Atmospheric

If you read environmental groups, we are closer to our doom than ever. Bees are nearly extinct, cell phones are causing cancer, and hydroelectric power is devastating the land. None of those are true yet they all have claims found in journals and in media. So it has been with mercury emissions, where computer models so poorly designed they'd get you fired in the private sector if you tried to recommend a working prototype using them sail through peer review.  Computer estimates good enough for government-funded research use published inventories and then estimate atmospheric emissions…

The recurring El Niño phenomenon was in full force from mid-2023 to mid-2024 and as predicted it brought higher temperatures. In this case, it brought the highest temperatures since accurate records have been kept, for 12 straight months. A team of climate scientists created a numerical simulation that predicts half of El Niño instances will be "extreme", when the area warms by 3.6°F above average, by 2050, and they believe lower CO2 emissions will prevent it. El Niño is when water temperatures along the equator in the Pacific Ocean rise by at least 0.9 °F above average. Even…

If humans in space are happening any time soon, it will be despite government involvement rather than because of it. NASA couldn't even build a telescope without going 25 years and 1,000 percent over budget. By the time all cultural parties pick away at a manned space program, it will be so expensive and time-costly it won't be worthwhile, and the private sector will throw all that baggage out and just do it. The James Webb Space Telescope program showed NASA is incapable of doing Big Engineering now, but they can put cute robots on other planets, and fund smaller projects, like how we might…

Former Vice-President Al Gore has a giant mansion but buys carbon offsets to mitigate the damage. Do they work? It depends, and that means it is unlikely. Lots of corporations dove into the carbon offset market, Mr. Gore made hundreds of millions of dollars investing in them, but there is no standard beyond 'we will plant this many trees.' The story is certainly compelling. There is no guilt about a mansion or private plane if you pay someone to plant trees that absorb carbon dioxide emissions equal to what you burned and create wildlife habitats and nice views for humans in the process.…

We're only two weeks into winter and a New York university is already declaring above-average temperatures in 2023 a result of global climate change.  Cornell University scholars say 28 cities in the region have experienced top-five warm temperatures, but they cite claims from as far back as 1895. Thermometers were far less accurate and locations were inconsistent, being more like anecdotal gray literature than data, prior to the 1980s. Some of the claims make a little sense. How can Central Park in New York City have its highest temperature ever while the rest of Manhattan is not?…

Hurricane Katrina was not dangerous until it hit land in Louisiana. But it intensified and since activists had successfully lobbied the Clinton administration to prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from making repairs, devastation occurred. Injuries and lives lost may have been reduced if there was a better way to predict when a commonplace tropical depression or tropical storm will intensify.  A new paper says there’s more than one mechanism that causes rapid intensification.  “Trying to find the holy grail behind rapid intensification is the wrong approach because there isn’t…

Prior to the Olympics in Beijing, China solved a pollution problem they previously claimed they never had by banning all cars except those for communist party elites. It did little for CO2, Beijing had a PM10 (smog) problem, but it showed drastic interventions could help the air. A new paper argues that America may have to get drastic as well, or property values will plummet. The changes will occur, they believe, due to greater risk of fires, droughts, and floods.(1) The paper uses a simulation to estimate virtual money - yet like virtual pollution (PM2.5), virtual water, and virtual diabetes…

In recent geological history, 90,000 of every 100,000 years have been ice ages. It's been 12,000 years since the last one so we may be due. Or not. Climate science has a few rules but a lot of exceptions and 700,000 years ago a big exception occurred. At that time the planet experienced a “warm ice age” and it permanently changed the climate cycles on Earth. Though it became warmer and with more rain, the polar glaciers also expanded. Geological data in combination with computer simulations published in Nature Communications hopes to lend insight into this paradox. Glacial periods – ice ages…

When news about the climate is published, like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report, frightening headlines like “final warning” or “now or never” are often the norm. Some activists call this approach “climate doomism”, and are quick to criticize media publications and other influencers for it. Climate doomism is the view that humanity has lost the climate battle, and we feel nothing but helplessness and anxiety about it. In a massive global survey, the results of which were published in 2021, 10,000 children and young people (aged 16-25) shared their feelings about…

When smog was prevalent, it was easy to see. Particulate matter 10 microns in size hover in the air, the famous London Fog was not natural moisture, it was PM10 pollution. In one event, nature combined with smog in London to kill 12,000 people. After that, wealthier nations engaged in pollution control, and then PM10 and its health issues began to dissipate. In the 1990s and with much cleaner air, pollution activists and allied epidemiologists began to 'define pollution down.' PM2.5 was suddenly the new goalpost, they said, and showed air quality maps with red and orange to prove it. It looks…