Techniques d’exploitation des mines de charbon

by Connaissance des Energies, 16 mars 2015


Les gisements sont des zones généralement profondes où l’on trouve de grandes quantités de charbon. Il faut forer des puits pour y accéder et extraire le minerai. Lorsque les réserves de charbon sont relativement proches de la surface de la terre, une exploitation à ciel ouvert peut être mise en place. Il existe également des gisements de charbon sous les océans, pour le moment inexploités.

Puerto Rico’s Hurricane History

by P.  Homewood, September 22, 2017 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat


As Hurricane Maria heads north as a Cat 3 storm, much is being made of the fact that it is the strongest hurricane to hit Puerto Rico since 1928. The implication is that Maria must have been exceptionally strong.

But the reality is that Puerto Rico is little more than a speck in the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean. The odds of the eye of a major hurricane, often just 10 or 20 miles wide, making a direct hit on Puerto Rico are probably hundreds to one, given that there are thousands of miles of ocean through which hurricanes can commonly travel.

See also here

Study: plants are globally getting more efficient thanks to rising carbon dioxide

by University of California, September 12, 2017 in WUWT


A trend toward greater discrimination under higher CO2 levels is broadly consistent with tree ring studies over the past century, with field and chamber experiments, and with geological records of C3 plants at times of altered atmospheric CO2, but increasing discrimination has not previously been included in studies of long-term atmospheric 13C/12C measurements. We further show that the inferred discrimination increase of 0.014 ± 0.007‰ ppm−1 is largely explained by photorespiratory and mesophyll effects.

Diamonds show Earth still capable of ‘superhot’ surprises

by Europlanet Media Centre, September 21, 2017 in ScienceDaily


Diamonds may be ‘forever’ but some may have formed more recently than geologists thought. A study of 26 diamonds, formed under extreme melting conditions in the Earth’s mantle, found two populations, one of which has geologically ‘young’ ages. The results show that certain volcanic events on Earth may still be able to create super-heated conditions previously thought to have only existed early in the planet’s history before it cooled. The findings may have implications for diamond prospecting.

See also here

In times of climate change: What a lake’s color can tell about its condition

by Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V. (FVB), September 21, in ScienceDaily


With the help of satellite observations from 188 lakes worldwide, scientists have shown that the warming of large lakes amplifies their color. Lakes which are green due to their high phytoplankton content tend to become greener in warm years as phytoplankton content increases. Clear, blue lakes with little phytoplankton, on the other hand, tend to become even bluer in warm years caused by declines in phytoplankton. Thus, contrary to previous assumptions, the warming of lakes tends to amplify their richness or poverty of phytoplankton.

See also here

Are the glaciers in Glacier National Park growing? Lysander Spooner University investigates climate claims

by Lysander Spooner University, September 2017


(…) Upon our return to the Hotel after visiting the Glacier, we noticed that our brand-new photos appear to show that the Grinnell Glacier has grown slightly from the 2008 images that are displayed on the Hotel walls. There has been no reporting of this in any newspaper or broadcast that we know of. (In fact, all news coverage reports the precise opposite.) The smaller Gem Glacier—which is visible from the valley miles below—also appears to be slightly larger than it is shown in 2008 pictures on display.

See also here

Trends In Atlantic Hurricanes

by Paul Homewood, September 20, 2017 in NotaLotof PeopleKnowThat


It is worth re-emphasising these points:

  • Many storms were missed over the open ocean prior to hurricane hunter aircraft in 1944.

  • Even then half of the Atlantic basin was not covered.

  • Satellite coverage began to improve matters in 1966.

  • But even then monitoring has considerably improved since 1966, particularly regarding short lived storms.

    See also herehere and here

Is the world warming to clean coal?

by Sebastien Laye, September 18, 2017 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat


Those voices are the impetus behind what Subramanian calls a “green and clean coal coalition” spanning both the developed and developing worlds. Emerging markets in Asia and Africa will continue to build new coal-fired power stations for at least the next two decades. In that timeframe, coal-fired solutions are indispensable to meeting their demands for electrification and growth. As clean coal solutions emerge, new plants in the developing world can and should be far cleaner than previous generations of coal-fired plants in Europe and America.

CLIMATE CHANGE WILL TAKE LONGER, SAY SCIENTISTS

by Dr David Whitehouse, September 19, 2017 in GWPF


The study is published in the journal Nature Geoscience by a team of scientists led by Richard Millar of the University of Oxford. It has recalculated the carbon budget for limiting the Earth’s warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above temperatures seen in the late 19th century. It had been widely assumed that this stringent target would prove unachievable, but the new study would appear to give us much more time to act if we want to stay below it.

See also here and  here

The Correlation of Seismic Activity and Recent Global Warming

by Arthur Viterio, 2016, in  J Earth Science Climate Change


Earth’s climate is a remarkably “noisy” system, driven by scores of oscillators, feedback mechanisms, and radiative forcings. Amidst all this noise, identifying a solitary input to the system (i.e., HGFA MAG4/6 seismic activity as a proxy for geothermal heat flux) that explains 62% of the variation in the earth’s surface temperature is a significant finding.

See also here

Irma : un record de rumeurs

by Cédric Moro, 18 septembre 2017 in Mythes,Mancies&Mathématiques


Que n’a-t-on pas entendu dans une partie de la presse et dans les déclarations à chaud de scientifiques et d’experts du climat sur l’uragan Irma. C’était du jamais vu, du jamais mesuré, d’une puissance inégalée, Europe 1 allant jusqu’à parler « du plus important de l’histoire climatologique ». Des eaux extraordinairement chaudes devaient expliquer son intensité effroyable (sous-entendu :  Irma, c’est la faute au réchauffement), ses vents destructeurs records, son diamètre exceptionnel, ses pluies diluviennes, son raz de marée démesuré, son intensification inouïe ou ses dégâts hors normes…

La revanche des pétroles de schiste

by Connaissance des Energies, 18 septembre 2017


Après avoir vu leur production tripler entre 2010 et 2014, les « light tight oil » américains (LTO), fréquemment appelés « pétroles de schiste », ont fait preuve d’une résilience étonnante lors de la chute des prix. Ils surprennent aujourd’hui à nouveau les marchés et pourraient contrarier la stratégie de l’OPEP.

Dans cette étude publiée par le Centre Énergie de l’Ifri, Sylvie Cornot-Gandolphe (voir le .pdf ci-dessous) présente les grands changements du secteur des LTO américains au cours des dernières années en expliquant leur résilience lors de la chute des cours et leurs perspectives de croissance.

 

Egalement ce .pdf fort complet

Nature Unbound V – The elusive 1500-year Holocene cycle

by Javier,  September 15, 2017, in Judith Curry Climate Etc.


The existence of a 1500-year climatic cycle during the Holocene, related to the glacial Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle, is a matter of intense debate. However, by introducing precise timing requirements it can be shown that the 1500-year cycle displayed in Northern Hemisphere glacial records is also observed in Holocene records from all over the world.

The cycle is most prominently displayed in oceanic subsurface water temperatures, Arctic atmospheric circulation, wind deposits, Arctic drift ice, and storminess records.

Now available on Amazon: ‘Climate Change: The Facts 2017’

by John Abbot et al., September 2017, in A. Watts, WUWT


Climate Change: The Facts 2017 contains 22 essays by internationally-renowned experts and commentators, including Dr Bjorn Lomborg, Dr Matt Ridley, Professor Peter Ridd, Dr Willie Soon, Dr Ian Plimer, Dr Roy Spencer, and literary giant Clive James. Anthony Watts also has a chapter.

The volume is edited by Dr Jennifer Marohasy, Senior Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs. Fourteen of the contributors currently hold or have held positions at a university or a scientific research organisation.

Smaller Trends and No Acceleration of Mediterranean Sea Levels

by S. Zerbini et al., 2017 in Earth-Science Reviews


Zerbini et al. also investigated/tested for the existence of an acceleration of sea level rise in each of the six Mediterranean station’s data, reporting that “our analysis indicates that it is not possible to reliably state the existence of any acceleration, in the area of this study, considering the past 140 years or so, from 1870 through 2012.”

Toujours plus d’énergie et un mix quasiment inchangé en 2040 ?

by Connaissance des Energies, 15 septembre 2017


La consommation mondiale d’énergie pourrait augmenter de 28% entre 2015 et 2040 selon les dernières prévisions de l’EIA (agence américaine d’information sur l’énergie) présentées hier. Le mix énergétique mondial devrait pour sa part rester très largement dominé par les énergies fossiles dans les décennies à venir.

The Little Boy, El Nino and Natural Climate Change

by Anastasios Tsonis, September 15, 2017 in GWPF Report26 (.pdf)


This report describes this phenomenon and brings it into a modern global con- text. But the story is more than simply one of some old South American geophysical phenomenology seen from a global perspective; it is tied to an extraordinary story about new scienti c thinking, arising at the end of the 20th century, concerning the nature of change itself.

EIA: World energy consumption to increase 28% by 2040

by Oil&Gas Journal Editors, September 14, 2017


World energy consumption is projected to rise to 736 quadrillion btu (quads) in 2040 from 575 quads in 2015, an increase of 28%, according to the latest International Energy Outlook 2017 (IEO2017) from the US Energy Information Administration.

Most of this growth is expected to come from countries that are not in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and especially in countries where demand is driven by strong economic growth, particularly in Asia. Non-OECD Asia, which includes China and India, accounts for more than 60% of the world’s total increase in energy consumption from 2015 through 2040.

SEA LEVEL: Rise and Fall – Part 1

by Kip Hansen, September 13, 2017 in WUWT


I have written about sea level rise here:  here, here, here, here and here.  The previous essays are not prerequisites but are interesting specific examples.

There are two important points which readers must be aware of from the first mention of SLR:

  1. SLR is a real imminent threat to coastal cities and low-lying coastal and near-coastal densely-populated areas.

  2. SLR is not a threat to anything else — not now, not in a hundred years — probably not in a thousand years — maybe, not ever.

Half-a-billion-year-old fossils shed light animal evolution on Earth

by University of Manchester, September 11, 2017 in ScienceDaily


The international team, including palaeontologist from The University of Manchester, found a new set of trace fossils left by some of the first ever organisms capable of active movement. Trace fossils are the tracks and burrows left by living organisms, not physical remains such as bones or body parts.

See also here

La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse