Archives de catégorie : better to know…?

better to know...?, climate-debate

In The Climate Debate, It’s Either Fake News, Biased News, Or No News

by Ed Walbroehl, Nov 27, 2020 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Take your pick. The Mainstream Media (MSM) are using all three to stifle debate on climate change just like the current presidential election. What has happened to the American news media in this country?

I can remember a time when the MSM would do a story and would give you both sides of the issue and let the viewer decide what to think.

It’s amazing to see a business so willing to undermine its own credibility to push a certain narrative thinking everybody is stupid and will buy whatever they say.

In the case of the climate change issue, they even went as far as announcing no more so-called climate skeptics would be invited on their shows to give other opinions as is the case with NBC’s Meet the Press for example.

So much for a fair and balanced debate. Oh! I forgot. According to them, the science is settled. By who? That phrase the science is settled is the first clue that tells you a scientist is probably not a real scientist.

Real scientists know that new methods, learning, tools, ideas, and experiments will come about that will change our current knowledge and understanding of many scientific issues.

The MSM are even willing to lose viewers by lying to them. Look how foolish they looked when all this Russian collusion with the president turned out. Many viewers left after they found out they were being lied to.

Look what’s happening now as people start checking the facts on their own about climate change. They’re seeing that they are being lied to once again.

It’s probably why in many polls, the American people rank climate change near the bottom of what worries us, and why trust in the media is so low.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

SKEPTICISM RISING – 150+ scientists including 60 Nobel Prize winners doubt that ‘climate change is caused by humans.

by J.G. Matkin, Nov 28, 2020 in AcademiaEdu

Surveys of public opinion show that a significant minority of the population are sceptical about climate change, and many suggest that doubt is increasing. The Internet, in particular the blogosphere, provides a vast and relatively untapped resource of data on the thinking of climate sceptics. This  paper focuses on one particular example where over 150 climate sceptics  provide information on their background, opinion on climate change and reasons for their scepticism. Although this data cannot be regarded as representative of the general public, it provides a useful insight into the reasoning of those who publicly question climate science on the web. Points of note include the high level of educational background, the significant numbers who appear to have been converted from a position of climate concern to one of scepticism, and the influence of blogs on both sides of the climate debate.
 
https://www.academia.edu/12247717/Why_are_people_sceptical_about_climate_change 
 The main concern of this group of sceptics is with the quality of the science, focusing on issues such as statistics, data handling and reliance on models, with the hockey stick picture acting as the icon for the dispute.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/… It is behind a paywall but there is a preprint version here: https://ipccreport.files.wordpre… The paper is based on comments that 150 skeptics wrote on a blog thread asking them about their background. Reasons include:
 
Hyped, exaggerated claims in the media
 Previous experience of scare stories that have failed to materialize
Political activism
Climategate
Shoddy science Full detail of survey results below :
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better to know...?, climate-debate

Carbon dioxide levels continue at record levels, despite COVID-19 lockdown

by WMO, Nov 23, 20°20

 

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2020 Trends

The Global Carbon Project estimated that during the most intense period of the shutdown, daily CO2 emissions may have been reduced by up to 17% globally due to the confinement of the population. As the duration and severity of confinement measures remain unclear, the prediction of the total annual emission reduction over 2020 is very uncertain.

 

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better to know...?, climate-debate

“We do not deny climate change”: Rupert Murdoch Responds to Accusations

by E. Worall, Nov 20, 2020 in WUWT

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Tolerating diversity of opinion, in the form of providing wildly popular Murdoch Media personalities like Andrew Bolt a platform, does not mean Murdoch agrees with everything those personalities say.

But I guess old fashioned ideas like news managers giving their best journalists editorial freedom are no longer encouraged, at least when it comes to climate change.

Greens can be unforgiving of minor deviations from their dogma, even from people who helped found their movement.

Retired NASA scientist James Hansen, whose 1988 testimony pretty much kick started the climate movement, was accused of being a “denier” in 2015, because he does not think renewables alone will be enough to curb global CO2 emissions.

It is difficult to imagine someone being more alarmist than James Hansen; Hansen thinks the oceans will literally begin to boil if we don’t rapidly curb CO2 emissions. But Hansen still faced accusations of being a “denier”, because he thinks nuclear power should be an important part of the solution to climate change.

better to know...?

Atmospheric rivers help create massive holes in Antarctic sea ice

by Rutgers University, Nov 15, 2020 in WUWT

Warm, moist rivers of air in Antarctica play a key role in creating massive holes in sea ice in the Weddell Sea and may influence ocean conditions around the vast continent as well as climate change, according to Rutgers co-authored research.

Scientists studied the role of long, intense plumes of warm, moist air – known as atmospheric rivers – in creating enormous openings in sea ice. They focused on the Weddell Sea region of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica, where these sea ice holes (called polynyas) infrequently develop during the winter. A large hole in this area was first observed in 1973 and a hole developed again in the late winter and early spring of 2017.

IMAGE: A BAND OF CLOUDS IN AN ATMOSPHERIC RIVER EXTENDING FROM SOUTH AMERICA TO THE ANTARCTIC SEA ICE ZONE ON SEPT. 16, 2017. view more CREDIT: NASA

In the first study of its kind, published in the journal Science Advances, scientists found that repeated strong atmospheric rivers during late August through mid-September 2017 played a crucial role in forming the sea ice hole. These rivers brought warm, moist air from the coast of South America to the polar environment, warming the sea ice surface and making it vulnerable to melting.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Possible 1,000-kilometer-long river running deep below Greenland’s ice sheet

by  Hokkaido University, Nov 12, 2020 in EurekaAlert

Computational models suggest that melting water originating in the deep interior of Greenland could flow the entire length of a subglacial valley and exit at Petermann Fjord, along the northern coast of the island. Updating ice sheet models with this open valley could provide additional insight for future climate change predictions.

IMAGE: THE SUGGESTED VALLEY AND POSSIBLE RIVER FLOWING FROM THE DEEP INTERIOR OF GREENLAND TO PETERMANN FJORD DEEP BELOW GREENLAND’S ICE SHEET (500 METERS BELOW SEA LEVEL). (CHRISTOPHER CHAMBERS ET AL,… view more 

CREDIT: CHRISTOPHER CHAMBERS ET AL, THE CRYOSPHERE, NOVEMBER 12, 2020.

Radar surveys have previously mapped Greenland’s bedrock buried beneath two to three thousand meters of ice. Mathematical models were used to fill in the gaps in survey data and infer bedrock depths. The surveys revealed the long valley, but suggested it was segmented, preventing water from flowing freely through it. However, the peaks breaking the valley into segments only show up in areas where the mathematical modelling was used to fill in missing data, so could not be real.

Christopher Chambers and Ralf Greve, scientists at Hokkaido University’s Institute of Low Temperature Science, wanted to explore what might happen if the valley is open and melting increases at an area deep in Greenland’s interior known for melting. Collaborating with researchers at the University of Oslo, they ran numerous simulations to compare water dynamics in northern Greenland with and without valley segmentation.

The results, recently published in The Cryosphere, show a dramatic change in how water melting at the base of the ice sheet would flow, if the valley is indeed open. A distinct subglacial watercourse runs all the way from the melting site to Petermann Fjord, which is located more than 1,000 kilometers away on the northern coast of Greenland. The watercourse only appears when valley segmentation is removed; there are no other major changes to the landscape or water dynamics.

“The results are consistent with a long subglacial river,” Chambers says, “but considerable uncertainty remains. For example, we don’t know how much water, if any, is available to flow along the valley, and if it does indeed exit at Petermann Fjord or is refrozen, or escapes the valley, along the way.”

If water is flowing, the model suggests it could traverse the whole length of the valley because the valley is relatively flat, similar to a riverbed. This suggests no parts of the ice sheet form a physical blockade. The simulations also suggested that there was more water flow towards the fjord with a level valley base set at 500 meters below sea level than when set at 100 meters below. In addition, when melting is increased only in the deep interior at a known region of basal melting, the simulated discharge is increased down the entire length of the valley only when the valley is unblocked. This suggests that a quite finely tuned relationship between the valley form and overlying ice can allow a very long down-valley water pathway to develop.

“Additional radar surveys are needed to confirm the simulations are accurate,” says Greve, who has been developing the model used in the study, called Simulation Code for Polythermal Ice Sheets (SICOPOLIS). “This could introduce a fundamentally different hydrological system for the Greenland ice sheet. The correct simulation of such a long subglacial hydrological system could be important for accurate future ice sheet simulations under a changing climate.”

better to know...?, climate-debate

Uncertain Certainty: Germany’s Potsdam Climate Institute Humiliated After One-Year El Nino Forecast Model Flops

by P. Gosselin, Nov 15, 2020 in WUWT

Last year Germany’s Potsdam Institute (PIK) boasted that it had a superior El Niño one-year forecasting model, claiming 80% certainty. Today, a year later, its forecast emerges totally wrong and the prestigious institute is left humiliated. 

Hat-tip: Snowfan

In 2019, Germany’s Potsdam Climate Institute (PIK) boasted that it had a superior El Niño forecasting model, claiming one year in advance and with 80% certainty, there would be an El Niño event late in 2020 (upper curve is just an El Niño illustration). But the PIK model forecast flopped totally. The opposite has in fact emerged. Chart source: BOM (with additions).

One year ago, together with researchers of the Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU), and Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan in Israel, Germany’s alarmist yet highly regarded Potsdam Institute for Climate Research (PIK) boldly declared in a press release there would “probably be another ‘El Niño’ by the end of 2020.”

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better to know...?, only geology

East African Rift System is slowly breaking away, with Madagascar splitting into pieces

by Virginia Tech, Nov 13, 2020 in ScienceDaily

The African continent is slowly separating into several large and small tectonic blocks along the diverging East African Rift System, continuing to Madagascar — the long island just off the coast of Southeast Africa — that itself will also break apart into smaller islands.

These developments will redefine Africa and the Indian Ocean. The finding comes in a new study by D. Sarah Stamps of the Department of Geosciences for the journal Geology. The breakup is a continuation of the shattering of the supercontinent Pangea some 200 million years ago.

Rest assured, though, this isn’t happening anytime soon.

“The rate of present-day break-up is millimeters per year, so it will be millions of years before new oceans start to form,” said Stamps, an assistant professor in the Virginia Tech College of Science. “The rate of extension is fastest in the north, so we’ll see new oceans forming there first.”

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better to know...?

Visualizing All of Earth’s Satellites: Who Owns Our Orbit?

by T. Wood, Oct 20, 2020 in VisualCapitalist

Visualizing All of Earth’s Satellites

For centuries, humans have looked to space and the stars for answers. The fascination is more than philosophical—it’s coupled with the need to solve problems here on Earth.

Today, there are seemingly countless benefits and applications of space technology. Satellites, for instance, are becoming critical for everything from internet connectivity and precision agriculture, to border security and archaeological study.

Space is Open for Business

Right now, there are nearly 6,000 satellites circling our tiny planet. About 60% of those are defunct satellites—space junk—and roughly 40% are operational.

As highlighted in the chart above, The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), determined that 2,666 operational satellites circled the globe in April of 2020.

Over the coming decade, it’s estimated by Euroconsult that 990 satellites will be launched every year. This means that by 2028, there could be 15,000 satellites in orbit.

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better to know...?, sciences-general

Tree rings may hold clues to impacts of distant supernovas on Earth

by University of Colorado at Boulder, Nov 11, 2020 in ScienceDaily

Massive explosions of energy happening thousands of light-years from Earth may have left traces in our planet’s biology and geology, according to new research by University of Colorado Boulder geoscientist Robert Brakenridge.

The study, published this month in the International Journal of Astrobiology, probes the impacts of supernovas, some of the most violent events in the known universe. In the span of just a few months, a single one of these eruptions can release as much energy as the sun will during its entire lifetime. They’re also bright — really bright.

“We see supernovas in other galaxies all the time,” said Brakenridge, a senior research associate at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) at CU Boulder. “Through a telescope, a galaxy is a little misty spot. Then, all of a sudden, a star appears and may be as bright as the rest of the galaxy.”

A very nearby supernova could be capable of wiping human civilization off the face of the Earth. But even from farther away, these explosions may still take a toll, Brakenridge said, bathing our planet in dangerous radiation and damaging its protective ozone layer.

To study those possible impacts, Brakenridge searched through the planet’s tree ring records for the fingerprints of these distant, cosmic explosions. His findings suggest that relatively close supernovas could theoretically have triggered at least four disruptions to Earth’s climate over the last 40,000 years.

The results are far from conclusive, but they offer tantalizing hints that, when it comes to the stability of life on Earth, what happens in space doesn’t always stay in space.

“These are extreme events, and their potential effects seem to match tree ring records,” Brakenridge said.

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Tree rings (stock image).
Credit: © CrispyMedia / stock.adobe.com
better to know...?, climate-debate

MULTIPLE COLD RECORDS FELL IN CALIFORNIA MONDAY

by Cap Allon, Nov 10, 2020 in Electroverse

After months of EOTW articles regarding California’s summer heat and largely self-inflicted wildfires, record COLD has now swept The Golden State — and the MSM has fallen eerily quiet…

Before Monday rewrote the record books in western California, back-to-back weekend storms on Friday and Sunday brought frigid temperatures and heavy snow to much of the state, reports ktvu.com.

A whopping 18 inches of snow blanketed the Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort and a healthy 10 inches accumulated at Sugar Bowl over the weekend, prompting a travel advisory throughout the Sierra Nevada.

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Weekend Snowfall Totals [ktvu.com].

Forwarding to Monday, a number of low temperature records were broken.

It dropped to 38F (3.3C) at the Oakland Airport Monday morning, a reading that smashed the old record of 41F set in 2009 (solar minimum of cycle 23).

Gilroy, located in Santa Clara County, also set new low Monday — the city’s official reading of 31F (-0.6C) in the early hours of Nov 9 busted the old record of 34F (1.1C) set back in 1986 (solar minimum of cycle 21).

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Fake Invisible Catastrophes & Threats of Doom

by P. Moore, Sept 24, 2020 in Gofundme

I am a co-founder Of Greenpeace in 1971-1986. I left because they became a fundraising racket using sensationalism, misinformation and fear. I became a sensible environmentalist and have spent 36 years promoting the balance of environmental, social and economic priorities. I am writing a new book based on the fact that most of the scare stories today are based on things that are invisible or remote or both. Therefore the public must rely on activists, media, politicians, and scientists, all who have a huge financial and/or political stake in the “narrative” they are pushing. This includes climate, tree, coral reefs, polar bears, GMOs, extinction, etc.
The book is based on this essay:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/u9dd56qo16naqcy/Fake%20Invisible%20Catastrophes%20and%20Threats%20of%20Doom%20%28Essay%29.docx?dl=0

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better to know...?, climate-debate, unclassified

The Guardian: Joe Biden’s $1.7 Trillion Investment Could Reduce Global Warming by 0.1C

by E. Worall, Nov 8, 2020 in WUWT

The Guardian has inadvertently revealed the utter futility of throwing trillions of dollars of borrowed government money into the bottomless renewable energy pit.

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Hey I can play this game too – if I get $1700 of that cash, I promise to cut back on eating Chilli beef. Paying a billion people to eat less chilli beef would likely have a comparable impact on global warming to spending the money on renewables. The EPA estimates CH4 accounts for 10% of observed global warming. The study I linked estimates human activity like raising beef cattle and eating chilli beans is responsible for up to 40% of detected CH4 emissions.

Alternatively the cash could be used to give all the cattle in the world that special seaweed supplement the CSIRO discovered, which is supposed to cut back on intestinal methane production.

To put this level of expenditure into perspective, the cost of launching a 0.03C manned mission to Proxima Centauri using technology developed in the 1950s has been estimated at around $2 trillion. I’m not saying that building a starship is a reasonable use of $2 trillion of taxpayer’s money, but the first step in mankind’s expansion throughout the galaxy would surely be a lot more fun than spending all that money on reducing global temperature by an amount which cannot even be directly measured.

And of course, the obvious point – if it costs $1.7 trillion to reduce global warming by 0.1C, we now have a Guardian provided method of estimating the cost of eliminating our alleged impact on the global climate, reducing global warming by 1.0C: 1.7 x 1.0C / 0.1C = $17 trillion.

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better to know...?

After nearly a decade away, La Niña weather system is back…

by C. Rotter, nov 1, 2020 in WUWT

Many will be familiar with El Niño – the ocean-warming phenomenon that affects global weather patterns – but how about La Niña, which is linked to cooler sea temperatures?

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), La Niña is back in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, after nearly a decade’s absence.

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UNDP/Joe HitchcockThe low-lying island Pacific Ocean nation, Tuvalu, is particularly susceptible to a rise in sea levels caused by climate change.    29 October 2020Climate Change

This is expected to result in sea surface temperatures between two and three degrees Celsius cooler than average, said Dr. Maxx Dilley, Deputy Director in charge of Climate Services Department at WMO.

“These coolings of these large ocean areas have a significant effect on the circulation of the atmosphere that’s flowing over them. And the changes in the atmosphere in turn affect precipitation patterns around the world.”

Uneven effects

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better to know...?, climate and geology, climate-debate

3 More New Studies Show Modern Arctic Sea Ice Extent Is Greater Than Nearly Any Time In The Last 10,000 Years

by K. Richard, Oct 29, 2029 in NoTricksZone

For years scientists have been using biomarker evidence (IP25, PIP25) to reconstruct the Arctic’s sea ice history. The evidence shows modern (20th-21st century) Arctic sea ice is at its greatest extent since the Holocene began.

Scientists (Wu et al., 2020) have determined that from about 14,000 to 8,000 years ago, when CO2 lingered near 250 ppm, the Beaufort Sea (Arctic) was “nearly ice free throughout the year” (<0.2 PIP25) and ~4°C warmer than today in winter.

With CO2 at ~400 ppm, this region is 70-100% ice-covered (>0.8 PIP25) for all but 1-2 summer months in the modern (1988-2007) era.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Roger Revelle – the backstory of the father of Atmospheric CO2 monitoring

by A. May, Oct 321, 2020 in WUWT

Roger Revelle was an outstanding and famous oceanographer. He met Al Gore, in the late 1960s, when Gore was a student in one of his classes at Harvard University. Revelle was unsure about the eventual impact of human carbon dioxide emissions on climate, but he did show that all carbon dioxide emitted by man would not be absorbed by the oceans. For an interesting discussion of Revelle’s work in this area see this post on “The Discovery of Global Warming,” by Spencer Weart (Weart, 2007). The original paper, on CO2 absorption by the oceans, published in 1957 by Roger Revelle and Hans Suess, is entitled: “Carbon Dioxide Exchange Between Atmosphere and Ocean and the Question of an Increase of Atmospheric CO2, during the Past Decades” (Revelle & Suess, 1957). This meant that human emissions of carbon dioxide would accumulate in the atmosphere and that the CO2 atmospheric concentration would increase, probably causing Earth’s surface to warm at some unknown rate. This is not an alarming conclusion, as Revelle well knew, but Al Gore turned it into one.

One of Revelle’s good friends was Dr. S. Fred Singer. Singer was a professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia and both Revelle and Singer had been science advisors in the U.S. Department of the Interior. They first met in 1957 and were more than professional colleagues, they were personal friends (Singer, 2003). Unfortunately, Revelle passed away in July 1991 and Singer passed away in April 2020, so we will refer to them and their friendship in the past tense. Both were leading Earth scientists and at the top of their fields, it was natural they would become friends. They also shared an interest in climate change and chose to write an article together near the end of Revelle’s life.

 

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Indeed, ten years later, CO2 emissions were still increasing, but the world had started to cool as shown in Figure 1. This casts considerable doubt on the idea that human emissions somehow control global warming, since some other factor, presumably natural, is strong enough to reverse the overall warming trend for ten years. Revelle was correct to encourage the government to wait for ten more years. Just a year before their paper was published the IPCC reported that warming to date fell within the range of “natural variability” and that the detection of a human influence on climate was “not likely for a decade or more.” (IPCC, 1990, p. XII).

Figure 1. In 1990 and 1991, respectively, the IPCC and Roger Revelle and colleagues said it was too early to do anything about possible man-made climate change, they thought we would know more in 10 years. The plot is smoothed with a 5-year running average to reduce the effect of El Nino and La Nina events. This makes the longer term trends easier to see.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Les chercheurs prenant le plus l’avion sont… les experts du climat

by Le Point, Oct 29,  2020

Selon une étude britannique, les climatologues voyagent en moyenne davantage en avion que les scientifiques spécialisés dans d’autres domaines.

Les arroseurs arrosés. Les climatologues alertent régulièrement et, à raison, sur les effets sur le climat des déplacements en avion, fortement émetteurs de gaz à effet de serre. Mais une étude publiée en ce mois d’octobre dans la revue Global Environmental Change vient mettre le doigt sur certains de leurs comportements. Selon cette étude britannique coordonnée par l’université de Cardiff, et relayée par Nature et Courrier International, les experts en réchauffement climatique sont les scientifiques qui voyagent le plus souvent en avion, en comparaison avec leurs collègues d’autres disciplines. Au total, plus de 1 400 chercheurs, provenant de 59 pays différents et de domaines scientifiques divers, ont été interrogés.

En moyenne, les experts du climat, qui représentaient environ 17 % des personnes sollicitées, prennent l’avion à raison de cinq fois par an. En comparaison, les chercheurs spécialisés dans d’autres disciplines disent effectuer quatre trajets par an en avion. Les vols effectués par les climatologues sont davantage domestiques qu’internationaux. Toutefois, ils avancent souvent des raisons professionnelles pour ces trajets, ce qui n’est pas forcément le cas de leurs autres collègues scientifiques. Les professeurs spécialisés dans le dérèglement climatique voyagent en avion environ neuf fois par an en moyenne, contre huit fois pour leurs collègues d’autres spécialités.

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better to know...?

First-of-its-kind surface water Atlas brings together 35 years of satellite data

by EU Science Hub, Oct 2020

The Atlas provides a better understanding of the consequences climate change and human actions have for the planet’s surface water resources.

It is impossible to overstate the critical importance of water in our daily lives. Surface water bodies – including lakes, ponds and rivers – are particularly important as sources of water for domestic, industrial and agricultural use.

As the Earth’s surface water is intensely dynamic, our knowledge about where waterbodies can be found has not always been accurate. Waterbodies move, whole lakes dry up and new rivers and lakes form, which makes mapping these moving targets difficult.

Building on a project that combined thousands of years of computer time with millions of satellite images, the JRC’s Atlas of Global Surface Water Dynamics describes the important role that surface water plays for our planet’s climate and biodiversity, as well as virtually every aspect of our daily lives.

The Atlas documents the science behind a set of truly unique maps, which include time, and illustrates the changes in surface water resources over the past 35 years.

The scientists believe that the Atlas can improve our understanding of the consequences of climate change and human action on surface water resources, and that clearer understanding can help decision-makers to plan environmental actions and design effective policies aimed at the sustainable management of surface water resources.

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Mapping the history of water

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Global Warming Wallops 20 Million Americans With Snow, Freezing Rain

by B. Lyman, Oct 27, 2020 in ClimateChangeDispatch

More than 20 million Americans are under some sort of winter weather watch, warning, or advisory from the Southwest through the Midwest as of Monday.

The Weather Channel has dubbed the storm “Winter Storm Billy” and said the storm will bring snow throughout parts of the Southern Rockies, the Central Plains, and Missouri.

From Arizona to Wisconsin, residents could see snowfall Monday, while those further south, like in Texas and Oklahoma, will see freezing rain and sleet, according to CNN.

Ice in Texas and Oklahoma is expected to accumulate roughly half an inch, which could cause dangerous travel conditions and knock power out, per the same article. Oklahoma City is under an Ice Storm Warning.

Temperatures in North Texas are roughly 25 degrees Fahrenheit below average. Texans living in the Texas Panhandle area could see one to two inches of snow during the area’s first Winter Storm Warning of the season, according to CBS Dallas-Ft. Worth.

While temperatures in Arizona won’t be as cold as some other states, some areas in the state could see a low of 46 degrees on Tuesday — the first temperature in the 40s since March, according to AZ Central.

Some areas of Colorado and New Mexico are expected to see two feet of snow, which comes as a bit of relief as wildfires continue to rage in Colorado’s Boulder and Larimer Counties, according to The Denver Channel. In Aguilar, Colorado, there were already 14 inches recorded from snowfall Sunday into Monday, per the same report.

better to know...?, climate-debate

NSIDC: 2020 POLAR ICE DOING JUST FINE

by Cap Allon, Oct 24, 2020 in Electroverse

According to the latest October report from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), the ice locked at Earth’s poles is, overall, GROWING.

By volume, Antarctica contains 90% of Earth’s ice, and volume is a far better metric to use when judging the state of an ice sheet than sea ice extent. Extent is prone to wild and unpredictable fluctuations due to natural changes in ocean currents and wind patterns, etc–though these fluctuations are of a much lesser degree in Antarctica than in its northern cousin, the Arctic.

According to the latest NSIDC report, Antarctic sea ice extent reached a whopping 18.95 million square kilometers (7.32 million square miles) on September 28. Mid to late Sept would usually give us the year’s maximum extent, but given the favorable conditions in October, the maximum may well be higher. “As is typical this time of year, there are wide swings caused by winds and storms along the extensive ice edge,” writes the NSIDC.

Ice extent around Antarctica is now “well above the 1981 to 2020 median extent,” the NSIDC informs us. “Ice extent is above the median extent along a broad area off the Wilkes Land coast and western Ross Sea, near the median extent from the Amundsen Sea clockwise to the Weddell Sea and above the median north of Dronning Maud Land, Enderby Land, and the Cosmonaut Sea. The only major area of below the median extent is in the Indian Ocean sector near the Amery Ice Shelf and eastward.”

Continuer la lecture de NSIDC: 2020 POLAR ICE DOING JUST FINE →

better to know...?, climate-debate, energy and fields

Dubai builds first coal power plant despite pledging lowest carbon footprint in the world by 2050

by Independent, Oct 22, 2020

A new wonder is rising in the southern desert of Dubai against the backdrop of Persian Gulf beaches, but it’s not another skyscraper to grace the futuristic sheikhdom. Instead, it’s one of mankind’s oldest power sources gaining its own space on the oil-rich Arabian Peninsula — a coal-fired power plant

The construction of the $3.4 billion Hassyan plant in Dubai appears puzzling, as the United Arab Emirates hosts the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency. It’s also building the peninsula’s first nuclear power plant and endlessly promotes its vast solar-power plant named after Dubai’s ruler. Dubai has also set the lofty goal of having the world’s lowest carbon footprint in the world by 2050 — something that would be impacted by burning coal.

The coal plant’s arrival comes as Gulf Arab nations remain among the world’s hungriest for energy and amid political concerns over the use of natural gas imported from abroad, concerns underscored by a yearslong dispute with gas-producer Qatar, which is boycotted by four Arab nations, including the UAE.

“Dubai was really saying we’re far too exposed on gas imports, those could be interrupted by all kinds of things, the cost is very high and so we have to do something else to diversify our fuel supply and bring down the total cost,” said Robin Mills, the CEO of Qamar Energy, a Dubai-based consulting company. “They got a very competitive offer on the coal plant … and so the decision was made.”

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better to know...?, climate-debate

NORTHERN HEMISPHERE SNOW MASS ABOVE AVERAGE + GREENLAND ICE SHEET’S ASTONISHING GAINS CONTINUE

by Cap Allon, Oct 21, 2020 in Electroverse

Following on from one of its snowiest winters on record in 2019-20 comes the first 2020-21 data-points from the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI). What they clearly reveal is that the Northern Hemisphere is at it again, continuing the trend of growth observed in recent years.

Despite decades of doom-and-gloom prophecies and fear-mongering claptrap, the Northern Hemisphere continues to GAIN “snow mass” at a rate comfortably above the 1982-2012 average:

 

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See also here (Minnesota just suffered its Largest Early-Season Snowstorm in Recorded History)

better to know...?

Climate experts fly more often than other scientists

by B. Webster, Oct 20, 2020 in TheTimes

Scientists who specialise in climate change fly more than other researchers, according to a study by Cardiff University that has prompted calls for them “to look in the mirror” before demanding that others cut emissions.

Climate scientists take about five flights a year on average for work while other researchers take four. Climate professors catch nine flights a year compared with eight for all professors.

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Climate scientists take about five flights a year on average for work
TARO HAMA-E-KAMAKURA/GETTY IMAGES
better to know...?, climate-debate

Creepy Climate Conversations

by Donna Laframboise, Oct 21, 2020 in BigPicturesNews

Tony Thomas has a disturbing piece over at Quandrant.org, concerning an Australian organization allegedly run by child activists. It’s now urging kids to initiate creepy conversations with adults as a means of spreading climate propaganda.

Matters may not develop as expected, though. Because any adult who was around for the global cooling scare, who was told acid rain would wipe out the worlds forests, and that the hole in the ozone layer would induce widespread skin cancer has, in fact, heard it all before.

It’s interesting that the SchoolStrike4Climate.com website can’t stay on topic. Its front page tells us Australia was stolen from First Nation communities, and that “there can be no climate justice without first nations justice.” If you click the large button labelled: Black Lives Matter Resources, you’re taken to a 7-page Google document that similarly declares: “There is no climate justice without racial justice…”

These statements, call to mind 17-year-old Greta Thunberg’s assertion that “We can not have climate justice without gender equity.”

Climate justice. First Nations justice. Racial justice. Gender equity. What does this collection of causes tell us? That these young people aren’t rebels at all. Nor are they independent thinkers.

Rather than being sincere and passionate about a single issue they themselves have carefully investigated, these youngsters are merely hopping aboard the bandwagon known as fashionable left wing politics.

If you truly believed your future was imperiled, wouldn’t you keep on topic? Wouldn’t your anxiety focus your attention? Wouldn’t you pursue a single, realistic, achievable goal?

Instead, these high school students are being encouraged to believe that, by skipping school, they’ll convince the rest of us to do their bidding – not just about the climate, but with respect to other complicated, longstanding social issues. Everything will be transformed. Fixed to their satisfaction. All at the same time, no less.

Only a naive young person could imagine this to be remotely possible.

 

better to know...?, climate-debate

Is Mauna Loa Really The Best Location To Measure ‘Global’ CO2 Levels?

by K. Richard, Oct 19, 2020 in NoTricksZone

Highly anomalous terrain (an active volcano), 40 years of cooling temperatures, and a CO2 record that dramatically contrasts with fluctuating values from forests and meadows reaching 600-900 ppm all beg the question: Is Mauna Loa’s CO2 record globally representative?

Mauna Loa is the Earth’s largest land volcano. It has erupted over 3 dozen times since 1843, making this terrestrial landscape extremely unusual relative to the rest of the globe’s terrain. (Forests, in contrast, cover over 30% of the Earth’s  land surface.)

Mauna Loa has been thought to be the world’s best location to monitor global CO2 levels since 1958.

While Mauna Loa CO2 levels show a rise of 338 ppm to 415 ppm since 1980, Mauna Loa temperatures (HCN) show a cooling trend during this same time period. The only warming period in the last 65 years occurred between about 1975 and 1985.

Image Source: oz4caster

Forest CO2 fluctuations

As mentioned above, forests are orders of magnitude more terrestrially representative than the highly anomalous site of the Earth’s largest volcano.

In forests or tree-covered areas, CO2 rises from around 300 ppm in the warmth of the afternoon (~3 p.m.) to over 600 ppm before sunrise (~4 a.m.), when it is cooler (Fennici, 1986, Hamacher et al., 1994). This massive fluctuation occurs daily and CO2 values average out to be far higher than the Mauna Loa record suggests.