by W. Schmutz, March 27, 2017
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.
by Tim De Vries et al., Nature Feb 9, 2017
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.
by Robert Balic, April 7, 2017
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.
by Caitrin Pilkington, April 6, 2017
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.
by Ron Clutz, April 5, 2017
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.
by Florida State University, March 15, 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
by Warren Blair, April 7, 2017
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.
par Connaissances des Energies, 7 avril 2017
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.
Egalement : Recul de la banquise arctique: 30% à 50% lié à la variabilité naturelle de l’atmosphère
by David Middleton, April 6, 2017
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.
by Paul Homewood, April 6, 2017
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.
by Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt [German text translated/edited by P Gosselin] , April 1, 2017
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.
by Anthony Watts, April 5, 2017
From NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, March 17, 2017
Two frequently asked questions on global warming and hurricanes are the following:
Have humans already caused a detectable increase in Atlantic hurricane activity or global tropical cyclone activity?
What changes in hurricane activity are expected for the late 21st century, given the pronounced global warming scenarios from current IPCC models?
by Jean-Louis Schilansky, Président du Centre Hydrocarbures Non Conventionnels, 3 Avril 2017
Le début du XXIe siècle connaît une période inédite d’abondance et de diversité énergétique, marquée par d’importantes avancées technologiques dans la production d’énergie. Les développements les plus notables concernent l’essor des énergies renouvelables et des ressources d’hydrocarbures non conventionnels, en particulier de pétrole et de gaz de schiste en Amérique du Nord
by J. Lecomte et al., CNRS, December 16, 2013
The natural increase in solar luminosity — a very slow process unrelated to current climate warming — will cause the Earth’s temperatures to rise over the next few hundred million years. This will result in the complete evaporation of the oceans. The first three-dimensional climate model able to simulate the phenomenon predicts that liquid water will disappear on Earth in approximately one billion years, extending previous estimates by several hundred million years.
by Dr. Benny Peiser, April 3, 2017
Chinese engineer and inventor Feng Weizhong has an easy answer to how China plans to keep slashing coal use and power-station emissions while relying on coal to provide at least 55 per cent of its massive energy demand for decades to come. The effervescent Professor Feng, who is also general manager of a large Shanghai power plant, explained to The Australian how the country can contrive to do both at the same time. “Simple! It’s clean coal!”
by Connaissance des Energies, 22 mars 2017
Des chercheurs allemands étudient la possibilité de transformer dans la région de la Ruhr une mine de charbon en un site de stockage hydroélectrique. En Rhénanie-du-Nord-Westphalie (ouest de l’Allemagne), l’extraction au sein de la mine de charbon de Prosper-Haniel a débuté en 1863. Une procédure de fermeture de cette mine, qui fournit encore près de 2,5 millions de tonnes de charbon par an(1), devrait être engagée fin 2018. Mais l’activité ne devrait pas s’arrêter sur le site : il est prévu que la mine soit transformée en une station de transfert d’énergie par pompage (STEP).
by Connaissance des Energies, 22 mars 2017
La future usine de près de 25 000 m2 construira et stockera des pales de très grandes dimensions, LM Wind Power évoquant notamment un modèle de 73,5 m de long destiné à des éoliennes offshore de 5 à 6 MW de puissance comme l’éolienne Haliade 150 de General Electric (6 MW). Le plus grand modèle de pale au monde (« LM 88,4 P » en référence à sa longueur) est également conçu par la société danoise et pourrait équiper des éoliennes géantes de 8 à 10 MW. Au total, LM Wind Power annonce vouloir produire annuellement un volume de pales correspondant à « une capacité éolienne cumulée de 1,2 à 2 GW »
by Grace Guo, February 17, 2017
Just a few short years ago, few would have dared to predict that coal could have a future in the energy policies of emerging and developed countries alike. Yet the fossil fuel is undergoing an unexpected renaissance in Asia, buoyed by technical breakthroughs and looming questions about squaring development with energy security.
by M DiLallo, March 25, 2017
Believe it or not, America has been fracking oil wells since right around the time of the Civil War. That said, modern oil well fracking didn’t start taking shape until the 1940s, and it wasn’t until the 1990s when it was combined with horizontal drilling to unleash the shale gas boom. The industry eventually transferred those two techniques into oil drilling when Continental Resources (NYSE:CLR) drilled the first commercially successful well in the North Dakota Bakken.
by JM Schaefer et al., Nature, December8, 2016
Here we show that Greenland was deglaciated for extended periods during the Pleistocene epoch (from 2.6 million years ago to 11,700 years ago), based on new measurements of cosmic-ray-produced beryllium and aluminium isotopes (10Be and 26Al) in a bedrock core from beneath an ice core near the GIS summit.
by Dr JP Wallace III et al., August 2016
These analysis results would appear to leave very, very little doubt but that EPA’s claim of a Tropical Hot Spot (THS), caused by rising atmospheric CO2 levels, simply does not exist in the real world. Also critically important, even on an all-other-things- equal basis, this analysis failed to find that the steadily rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations have had a statistically significant impact on any of the 13 critically important temperature time series analyzed.
by University of Delaware, March 30, 2017
Methane is about 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide, with some estimates as high as 33 times stronger due to its effects when it is in the atmosphere.
Because of methane’s global warming potential, identifying the sources and “sinks” or storehouses of this greenhouse gas is critical for measuring and understanding its implications across ecosystems.
Daniel L. Warner, Samuel Villarreal, Kelsey McWilliams, Shreeram Inamdar, Rodrigo Vargas. Carbon Dioxide and Methane Fluxes From Tree Stems, Coarse Woody Debris, and Soils in an Upland Temperate Forest. Ecosystems, 2017; DOI: 10.1007/s10021-016-0106-8