A cyber-penny for your thoughts.
By Joel Pett, the Cartoonist Group
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Typhoon Bolaven with 3 eyewall’s / triple eye. #hurricane #cyclone #typhoon #very #rare http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=323961047700151&set=a.201065459989711.43923.196805450415712&type=1
Cartoon: Brace for impact! #mike #luckovich http://www.facebook.com/ClimateState/posts/311725505593065
Harnessing the world’s collective intelligence to deal with climate change
http://web.mit.edu/mitei/research/spotlights/collective-intel.html
Save the Arctic -
http://www.savethearctic.org/
Please share this link with everyone you know.
Thanks for that link. I wasn’t aware of it.
Save the polar bears, of course. But saving the ice cap will save the humans, too. If the ice cap goes, the weather across the Northern Hemisphere is going to be knocked sideways forever.
It’s a very Jared Diamond notion–drilling for oil in the Arctic because the ice has receded. It really doesn’t get more blackly ironic than that.
From Nebraska CropWatch:
As explained by the Cornell University Department of Animal Science, aflatoxin is a potent carcinogen:
According to the American Cancer Society:
Irene warned of a new kind of tropical storm. carrying its power in breadth of wind field, rather than in intensity.
I am not sure that the NWS-NHC has applied those warnings to Isaac. I fear that Isaac is going to give the GOP (& NWS) a lesson in what kinds of weather are “normal” in a time of AGW.
So the real question is: What will the GOP have to wade through before they admit that AGW is a clear and present danger?
The Arctic Sea ice extent was published this morning 8/25 at 9 A.M. revealing only the 2012 line as the record sea ice extent. If it means anything in the overall trajedy.
I was wondering if there are references to how much heat polar ice melting absorbs that would otherwise heat the planet.
The British Thermal Unit (BTU) was a measure of just that. I’m sure there are other metric means of doing so but my experience is limited (taking my first physics course this semester and really excited). As I remember a BTU was the amount of heat necessary to melt 1 ton of ice in one day. The ESA satellite may be the one that measures mass and they would (if that’s the case) have a data base that’s more helpful in that regard. I’m not the one to ask though . There are usually some really smart posters on this blog. That’s why I come here.
A Btu is the amount of energy it takes to raise one pound of water one degree F.
About 8% of the retained heat goes to melting ice according to Hansen
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_16/fig1.gif
In Storms of my Grandchildren he points out that the amount of heat used to melt ice will rise as the ice sheets disintegrate more rapidly and discharge more ice into the ocean.
Thanks, I had read that book but didn’t remember that. I guess we could assume that without the melting the approximate rise in T so far could be instead of 1 deg. C 1.08 deg.
Start with “heat of fusion” and enthalpy as look-up terms relative to the watts of insolation striking the ice.
Paul Donohue,
See the PIOMAS Arctic Ice Volume page. The bottom paragraph has some numbers.
Rouhgly, the oceans are heating by 7.5 zJ(z = x10^21) per year. The year-on-year losses of of Arctic Sea Ice, which are now approaching 1,000 cu km per year,requires 0.25 zJ per year. Antarctic & Greenland ice loss is about similar.
Ryan, good point, UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL.
MUCH coordination is needed for the hundreds of advocacy groups (worldwide, US, state and local) that either directly or indirectly fight climate change. Each has its own hierarchy, learning curve, messages, efforts, segment, etc.
Notice the clout of the NRA which has 4.3 million members. No one environmental group has much more than 1 million members, but collectively, we have far more than the NRA.
It would be beneficial to have a central body (similar to the United Nations or EC?) to coordinate research, messaging (use our best Language Intelligence!), coordinate advertising reach and frequency, surveys, lobby work, etc.
The leaders of the top 10 or 15 environmental groups could be the initial executive council and take turns at leadership. Most of these groups have representation in DC.
Perhaps someone at CAP might be willing to call an initial meeting to gauge interest, pros and cons?
In the UK the RSPB with over a million members is Europe’s biggest wildlife charity so politicians treat it with great respect. I joined because of its broader environmental campaigning
http://www.rspb.org.uk/
Perhaps we need a World Society for the Preservation of a Habitable Climate.
Designed some new T-Shirts, to support my project climatestate.com and help to bring awareness to climate change. Maybe some here like this kind of “climate change mockup” style
http://climatestate.com/item/climate-state-shop.html
Feedback is welcome…
We shall change the world for the better when we create a not-for-profit community-oriented company that drives the cost of solar products down perpetually. Inventors can then cooperate with each other through arbitration, and they can invent full-time. We create jobs. Every time we lower the consumer cost, the fossil fuel companies leave a greater percentage of carbon in the ground, and the less power the oil field tinhorn dictators have.
However, this work requires courage and discernment. It requires people’s rejection of their own inertia. It requires sacrifice.
Someday I think that each of you will have courage.
Since there are many communities, there cannot be just one “not-for-profit community-oriented company” there must be many.
And there already are.
There are at least 3 within 10 miles of me right now.
We are in the middle of the process right now in my community. I know there are many because we contacted some for advice. But we all know we are running behind the climate clock.
The Balkans continue to dry, sizzle and burn
http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/serbs-told-to-pray-for-rain-1.1369462#.UDkJhMH8vTo
Good link Spike! We often in America forget about the rest of the world. I was especially impressed by the Russian heat wave, drought and fires a couple summers back. This year that type of weather moved into eastern Siberia and set of terrible fires. The smoke was landing in Canada creating dangerous ozone conditions.
Spain and Portugal have regions approaching desert conditions as years of drought appear to be climate change of a long term nature. Orchards turning to sand dunes in some cases.
The warming of Siberia has brought poisonous snakes up into the arctic regions were native people have never seen such snakes before. Weird. Also many southern birds are turning up in the far north, types native shave no names for as they were not types ever know to them.
Isaac pounding Haiti and the Dominican Republic with torrential rains
1084. Angela Fritz, Atmospheric Scientist (Admin)
5:40 PM GMT on August 25, 2012
Looking forward to blogging with you all this afternoon!
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2204
This is very smart to engage with the public. This will change people minds, when they can get 1st hand information – expert opinions!
I see that Texas wants to leave the United Nations:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/aug/24/us-election-2012-romney-obama-climate
I’m not very up on this, but didn’t Cambodia leave, under Pol Pot?
I realise this isn’t really your patch, Joe, (and its way off mine), but thought you might find some foreign policy wonks who could have fun with this.
The Security Council sure will look smaller without you guys.
Poor old Israel!
“Protection from Extreme Environmentalists – We strongly oppose all efforts of the extreme environmental groups that stymie legitimate business interests. We strongly oppose those efforts that attempt to use the environmental causes to purposefully disrupt and stop those interests within the oil and gas industry. We strongly support the immediate repeal of the Endangered Species Act. We strongly oppose the listing of the dune sage brush lizard either as a threatened or an endangered species. We believe the Environmental Protection Agency should be abolished…”
Is that some sort of liberal lizard, or even worse a green one??
A website to links for real-time water level data in the Florida Everglades:
http://sofia.usgs.gov/eden/stationlist.php
Sampling the gage readings shows that water levels are near annual highs.
The National Weather Service forecasts over 10 inches of rain to fall on the Everglades between now and Tuesday.
http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/tropical/qpf/tcqpf.php?sname=Isaac
August 31st is fullmoon / high tide too.
Haiti will take a bludgeoning because of the massive deforestation. The contrast with Cuba will be lost on the propagandists in the MSM, as ever.
Can any one address a query I have about Dendroclimatology? It comes about from a denier blog post;
suyts.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/why-are-dendro-shafts-so-straight/
Basically the argument is that pine needles are affected by temperature, and can stay on the tree for at least a decade, perhaps several, contributing through photosynthesis to tree ring growth. So the climate that created the needles will have an affect on the size of the rings for decades.
Does anyone know how much effect or uncertainty this will have on dating and any techniques used to compensate for it?
If you google “evergreen tree rings” there is all the info you need to learn that there is no adding to a tree’s ring once it has grown a ring through a single summer/winter cycle. Nature does not go back and add to. There are several sites that explain the dating process too.
A base line for interpreting tree rings from a particular region is developed with the context of other data in the same time frame and locale. The blog you linked didn’t do that.
They didn’t prove their hypothesis. They didn’t match up time lines for needle length variability (circa 1955-1973) with any tree ring data for same tree species and local weather conditions in the same interval, and twenty years thereafter. If there were a time lag of productivity of ten to twenty years for that species of pine, they didn’t provide even one example!
Furthermore they didn’t think through something pretty basic. As a conifer tree grows over years, the tree accumulates more needles altogether so the blogger would have had to do some pretty fancy math to calculate surface area of cumulative needles over time and compare to tree ring width and weather conditions.
I’ve seen tree rings used to track the suppression of tree growth from increasing soil salinity, where it could be shown that otherwise the weather conditions were not significantly changed in the relatively short period of a few years during which the salt water intrusion arrived. I mention this because the salt water was a big enough forcing agent to be detectable in a pattern significantly smaller growth rings that could not be attributed to other known variables.
When it comes to tree ring data about climate change, the message is ‘writ large’ over many centuries and several species and several locales. The forcing agent is widespread, to make a completely dry understatement.
Have to comment on the not so subtle irony.
GOP denies Climate Change.
Extreme weather Denys GOP conference.
Any update on the Boyou Corne sinkhole? Does Isaac pose a risk? Just how close is Chevron’s salt dome storage facility?
It would seem Chevron’s salt dome is not the one currently suspected. But when you have a million barrels or so of butane in the vicinity one tends to worry.
Alberta announces long-term development slowing development of Athabasca tarsands, cancels 19 oil leases, creates 20,000 sq km of protected wilderness reserve:
http://revmodo.com/2012/08/24/new-oil-sands-plan-for-alberta/
More here from the Canadian Broadcasting Company:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2012/08/22/edmonton-oilsands-environment-athabasca.html
Unrelated to all of the above, I believe I’ve noticed in recent weeks a concentrated attack on banning plastic (i.e., “single use”) grocery bags (e.g., Wall Street Journal story at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303822204577468790467880880.html, Real Clear Science story at http://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2012/07/31/plastic_bag_bans_just_another_eco-fad_106336.html?goback=%2Egde_1018127_member_144055358, plastic bag apologist on NPR, etc.) all of which argue that plastic bags — as distinguished from heavier “reusable” bags made of polyester or cotton — are far better in terms of carbon emissions. I have seen no scientifically-based attempt to refute this argument. Moreover, when I became interested in responding to a thread on an environmental discussion group I belong to where the commentary was overwhelmingly in the direction of bashing bag-banners I was somewhat surprised at how difficult it seems to be to find good factual information to refute what appear to be “industry talking points” in the articles.
While plastic bags may have a relatively modest carbon impact, I think the broader point the author’s are making is expressed in the title of the RCS piece: “Another Feel-Good Eco-Fad.” Disparaging environmental activism (and activists) is clearly from the climate denier play book and in my opinion bleeds over to other climate change issues.
With that long-winded background, does anyone have a good response and/or source material for refuting the premise that “single use” plastic bags are good for the environment (especially with respect to climate change) and that reusable bags are in essence counter-productive?
Thanks!
I’m no expert, but I think you’d learn a lot more from a Google of “plastic” and “turtle”.
Actually, the pro-single use bag people also deny the impact of bags on turtles and other wildlife — saying it’s other kinds of plastic that’s causing the problem (to the extent there is a problem) — but I am primarily interested in the carbon impact.
Some welcome good news about the resilience to drought of West African forests here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19332960
Key West – Isaac approaching http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=324337804329142&set=a.201065459989711.43923.196805450415712&type=1
Something about the Republican Party convention and Keystone XL:
http://boldnebraska.org/republicannationalconvention
In this week with Arctic Ice showing every sign of meltdown, smashing the already low limits set in past summers, it is ironic that Willard Anthony Watts should have as his quote for his Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup:-
Quote of the Week: The epitaph that I would write for history would say: I conceal nothing. It is not enough not to lie. One should strive not to lie in a negative sense by remaining silent. -Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)
I say ‘ironic’ because the climate & energy stuff happening this week (according to WAW) comprises (a) Two snippets of research on the sun’s impact on Rhine ice events & ENSO. (b) Antarctic ice core findings and news of the collapse of the Indus Valley bronze age cities in the second millenium BC. (c) NOAA e-mails whose release shows “little of great new significance.” (d) The tiff between Michael Mann & The National Review plus talk of a whitewash hunt. (e) A short review of California’s “Our Changing Climate 2012” report, published last month. (f) A short comment on the content of an EIA report that was published in July last year.
How it is that “The world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change” can have nothing to say on the Arctic this week, that it is unable to “…strive not to lie in a negative sense by remaining silent” on the situation remains unexplained, unless it’s claims about itself are as hollow as its reporting.
In honor of Joe’s love of Star Trek, and in deference to the unprecedented Greenland melt of 2012, I hereby propose that from this time forward, followers of Climate Progress be affectionately known as the “Rommoulins”.
Cheers, and have a great week!
Funny. I also like the movie Moulin Rouge.
C’est moulin blanc!