by DOE/Sandia National Laboratories, August 21, 2017 in ScienceDaily
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Scientists are working toward a better understand whether cyanobacteria can be grown for biofuels on a large scale.
See also here
Archives de catégorie : better to know…?
NASA’s Secret Plan to Save Earth From Super-Volcanoes… Seriously?
by David Middleton, August 18, 2017 in WUWT
If “the supervolcano threat is substantially greater than the asteroid or comet threat,” does this mean we can stop fretting about Gorebal Warming and the Sixth Mass Extinction? Is NASA really moving on to actual threats to the planet? Well, not threats to the planet… The planet has handled supervolcanoes, asteroids and comets quite well over its 4.5 billion year lifespan.
Geologists warn us about dangerous volcanoes. Will we spend pennies for warnings?
by Larry Kummer, August 15, 2017
While we obsess about climate change and debate if we live in the Anthropocene, we prepare poorly or not at all for natural forces like volcanoes that can level cities. This is folly we can no longer afford. Experts recommend a simple first step to better protect ourselves. Let’s start listening, or nature will teach us an expensive lesson.
California is the State most at risk due to its volcanoes near major cities, as shown in this map from the website of the California Volcano Observatory
WUWT ‘One Of The Most Radical Climate-Denier Blogs’…Their Purpose: ‘Permanently Produce Fake News’
by P Gosselin, August 15, 2017 in ClimateChangeDispatch
Here’s a good example of how climate alarmists and leftists in Germany react when confronted with different opinions or the truth. It just illustrates the brand of radicalism we’re up against.
On Carbon Dioxide Toxicity
by Blair King, April 10, 2016
Specifically the Bureau of Land Management Health Risk Evaluation for Cabon Dioxyde points out:
A value of 40,000 ppm is considered immediately dangerous to life and health based on the fact that a 30-minute exposure to 50,000 ppm produces intoxication, and concentrations greater than that (7-10%) produce unconsciousness (NIOSH 1996; Tox. Review 2005). Additionally, acute toxicity data show the lethal concentration low (LCLo) for CO2 is 90,000 ppm (9%) over 5 minutes (NIOSH 1996).
See also The Lake Nyos Disaster
See also here
US Climate Report Edits Out Highly Embarrassing Section
by Paul Homewood, August 10, 2017, in WUWT
I mentioned in my previous post that the latest draft climate report, published in June, had seemingly left out a rather embarrassing table from the Executive Summary, one that had previously been written into the Third Draft, published last December.
As the link to the Third Draft had disappeared from the NYT, I could not show it.
However, Michael Bastasch, writing over at WUWT, did have the link, so we can now compare the relevant sections.
See also here
Global Warming Caused Vikings to Become Terrorists
by David Middleton, August 7, 2017 in WUWT
So… If climate change caused the Vikings to turn their plowshares into swords, abandoning their farms to become terrorists… the climate change would have been of the warming variety. I’m not a farmer, but it seems to me that global warming would have actually enhanced the Vikings’ ability to farm up around the Arctic Circle.
nother BOM scandal: Australian climate data is being destroyed as routine practice
by JoNova, August 7, 2017 in ClimateChangeDispatch
In the mid-1990s thermometers changed right across Australia — new electronic sensors were installed nearly everywhere. Known as automatic weather sensors (AWS) these are quite different to the old “liquid in glass” type.
The electronic ones can pick up very short bursts of heat—so they can measure extremes of temperatures that the old mercury or liquid thermometers would not pick up unless the spike of heat lasted for a few minutes.
It is difficult (impossible) to believe that across the whole temperature range that these two different instruments would always behave in the exact same way.
…Next Generation of Fossil Fuels…
by Donn Dears, August 2017
As noted in my article four years ago, Japan has a program for producing natural gas from methane hydrates located near its coast, and predicts it will be successful by 2019.
Most people believe that Japan’s objective is highly optimistic, but it does shed light on the efforts currently underway to develop the technology for extracting natural gas from methane hydrates.
No Direct Human Health Risk Under a CO2 Exposure of 3000 ppm
by W. Liu et al., August 1st 2017
And what did these analyses reveal?
Not surprisingly, when all was said and done, the authors report that “increasing [the] CO2 concentration to 3000 ppm at 35°C did not cause changes in any of the measured responses.” They did note, however, that the heart rates of the subjects were slightly reduced under elevated CO2 conditions (Figure 1, top left panel), although these reductions were not statistically significant.
100 companies to blame for 71% of carbon “pollution”, but world’s worst corporates are Big Government
by JoNova, August 2017
Since 1988, a mere 100 companies have been responsible for 71 percent of the entire world’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions.
This data comes from an inaugural report published by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), an environmental non-profit. Charting the rapid expansion of the fossil fuel industry in the last 28 years, they have now released some truly staggering numbers on the world’s major carbon polluters.
Plastics Yet Again
by Kip Hansen, July 28, 2017 in WUWT
The New York Times’ article breathlessly reports:
“From the 1950s to today, 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic have been produced, with around half of it made since 2004. And since plastic does not naturally degrade, the billions of tons sitting in landfills, floating in the oceans or piling up on city streets will provide a marker if later civilizations ever want to classify our era. Perhaps they will call this time on Earth the Plastocene Epoch.”
Ancient trees emerge from frozen forest ‘tomb’
by Mary Catharine Martin, in JuneauEmire.com
The Mendenhall Glacier’s recession is unveiling the remains of ancient forests that have remained frozen beneath the ice for up to 2,350 years.
See also here
Hidden consequences of intermittent electricity production
by Jozef Ongena et al., 2017 in Arguments
The hidden consequences of a massive use of intermittent renewable energy systems for electricity production are highlighted, using existing electricity production data from Germany from the last 5 years, where presently a system is in operation with an installed capacity of about 50 GW in wind turbines (sum of onshore and offshore wind) and 40GW in photovoltaic panels.This fleet of intermittent renewable systems produces more than half of the yearly renewable electrical energy of Germany, the rest being produced by hydro, so-called ‘biomass’ and a very small fraction of geothermal sources
THE COP21 AGREEMENT – JUST THE FACTS, PLEASE
by Robert Lyman, June9, 2017 in FriendsOfScienceCalgary
French version here
Each country is committed “to prepare and maintain successive individual nationally determined contributions (INDCs) that it intends to achieve”, to update these plans every five years and to pursue and report on the related domestic emission reduction measures. After three years, a Party may withdraw from the Agreement with one year’s notice.
There is an unresolved debate as to whether to call COP21 an agreement or a treaty.
97% Of Climate “Experts” Promised You The Arctic Would Be Ice-Free By 2014
by Climatism, July 16, 2017
Dec 14, 2009 : New computer modeling suggests the Arctic Ocean may be nearly ice-free in summer as early as 2014, Al Gore said today at the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen.
Abrupt summer sea ice decline has not affected polar bear numbers as predicted
by Dr. Susan J. Crockford, July 14, 2017 in ClimateChangeDispatch
Yes, Arctic sea ice has declined since satellite records began in 1979 but polar bears have adjusted well to this change, especially to the abrupt decline to low summer sea ice levels that have been the norm since 2007. Some polar bear subpopulations have indeed spent more time on land in summer than in previous decades but this had little negative impact on health or survival and while polar bear attacks on humans appear to have increased in recent years (Wilder et al. 2017), the reasons for this are not clear: reduced summer sea ice is almost certainly not the causal factor (see previous post here).
New York Times: World’s nations building huge numbers of new coal plants despite emissions growth
by NY Times, July 13, 2017 in WUWT
The level of renewable use is now so high in Germany that serious electric grid reliability and stability issues now exist which require both fossil power plant emergency backup for failed renewable production and dictate rejecting renewable energy to ensure operation of fossil plants required for electric grid reliability and stability.
On climate change, the uncertainties multiply— literally.
by Michael Bernstam, July 3, 2017 in GWPF
The following four stipulations must each be highly probable:
1. Global warming will accumulate at 0.12 degrees Celsius or higher per decade.
2. It is anthropogenic, due largely to carbon dioxide emissions.
3. The net effect is harmful to human well-being in the long run.
4. Preventive measures are efficient, that is, feasible at the costs not exceeding the benefits.
But even if the probability of each of these stipulations is as high as 85 percent, their compound probability is as low as 50 percent. This makes a decision to act or not to act on climate change equivalent to flipping a coin.
Despite Paris accord, G-20 countries invest four times as much in fossil fuels as green energy
by Ben Wolfgang, July 5, 2017, in The Washington Times
The biggest critics of President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord are also the world’s biggest hypocrites on energy policy, top environmental groups charged Wednesday in a report that found many top nations’ rhetoric on cutting emissions doesn’t line up with how and where they spend their money.
The key finding: The G-20 nations spend roughly four times as much in public financing for fossil fuels as they do supporting renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. The report examines loans, grants, guarantees, insurance and other types of public finance offered either by the governments, government-owned financial institutions and credit agencies, and multilateral groups made up of G-20 countries.
‘Perfect storm’ led to 2016 Great Barrier Reef bleaching
by James Cook University and Université Catholique de Louvain, July 3, 2017, in ScienceDaily
Professor Wolanski said the study was subjective to the extent that there was a lack of oceanographic field data in the Great Barrier Reef itself for the 2016 el Nino event. By contrast, the amount of oceanographic field data in the Torres Strait and the northern Coral Sea was very good.
“What we presented is our best-informed attempt to reveal the mechanisms involved in causing the event, based on the available oceanographic data combined with the existing body of knowledge on the water circulation in and around the Torres Strait/Northern Great Barrier Reef region.”
Just When You Thought Scientists Couldn’t Possibly Get Any Stupider …
by Tony Heller, July 4, 2017
Venus is hot because it has an atmospheric pressure almost 100X that of Earth. The same reason why the top of the Grand canyon is cold, and the bottom of the Grand Canyon is hot. Temperatures in Venus troposphere at the elevation where pressure is 1 bar, are similar to earth. Only a complete moron would believe that adding 0.0001 mole fraction CO2 to the atmosphere would cause that.
As Beijing Joins Climate Fight, Chinese Companies Build Coal Plants
by Hiroko Tabuchi, July 1, 2017
When China halted plans for more than 100 new coal-fired power plants this year, even as President Trump vowed to “bring back coal” in America, the contrast seemed to confirm Beijing’s new role as a leader in the fight against climate change.
But new data on the world’s biggest developers of coal-fired power plants paints a very different picture: China’s energy companies will make up nearly half of the new coal generation expected to go online in the next decade.
These Chinese corporations are building or planning to build more than 700 new coal plants at home and around the world (…)
97% de scientifiques d’accord avec la théorie du dérèglement climatique ?
by Christian Gérondeau, 18 juin 2017, in Atlantico
Les hommes politiques, à l’image de Barack Obama avancent que 97% des scientifiques sont d’accord sur les causes humaines et les dangers du réchauffement climatique. Des chercheurs ont étudié l’ensemble des 11 944 publications sur le climat parues entre 1991 et 2011. Les résultats publiés en 2013 montrent que près de 66% des publications n’expriment pas d’avis, ni positif, ni négatif sur le réchauffement climatique.
Estimating economic damage from climate change in the United States
by S. Hsiang et al., June 2017, Science
Estimates of climate change damage are central to the design of climate policies. Here, we develop a flexible architecture for computing damages that integrates climate science, econometric analyses, and process models. We use this approach to construct spatially explicit, probabilistic, and empirically derived estimates of economic damage in the United States from climate change.