Atmospheric

Researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory may have discovered why so little that makes sense results from political meetings - moderately high indoor concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) can significantly impair people's decision-making performance.  The results would need to be replicated in a larger study but on nine scales of decision-making performance, test subjects showed significant reductions on six of the scales at CO2 levels of 1,000 parts per million (ppm) and large reductions on seven of the scales at 2,500 ppm. The most dramatic declines in performance,…

Secondary organic materials (SOM) in the atmosphere form two distinct types, liquids and jellies, and these airborne particles have begun to react with gases in the atmosphere. In the last 20 years' research and climate modeling, these SOM particles have been assumed to drift as liquids. In a liquid phase, the organic materials would absorb other compounds like ammonia or ozone very easily and then progress through a series of chemical changes, known as chemical aging, to form particles that reflect or absorb sunlight, or form clouds. Experiments at Harvard using particles of α-pinene…

The Greenland ice sheet has a tale to tell about ancient greenhouse gas emissions too. Researchers have determined how much methane originates from natural sources and how much is due to human activity, from Roman times to the present.Methane is an underestimated greenhouse gas, 23X the impact of CO2 but not as long-lived, and like CO2 it has natural sources and also originates from human activities. The emissions from natural sources varies due to \climate variations; as an example, bacteria in wetlands release methane and less is emitted in dry cycles when wetlands shrink.  Emissions…

Thanks to science journalism that primarily exists to be cheerleaders and rehash IPCC press releases, the public thinks if we just banned carbon dioxide our climate issues would go away.  Of course, to scientists outside the media spotlight or well-funded advocacy groups like Union of Concerned Scientists, climate reality is much more nuanced and it is known we do not yet understand adequately the role played by aerosols, clouds and their interaction and must take related processes into account before considering any large-scale geo-engineering or draconian bans. Canada banned the main…

In "Science Left Behind", the oft-regurgitated 'it takes a gallon of gas to make a pound of beef' nonsensical metric is revealed for what it always was; a claim put into a book that was derived from an advocacy press release in the 1980s that had no scientific merit.  Still, saying what advocates want is enough to make it into UN reports under 'gray literature' and so a UN report dutifully included it and a whole bunch of hysterical statistics was derived from it. That is the magic of agenda-based scientization of politics. So you can imagine my surprise when I got a U.C. Riverside press…

The Quest project, the first carbon capture and storage (CCS) project for an oil sands operation in Canada, has gotten support from the Governments of Canada and Alberta and will soon be underway, Shell announced. The Canadian government and the Athabasca Oil Sands Project joint venture owners (Shell, Chevron and Marathon Oil) say CCS is necessary to meet projected increases in global energy demand while reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.  Alberta's oil sands are a secure, reliable source of energy and an economic engine which drives employment, training and business…

In the 'we must do something even if it does not work' department, it isn't always permanent; vapor recovery mandates for new gas stations in Pennsylvania are quietly dying. The Department of Environmental Protection today announced it will not enforce a requirement for new gas stations to install costly vapor recovery systems. It's still the law, current regulations require facilities in southeast and southwest Pennsylvania to maintain vapor recovery systems, which are attached to gas pump nozzles to siphon off fumes while pumping gasoline, but they are not going to endorse it. A notice…

See? America did not need any stinking Kyoto agreement, we just needed for three areas to work in tandem to get greenhouse gas emissions back close to the magic number picked by the Germans and French a decade and a half ago.(1) The Department of Energy released carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of the energy sector  for Q1 of 2012 and they were the lowest since 1992. American energy is positively green again, just like people wanted. We can thank right-wing energy companies for that, because it has primarily happened due to natural gas. What's the catch?  Activists have now turned…

Sulfur has been portrayed as a secondary factor in regulating atmospheric oxygen - carbon gets all the press - but new findings suggest that sulfur’s role may have been underestimated. As sulfur cycles through the land, the atmosphere and the oceans, it undergoes chemical changes that are often coupled to changes in other such elements as carbon and oxygen. This affects the concentration of free oxygen.  Researchers interested in better understanding the global sulfur cycle over the last 550 million years, roughly the period in which oxygen has been at its present atmospheric level of…

In the 1990s, life was simpler for environmentalists.  Crippling the logging industry was all that was needed to protect trees and birds.   But, as in abortion or gun control, you have to sue everyone or you can sue no one and even responsible logging and clearing brush was stopped by environmental lawsuits and as a result, wildfires have become far more frequent and far more devastating.  Now add a new wrinkle - no logging is leading to more global warming. Trees remove and sequester carbon from the atmosphere, in the form of carbon dioxide, acting as important stores, or "…