Environment

Global Cooling : Beyond Parochialism During the next 10 years, climate science and climate science reporting will, I believe, change the public perception of climate change.  More people will come to understand the difference between parochial weather and global climate.  As more and more people become directly affected by climate change, former deniers will begin to ask why "they" didn't do something about the problem. Parochialism is the mode of thinking that expects the whole planet to obey laws of nature modelled on one's immediate locality.  In this information age we have…

Global Cooling : How Wrong Can You Get? Despite media reports to the contrary, the Antarctic ice is still melting, as noted here: Climate change is warming the Amundsen Sea, which is at the southern margin of the Pacific Ocean. As rising sea levels push the warm water beneath the ice shelves, it melts them from below, pushing the grounding line higher up the continental shelf. That statement, from a recent New Scientist article is generally true: it is true of the majority of ice shelves. In the case of one specific site on the relatively small Fimbul ice shelf, the water appears not to be…

Global Cooling: A Good Story, If Only It Were True. According to Daily Mail reports of 10th and 11th January 2010, we are now entering a phase of global cooling.  However, there is an old saying about newspaper reports: "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story." I am not here to 'knock' the Daily Mail.  My earliest recollections of reading news stories are recollections of the Daily Mail.  I still read the Daily Mail on line and enjoy the generally high standard of reporting, so it came as something of a shock to discover that Daily Mail reporters have got their…

The compounded effects of climate change and land development are taking a toll on California butterflies, says an analysis conducted by scientists from UC Davis and the University of Nevada, Reno. The new analysis, scheduled to be published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, gives insights into how a major and much-studied group of organisms is reacting to the Earth's warming climate. The results are drawn from a 35-year database of butterfly observations made twice monthly at 10 sites in north-central California from sea level to tree line. The…

New research published in Nature Geoscience shows that water levels in the Bering Strait helped drive global climate patterns during ice age episodes dating back more than 100,000 years. The study, led by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), found that the repeated opening and closing of the narrow strait due to fluctuating sea levels affected currents that transported heat and salinity in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. As a result, summer temperatures in parts of North America and Greenland oscillated between warmer and colder phases, causing ice sheets to…

Leadership on the Energy and Climate Policy Fronts January 7th, 2010 South Carolina agricultural, forestry and conservation leaders in who gathered in Columbia this week should be commended for exploring how they might deliver much needed climate change and energy solutions. More than 100 producers, landowners, industry leaders, environmentalists, academics and state agency representatives came together to get factual information about energy and climate policy options; talk about alternatives and consequences; and explore emerging low carbon technologies can stimulate economic development.…

I was watching Jesse Ventura's show on Global Warming today. He went after those who are promoting Global Warming as a way to increase their pocket books. He had interviewed one of the business owners who are providing tax breaks for those who willing to remove their carbon footprints.These tax credits were to be said to give business the license to pollute rather than clean up their messes. While Al Gore, from what I understood from the show, isn't the master mind behind the Global Warming Theory. He is more of a spokesman who is also making money off of this conspiracy theory. The real…

Defrosting The Freezer There are many ways to defrost a freezer.  You can just switch off the power and wait for room temperature to permeate the ice.  You can use a heat source such as a hair-dryer or hot air gun.  Or you could chip away the ice and dump it where it will melt naturally due to local atmospheric temperature. As I write this, Britain is shivering in its worst winter for 30 years.  A temperature has been measured in Scotland insignificantly different from the current temperature at the South Pole. Supplies of grit, salt and gas are being rationed. A large…

Carbon Sequestration The Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research is using the LI-8100 to monitor soil CO2 flux near the injection well. Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership’s Central Appalachian Coal Seam Project Coal Bed Methane Injection well.With the increased concern of global greenhouse gas emissions, scientists are researching ways to limit the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere in an effort to mitigate the atmospheric CO2 concentration increase. Currently there is a global push to limit CO2 emissions through Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies. These…

Writing in the January 8 issue of Science, a group of environmental scientists is calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S Army Corps of Engineers to stay all new mountaintop mining permits. They argue that peer-reviewed research unequivocally documents irreversible environmental impacts from this form of mining, which also exposes local residents to a higher risk of serious health problems. "The scientific evidence of the severe environmental and human impacts from mountaintop mining is strong and irrefutable," says lead author Dr. Margaret Palmer of the University of…