id=4471&flux=8365323
• Prof. Invited, Université de Mons-Hainaut (2010-present-day)
• Prof. Coordinator and invited to the Royal Academy of Sciences of Belgium (Belgian College) (2009-
present day)
• Prof. partim to the DEA (third cycle) led by the University of Lille (9 universities from 1999 to 2004) - Prof. partim at the University of Paris-Sud/Orsay, European-Socrates Agreement (1995-1998)
• Prof. partim at the University of Louvain, Convention ULB-UCL (1993-2000)
• Since 2015 : Member of Comité éditorial de la Revue Géologie de la France http://geolfrance.brgm.fr
• Since 2014 : Regular author of texts for ‘la Revue Science et Pseudosciences’ http://www.pseudo-sciences.org/
• Many field works (several weeks to 2 months) (Meso- and Paleozoic carbonates, Paleo- to Neoproterozoic carbonates) in Europe, USA (Nevada), Papouasia (Holocene), North Africa (Algeria, Morrocco, Tunisia), West Africa (Gabon, DRC, Congo-Brazzaville, South Africa, Angola), Iraq... Recently : field works (3 to 5 weeks) Congo- Brazzaville 2012, 2015, 2016 (carbonate Neoproterozoic).
Degree in geological sciences at the Free University of Brussels (ULB) in 1974, I went to Algeria for two years teaching mining geology at the University of Constantine. Back in Belgium I worked for two years as an expert for the EEC (European Commission), first on the prospecting of Pb and Zn in carbonate environments, then the uranium exploration in Belgium. Then Assistant at ULB, Department of Geology I got the degree of Doctor of Sciences (Geology) in 1985. My thesis, devoted to the study of the Devonian carbonate sedimentology of northern France and southern Belgium, comprised a significant portion of field work whose interpretation and synthesis conducted to the establishment of model of carbonate platforms and ramps with reefal constructions.
I then worked for Petrofina SA and shared a little more than two years in Angola as Director of the Research Laboratory of this oil company. The lab included 22 people (micropaleontology, sedimentology, petrophysics). My main activity was to interpret facies reservoirs from drillings in the Cretaceous, sometimes in the Tertiary. I carried out many studies for oil companies operating in this country.
I returned to the ULB in 1988 as First Assistant and was appointed Professor in 1990. I carried out various missions for mining companies in Belgium and oil companies abroad and continued research, particularly through projects of the Scientific Research National Funds (FNRS).
My research still concerns sedimentology, geochemistry and diagenesis of carbonate rocks which leads me to travel many countries in Europe or outside Europe, North Africa, Papua New Guinea and the USA, to conduct field missions.
Since the late 90's, I expanded my field of research in addressing the problem of mass extinctions of organisms from the Upper Devonian series across Euramerica (from North America to Poland) and I also specialized in microbiological and geochemical analyses of ancient carbonate series developing a sustained collaboration with biologists of my university. We are at the origin of a paleoecological model based on the presence of iron-bacterial microfossils, which led me to travel many countries in Europe and North Africa. This model accounts for the red pigmentation of many marble and ornamental stones used in the world. This research also has implications on the emergence of Life from the earliest stages of formation of Earth, as well as in the field of exobiology or extraterrestrial life ...
More recently I invested in the study from the Precambrian series of Gabon and Congo. These works with colleagues from BRGM (Orléans) are as much about the academic side (consequences of the appearance of oxygen in the Paleoproterozoic and study of Neoproterozoic glaciations) that the potential applications in reservoir rocks and source rocks of oil (in collaboration with oil companies).
Finally I recently established a close collaboration with the Royal Institute of Natural Sciences of Belgium to study the susceptibility magnetic signal from various European Paleozoic series. All these works allowed me to gain a thorough understanding of carbonate rocks (petrology, micropaleontology, geobiology, geochemistry, sequence stratigraphy, diagenesis) as well in Precambrian (2.2 Ga and 0.6 Ga), Paleozoic (from Silurian to Carboniferous) and Mesozoic (Jurassic and Cretaceous) rocks. Recently (2010) I have established a collaboration with Iraqi Kurdistan as part of a government program to boost scientific research in this country.
My research led me to publish about 180 papers in international and national journals and presented more than 170 conference papers. I am a holder of eight courses at the ULB (5 mandatory and 3 optional), excursions and field stages, I taught at the third cycle in several French universities and led or co-managed a score of 20 Doctoral (PhD) and Post-doctoral theses and has been the promotor of more than 50 Masters theses.
The Bossier and Haynesville Formations of the onshore and State waters portion of the U.S. Gulf Coast contain estimated means of 4.0 billion barrels of oil, 304.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 1.9 billion barrels of natural gas liquids, according to updated assessments by the U.S. Geological Survey. These estimates, the largest continuous natural gas assessment USGS has yet conducted, include petroleum in both conventional and continuous accumulations, and consist of undiscovered, technically recoverable resources.
Writing as background for their work, Ventura et al. (2016) say that “non-calcifying photosynthetic anthozoans have emerged as a group that may thrive under high carbon dioxide partial pressure (pCO2) conditions via increased productivity,” yet they add that “the physiological mechanisms underlying this potential success are unclear.”
There is as yet no observational evidence that climate sensitivity increases with time in the real climate system – although this cannot be ruled out – nor is it fully understood why it increases in most AOGCMs. In any event, even if real-world climate sensitivity does increase with time, in the longer run other factors that are not reflected in ECS, such as melting ice sheets, are probably more important. Therefore, while time-varying climate sensitivity is of considerable interest from a theoretical point of view, for practical purposes its influence is likely to be very modest.
The Arctic is the most sensitive place to man-made emissions on Earth, which is why it has barely warmed since 1944? Well, it makes sense if CO2 is largely irrelevant. Humans have made 90% of all their CO2 in the last 70 years and nothing much happened in the place where it was supposed to hurt the most.
Looking at data objectively, it is pretty clear that there is little relationship between weather/climate and the rising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, as the global warming pause between 1997-2016 shows –
L’acidification n’est pas une simple réponse statique à l’augmentation de la concentration de CO2 dans l’atmosphère : c’est la résultante de processus biologiques et physico-chimiques qui entraînent une répartition inégale du carbone sur la verticale de l’océan. D’autre part la vie océanique a survécu à des niveaux beaucoup plus élevés de CO2 depuis des millions d’années dans le passé.
The clear link between mortality and sea level fall also calls for a refinement of the hierarchy of El Niño impacts and their consequences on coral reefs.
L’ Agence Internationale de l’Énergie (AIE) a élaboré plusieurs scénarios de l’évolution prévisible du mix énergétique d’ici 2035. Le scénario moyen (« New policies scenario ») met en évidence l’augmentation de la demande en énergie primaire, qui passe de 13 000 Mtep en 2011 à 17 400 en 2035. La part des énergies fossiles (pétrole, gaz, charbon) restera largement dominante : elle passerait de 81 % en 2011 à 76 % en 2035. Les énergies renouvelables (y compris hydraulique et biomasse) seront en croissance : de 13 % en 2011 à 18 % en 2035
by Judith Curry, March 29, 2017, Professor, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta
Prior to 2010, I felt that supporting the IPCC consensus on human-caused climate change was the responsible thing to do. That all changed for me in November 2009, following the leaked Climategate emails, that illustrated the sausage making and even bullying that went into building the consensus.. (also, see .pdf)
by Olivier Appert, Président du Conseil Français de l’Energie, Avril 2017 in Connaissance des Energies
Il faut se rappeler qu’une innovation est une invention qui a trouvé son marché. Il est vrai que la technologie peut tout ou presque à condition de ne pas aller à l’encontre des lois scientifiques. Mais baser le déploiement d’une technologie sur des subventions publiques durables n’est assurément pas durable!
German-Canadian research team discovers new ore-forming process in ancient marine sedimentary basin
20 April 2017/Kiel. The Witwatersrand basin in South Africa hosts the largest known gold repository on Earth – but how was it formed? Scientists of the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre of Ocean Research Kiel and Canadian research institutes were able to figure out how parts of the Earth’s largest gold deposits formed about three billion years ago. Crude oil and hot hydrothermal fluids played a major role. This study has been currently published in the journal “Precambrian Research“
The 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill did $17.2 billion in damage to the natural resources in the Gulf of Mexico, a team of scientists recently found after a six-year study of the impact of the largest oil spill in US history.
This is the first comprehensive appraisal of the financial value of the natural resources damaged by the 134-million-gallon spill.
Anyone who has studied the history of science knows that scientists are not immune to the non-rational dynamics of the herd.
This week’s March for Science is odd. Marches are usually held to defend something that’s in peril. Does anyone really think big science is in danger? The mere fact that the March was scheduled for Earth Day betrays what the event is really about: politics.
by By Julio Slingo, published in the Financial Times, 13 April 2017, Julia Slingo is the former chief scientist of the Met Office,
in WUWT, Anthony Watts
Last December, I retired after nearly eight years as Met Office chief scientist. It was a pleasure and privilege to lead one of the best environmental research organisations in the world at a time when, more than ever, we depend on skilful, comprehensive predictions of the weather, climate and the broader environment.
The University of Iowa volcanologist spent her days collecting samples from a volcano on Tanna, an island in the remote South Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu. The volcano, called Yasur, spews out flaming masses or “bombs” – some the size of a small car.
“This has real health implications,” Ukstins says. “It means more than simply studying volcanoes.”
In summary, there are numerous data handling practices, which climatologists generally ignore, that seriously compromise the veracity of the claims of record average-temperatures, and are reflective of poor science. The statistical significance of temperature differences with 3 or even 2 significant figures to the right of the decimal point is highly questionable. One is not justified in using the approach of calculating the Standard Error of the Mean to improve precision, by removing random errors, because there is no fixed, single value that random errors cluster about. The global average is a hypothetical construct that doesn’t exist in Nature. Instead, temperatures are changing, creating variable, systematic-like errors. Real scientists are concerned about the magnitude and origin of the inevitable errors in their measurements.
The Dutch toilet cleaner ‘WC-EEND’ (literally: ‘Toilet Duck’) aired a famous commercial in 1989 that had the slogan ‘We from WC-EEND advise… WC-EEND’. It is now a common saying in The Netherlands whenever someone gives an opinion that is clearly aligned with their self-interest. In this blog, I will examine the hypothesis that blogs are, on average, of higher quality than journal articles. Below, I present 5 arguments in favor of this hypothesis. [EDIT: I’m an experimental psychologist. Mileage of what you’ll read below may vary in other disciplines].
A l’origine de la révolution industrielle, le charbon demeure au XXIe siècle une énergie privilégiée dans le monde. Il permet d’assurer les besoins énergétiques de l’équivalent de presque un homme sur trois (le charbon satisfait 29% de la consommation d’énergie finale en 2012 selon l’AIE). Il est la première source d’énergie utilisée pour produire de l’électricité (environ 40% de l’électricité mondiale est produite à partir de charbon).
Studies of bones from Ice Age megafaunal animals across Eurasia and the Americas have revealed that major increases in environmental moisture occurred just before many species suddenly became extinct around 11-15,000 years ago. The persistent moisture resulting from melting permafrost and glaciers caused widespread glacial-age grasslands to be rapidly replaced by peatlands and bogs, fragmenting populations of large herbivore grazers.
The idea of moisture-driven extinctions is really exciting because it can also explain why Africa is so different, with a much lower rate of megafaunal extinctions and many species surviving to this day, says Professor Cooper.
China’s natural gas production surged to a record last month and coal output rebounded as economic growth accelerated power use in the world’s largest energy user.
Natural gas production in March rose 8.2 percent from the average of the first two months of the year to a record 13.6 billion cubic meters, according to data Monday from the National Bureau of Statistics. Coal output rose almost 13 percent over the same period to average 9.67 million tons a day, the highest daily level since December, according to Bloomberg calculations based on the data.
The climate impact of all Paris INDC promises is minuscule: if we measure the impact of every nation fulfilling every promise by 2030, the total temperature reduction will be 0.048°C (0.086°F) by 2100.
Even if we assume that these promises would be extended for another 70 years, there is still little impact: if every nation fulfills every promise by 2030, and continues to fulfill these promises faithfully until the end of the century, and there is no ‘CO₂ leakage’ to non-committed nations, the entirety of the Paris promises will reduce temperature rises by just 0.17°C (0.306°F) by 2100.
Critical German climate site wobleibtdieererwaermung.de (WBDE) reports that the earth’s surface is cooling, and presents the latest chart from NCEP. As of April 11, the measured global values continue to decline (black curve) as do the computed values for April 18.
The time-delayed post El Niño cooling is now showing up in the UAH and RSS satellite data.
During the first decade of the twenty-first century, the Earth’s surface warmed more slowly than climate models simulated1. This surface-warming hiatus is attributed by some studies to model errors in external forcing2, 3, 4, while others point to heat rearrangements in the ocean5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 caused by internal variability, the timing of which cannot be predicted by the models1. However, observational analyses disagree about which ocean region is responsible11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16
