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.
An effective response to climate change demands rapid replacement of fossil carbon energy sources. This must occur concurrently with an ongoing rise in total global energy consumption. While many modelled scenarios have been published claiming to show that a 100% renewable electricity system is achievable, there is no empirical or historical evidence that demonstrates that such systems are in fact feasible. Of the studies published to date, 24 have forecast regional, national or global energy requirements at sufficient detail to be considered potentially credible. We critically review these studies using four novel feasibility criteria for reliable electricity systems needed to meet electricity demand this century
In light of all the above, the evidence is clearly mounting against those who point to warming on the Antarctic Peninsula as proof of CO2-induced global warming. For in the most incredible manner, warming trends that were once among the highest recorded on earth have slowed and even reversed to show cooling.
in Science of the Total Environment 580: 210-223, 2017 , Recent regional climate cooling on the Antarctic Peninsula and associated impacts on the cryosphere.
According to a new paper, the Bølling Warming event 14,700 years ago raised the surface temperature for the entire Northern Hemisphere by 4 to 5°C within a few decades. This is a hemispheric warming rate of approximately 2.0°C per decade, which is 40 times faster than the 0.05 °C per decade global warming rate since 1850 (and 1998).
We also discuss the challenges and opportunities in applying so-called objective methods in climate model tuning. We discuss how tuning methodologies may affect fundamental results of climate models, such as climate sensitivity. The article concludes with a series of recommendations to make the process of climate model tuning more transparent.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can be reduce in two ways–by cutting our emissions, or by removing it from the atmosphere, for example through plants, the ocean, and soil.
The historic Paris Agreement set a target of limiting future global average temperature increase to well below 2°C and pursue efforts to even further limit the average increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Yet the timing and details of these efforts were left to individual countries.
Cretaceous climate warming led to a significant methane release from the seafloor, indicating potential for similar destabilization of gas hydrates under modern global warming. A field campaign on the remote Ellef Ringnes Island, Canadian High Arctic, discovered an astounding number of methane seep mounds in Cretaceous age sediments.
La puissance économique et industrielle de l’Afrique du Sud classe naturellement ce pays au premier rang des consommateurs d’énergie en Afrique. L’Afrique du Sud consomme 30 % de l’énergie primaire et 37 % de l’électricité produites sur le continent africain. Les fréquents dysfonctionnements des infrastructures d’électricité constatés ces dernières années ont placé la question de l’énergie au centre des débats publics.
So it appears that the increase is due to improved/expanded reporting, not because there are in fact more tornadoes. This is essentially uncontroversial: NOAA gives a similar explanation on its website, though they get around the observation bias with a different method.
Le groupe français Total a signé le 7 avril un protocole de partenariat avec le Technology Centre de Mongstad (TCM), l’une des plus grandes installations au monde de tests en matière de captage de CO2.
For the first time, model calculations show a plausible way that fluctuations in solar activity could have a tangible impact on the climate. Studies funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation expect human-induced global warming to tail off slightly over the next few decades. A weaker sun could reduce temperatures by half a degree.
Continued weakening of the upper-ocean overturning is likely to strengthen the CO2 sink in the near future by trapping natural CO2 in the deep ocean, but ultimately may limit oceanic uptake of anthropogenic CO2.
Its also a stretch to assume perfect correlation of the real values, especially since its claimed that CO2 levels have increased due to human emissions and the latter have been at a steady rate for the last three years. There is also the question of why such a good correlation with SH sea-surface temperatures and not NH, and why should the correlation be so perfect when things like changes in ocean currents should have a large effect on how much is sequestered into the depths of the oceans.
Extraordinary images are now coming from the Newfoundland and Labrador town, where the snow is high enough to cover doors and windows completely. More than 135 cm of snow has fallen on the town of Gander, Nfld., over the past week after it was hit with two back-to-back Nor’easters.
To put that precipitation in perspective, Torontonians can expect around 115 cm of snow in an entire year.
The recent El Nino is cooling down as shown clearly in both sea surface temperatures and lower troposphere air temperatures. The two relevant data sets are UAH v.6 and HadSSTv3.1 now provide averages for the month of March 2017.
New research suggests that inorganic chemicals can self-organize into complex structures that mimic primitive life on Earth.This complicates the identification of Earth’s earliest microfossils and redefines the search for life on other planets and moons.
All known Ediacaran skeletal biota produced either aragonite or high-Mg calcite: carbonate polymorphs interpreted to have been favoured by ambient seawater chemistry. Indeed all known Ediacaran skeletal taxa were immobile benthos found exclusively in shallow marine carbonate settings. Finally, we note that Ediacaran skeletal taxa are of diverse affinity, and some possessed a non-mineralized, organic, counterpart, as detailed below
The unusually high Esperanza temperature is likely the result of a strong jet stream that brought a strong ridge of high pressure over the Antarctic Peninsula, allowing warm air from South America to push southwards over Antarctica. Antarctic sea ice was at record-highs in 2014 and again in 2015 when modern records were shattered.
L’EIA américaine a publié récemment ses données officielles relatives à la consommation et à la production d’énergie aux États-Unis en 2016. Elle constate entre autres un recul du charbon dans le mix électrique américain. État des lieux.
Énergies fossiles : 81% de la consommation américaine d’énergie
La consommation d’énergie primaire des États-Unis a été quasiment stable en 2016 (+ 0,1% par rapport à 2015). Les énergies fossiles ont encore compté l’an dernier pour près de 81% de cette consommation (contre 86% en 2005). Le pays a consommé davantage de produits pétroliers dans les transports en 2016, de gaz pour la production d’électricité et dans le secteur industriel mais significativement moins de charbon (- 9%) pour la troisième année consécutive.
by Q. Ding et al., March 13, 2017, Nature Climate Change
The Arctic has seen rapid sea-ice decline in the past three decades, whilst warming at about twice the global average rate. Yet the relationship between Arctic warming and sea-ice loss is not well understood. Here, we present evidence that trends in summertime atmospheric circulation may have contributed as much as 60% to the September sea-ice extent decline since 1979.
The resurgence is due to the industry making itself more competitive, in much the same manner that the shale oil & gas players made themselves more competitive in response to a collapse in commodities prices.
DMI have now published the Arctic sea ice extents for March. The average this year was 14.71 million sq km, exactly the same as 2015, and only 60,000sq km less than in 2006.
With soaring car sales in China in mind, U.S. President Donald Trump might want to sway his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to grant American manufacturers easy access to the Chinese market. In 2008, sales in China caught up with those in the United States (at 6.7 million units). In 2016, sales stood at a whopping 24.4 million and counting. Sales of cars in other big manufacturing nations are almost stagnant.
Now let’s extend the time scale and look back 100 years. What a surprise: In the 1930s and 1940s there were two heat decades in the Arctic which were almost as warm as today (Fig. 2). This is just a small fact that went missing in the WMO press release and in the derwesten.de article.
La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse
