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Climate Change

Climate Change
Quote:CNN's Five Things:

Australia's Great Barrier Reef is suffering its sixth mass bleaching event due to heat stress caused by climate change, the reef's managers confirmed today. The update comes mid-way through a 10-day monitoring mission by scientists who are considering whether to add one of the world's seven natural wonders to their "in danger" list." According to a biologist monitoring the project, more than half of the living coral seen from the air is severely bleached completely white and are producing fluorescent pigments in an attempt to protect their tissue from the intense sun during marine heatwaves. This is the fourth mass bleaching event in six years and the first since 2020, when about one quarter of the reef showed signs of severe bleaching. Previous bleaching occurred in 1998 and 2002.
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Climate Change
(03-26-2022, 12:55 PM)Alan V Wrote:
Quote:CNN's Five Things:

Australia's Great Barrier Reef is suffering its sixth mass bleaching event due to heat stress caused by climate change, the reef's managers confirmed today. The update comes mid-way through a 10-day monitoring mission by scientists who are considering whether to add one of the world's seven natural wonders to their "in danger" list." According to a biologist monitoring the project, more than half of the living coral seen from the air is severely bleached completely white and are producing fluorescent pigments in an attempt to protect their tissue from the intense sun during marine heatwaves. This is the fourth mass bleaching event in six years and the first since 2020, when about one quarter of the reef showed signs of severe bleaching. Previous bleaching occurred in 1998 and 2002.

Contrary to what this report appears  to indicate—that the problem is solely Australia's—oceanic and overall
global warming is far more the problem of other countries, particularly China, the United States, and India.

[Image: Screenshot-2022-03-27-at-07-47-38-Each-C...ssions.png]

It's all very well for Antonio Guterres "name-check" Australia—and as a non-scientist at that.  Maybe
he should be taking the United States to task for its disgraceful atmospheric emissions record?
I'm a creationist;   I believe that man created God.
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Climate Change
(03-26-2022, 09:10 PM)SYZ Wrote: Contrary to what this report appears  to indicate—that the problem is solely Australia's—oceanic and overall
global warming is far more the problem of other countries, particularly China, the United States, and India.

I don't think any well-informed person would blame Australia for the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef.
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Climate Change
(03-26-2022, 09:35 PM)Alan V Wrote:
(03-26-2022, 09:10 PM)SYZ Wrote: Contrary to what this report appears  to indicate—that the problem is solely Australia's—oceanic and overall
global warming is far more the problem of other countries, particularly China, the United States, and India.

I don't think any well-informed person would blame Australia for the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef.

Not in the literal sense I agree, but Antonio Guterres yesterday called Australia a
"holdout", and used an address to a sustainability summit to take an extraordinary
public swipe at Australia's climate change efforts.  In actuality, according to our
federal Emissions Reduction Minister, Angus Taylor, Australia has reduced emissions
faster than 15 other members of the G20.  

Australia has delivered a 20% emissions reduction since 2005, which is a better
performance than the US, Canada, and New Zealand.  Our emissions now equate
to only 1.3% of the global total.
I'm a creationist;   I believe that man created God.
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Climate Change
Climate tech firm to launch scaled-up plant sucking CO2 from air

Quote:BRUSSELS, June 28 (Reuters) - Construction is due to begin on Wednesday on what could become the world's biggest plant to capture carbon dioxide from the air and deposit it underground, the company behind the nascent green technology said.

Swiss start-up Climeworks AG said its second large-scale direct air capture (DAC) plant will be built in Iceland in 18-24 months, and have capacity to suck 36,000 tonnes of CO2 per year from the air.

That is a sliver of the 36 billion tonnes of energy-related CO2 emissions produced worldwide last year. But it is a 10-fold increase from Climeworks' existing DAC plant, currently the world's largest, and a leap in scale for a technology that scientists this year said is "unavoidable" if the world is to meet climate change goals. read more

The new "Mammoth" plant will contain around 80 large blocks of fans and filters that suck in air and extract its CO2, which Icelandic carbon storage firm Carbfix then mixes with water and injects underground where a chemical reaction turns it to rock. The process will be powered by a nearby geothermal energy plant.
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” -Carl Sagan.
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Climate Change
cool, Back in the 80's we said its possible, difficult and time consuming, but doable.

Assuming we don't kill ourselves over religion, race, pronouns, and greed that is.
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Climate Change
Quote:The extent of the leaks is still unclear but rough estimates by scientists, based on the volume of gas reportedly in one of the pipelines, vary between 100,000 and 350,000 tonnes of methane.
Link

Wouldn't igniting the shit be the smart thing to do? The byproducts of combustion are far less harmful than the release of methane.
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Climate Change
(09-29-2022, 12:17 AM)Inkubus Wrote: Wouldn't igniting the shit be the smart thing to do?

A system like that should have cutoff valves specifically for stopping gas escape if the piping gets breached.  I don't understand why these valves haven't been closed already, even if it takes saturation divers to go down and close them.  Or have the well heads themselves been blown up?
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Climate Change
(09-29-2022, 12:58 AM)airportkid Wrote:
(09-29-2022, 12:17 AM)Inkubus Wrote: Wouldn't igniting the shit be the smart thing to do?

A system like that should have cutoff valves specifically for stopping gas escape if the piping gets breached.  I don't understand why these valves haven't been closed already, even if it takes saturation divers to go down and close them.  Or have the well heads themselves been blown up?

No, there are no shutoff valves along the length of the thing because of access problems if they were to malfunction. Those lines are always full of gas, liquefied gas for negative buoyancy, you don't want the things floating to the surface which they could do if empty.
100,000 tons of liquid gas will take months to boil off.
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Climate Change
(09-29-2022, 01:36 AM)Inkubus Wrote: No, there are no shutoff valves along the length of the thing because of access problems if they were to malfunction.

Saturation diving is routine, so that's gonna need further elaboration.  As to bouyancy the lines can be anchored to not float when empty with such common devices as concrete.  That the system wasn't designed for access or accident sounds very much like it was designed with its top priority that its total cost not exceed $5.95.  Which wouldn't be surprising but definitely disgusting that so critical a system was permitted to be built so slapdash.
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Climate Change
Quote:Europe is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world.

Temperatures in Europe have increased at more than twice the global average over the past 30 years—the highest of any continent in the world. As the warming trend continues, exceptional heat, wildfires, floods and other climate change impacts will affect society, economies and ecosystems, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The State of the Climate in Europe report, produced jointly with the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, focused on 2021. It provides information on rising temperatures, land and marine heatwaves, extreme weather, changing precipitation patterns and retreating ice and snow.

Temperatures over Europe have warmed significantly over the 1991–2021 period, at an average rate of about +0.5 °C per decade. As a result, Alpine glaciers lost 30 meters in ice thickness from 1997 to 2021. The Greenland ice sheet is melting and contributing to accelerating sea level rise. In summer 2021, Greenland saw a melt event and the first-ever recorded rainfall at its highest point, Summit station.

In 2021, high impact weather and climate events led to hundreds of fatalities, directly affected more than half a million people and caused economic damages exceeding US$ 50 billion. About 84% of the events were floods or storms.

It's not all bad news. A number of countries in Europe have been very successful in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. In particular, in the European Union (EU) greenhouse gas emissions decreased 31% between 1990 and 2020, with a net 55% reduction target for 2030.

Europe is also one of the most advanced regions in cross-border cooperation in climate change adaptation, in particular across transnational river basins. It is one of the world leaders in providing effective early warning systems, with about 75% of people protected. Heat-health action plans have saved many lives from extreme heat.

But the challenges are formidable.

"Europe presents a live picture of a warming world and reminds us that even well prepared societies are not safe from impacts of extreme weather events. This year, like 2021, large parts of Europe have been affected by extensive heatwaves and drought, fueling wildfires. In 2021, exceptional floods caused death and devastation," said WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas.

Guess I won't have to go to back to Brazil in order to live out my old age in a tropical climate. Though it's gonna be more like a desert probably. Dodgy
“We drift down time, clutching at straws. But what good's a brick to a drowning man?” 
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Climate Change
COP15 agreeent has been reached with member countries agreeing to protect 30% of their landmass to preserve biodiversity, an 11 hour agreement. Of course, much like the Paris Accord of 2015, it doesn't contain any mechanism to force countries to comply beside shame, but it's at least a positive statement to preserve our dying ecosystems.
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Climate Change
It also privileges the worlds worst offenders, who have landmass to spare, that they aren't exactly sacrificing to continue not utilizing.
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Climate Change
From this One Earth article:

"Ultimately, even relatively modest warming is expected to increase the risk that various climatic tipping points will be crossed—causing large changes in the future state of Earth’s climate system, thereby adding further amplifying feedbacks. Despite major recent progress in incorporating a host of interacting feedbacks, climate models may still be underestimating the acceleration in global temperature change that a large and interrelated set of amplifying feedback loops and tipping points could cause. In a likely short-term scenario, our lack of dramatic emission reductions could result in a future with ongoing and intensifying climate impacts. In the worst case long-term scenario, interactions among feedback loops could result in an irreversible drift away from the current state of Earth’s climate to a state that threatens habitability for humans and other life forms. In any case, the accuracy of climate models is of vital importance since they guide climate mitigation efforts by informing policymakers about the expected effects of anthropogenic emissions."

The article identified 41 separate feedback loops, 27 of which are positive and amplify warming.
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Climate Change
I am not a climate scientist.  But I am an experienced gardener.  It has become obvious to me that the average last frost date in Spring over the last couple decades has become at least a week earlier and the average first frost date in Fall is about a week or two later.  I recognize that is not precise, but my garden reacts to the changes, so I am doing the same.  

I have a detailed system of when to plant seeds inside under lights to grow them to where they succeed transplanted outdoors.  I changed my schedule by a week a few years ago, and I may change it by another week soon.  I understand that local conditions don't prove world-wide changes.  But when they do for 20 years locally, it is not just random odd weather.

I do dislike making planting plans from local events.  But when things become consistent, I have to adjust to that.  For this particular post, I won't even get into worldwide climatic events and measurements.  I'll leave that to others.  

But after 50 years of gardening in the same general place, I can sure see a difference!
Never try to catch a dropped kitchen knife!
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Climate Change
Pretty cool stuff. Your anecdotal experience matches up with first and final frost dates in the us - we have frost maps going back a century. The growing season has extended about a month - two weeks on each end, in that century. Alot of it just in the last two decades. On the surface that would seem like a good thing - but what really hurts (and I imagine especially hurts the smaller a garden - with less of everything to lose) are the "freak" weather events -in- the growing season. Air quotes there because they've become the new normal. Strong winds blowing over tall stands when it should be mild. Cold snaps, heat waves, wet when it should be dry, dry when it should be wet. Early and late bugs. Faster spread of disease in humid conditions. It's gotten to the point where a single 30x72 high tunnel has approximately the same productive output (and net income) as a field acre.
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Climate Change
Quote:CNN:

Last month, insurance giant State Farm (California’s largest insurer) announced it would not issue any new homeowner policies in that state, citing rapidly growing wildfire risk. Days later, another major insurer, Allstate, publicly noted that it had also stopped providing California homeowner policies last year due to wildfire risks, high home repair costs and reinsurance premiums. Together with American International Group’s (AIG) decision last year to stop renewing some policies, these moves drastically reduce the availability of property insurance across a state in which more than 2 million of the state’s 14.6 million owner-occupied homes are at high to extreme risk for wildfires.

As climate-driven disasters grow in frequency, severity and cost — according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), there were 18 separate billion-dollar weather events nationwide last year, costing $165.1 billion — insurers and reinsurers (the companies that provide financial protection to insurers) are moving to mitigate their risk exposure. Some, like State Farm, are deciding to pull policies altogether. In Florida, 10 insurance companies have stopped providing homeowner coverage in the last three years as a result of losses to hurricanes and high levels of insurance fraud and litigation.

I assume this problem will only get worse with time. Some marginal areas may become unaffordable except for the wealthy.
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Climate Change
How about a sun curtain?

Tow an asteroid to a proper distance from the sun, get it established in an orbit that keeps it permanently in eclipse between earth and sun.  Then vaporize it with thermonuclear detonations such that the debris obstructs a calibrated percentage of the solar energy reaching earth.

Obviously there are many logistical issues to resolve, and determine just what percent of what the sun sends to earth is ideal.  But having established such a curtain, it could be adjusted, by adding another blasted asteroid, or using an intact asteroid to pass through the curtain and "vacuum" some of it away by gravitational attraction.

The earth biosphere evolved across aeons with the natural quantity of sunlight, but we've artificially altered the biosphere such that what's natural is now too much, as atmospheric composition magnifies the sun's effects.  A curtain would offer a solution that doesn't depend on universal cooperation from an anarchy of nations.
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Climate Change
(06-29-2023, 07:14 PM)airportkid Wrote: How about a sun curtain?

Tow an asteroid to a proper distance from the sun, get it established in an orbit that keeps it permanently in eclipse between earth and sun.  Then vaporize it with thermonuclear detonations such that the debris obstructs a calibrated percentage of the solar energy reaching earth.

Obviously there are many logistical issues to resolve, and determine just what percent of what the sun sends to earth is ideal.  But having established such a curtain, it could be adjusted, by adding another blasted asteroid, or using an intact asteroid to pass through the curtain and "vacuum" some of it away by gravitational attraction.

The earth biosphere evolved across aeons with the natural quantity of sunlight, but we've artificially altered the biosphere such that what's natural is now too much, as atmospheric composition magnifies the sun's effects.  A curtain would offer a solution that doesn't depend on universal cooperation from an anarchy of nations.

Or issue a Frugality Mandate, implement a Status Adjusted Universal Basic Income to mitigate the effects of the unemployment caused by the fall in demand for goods and services, paid for by a Wealth Harvest on the wealthiest 2% and a progressive tax regime - plenty of money left over to build green energy generation and carbon capture too. No sci-fi astrophysics needed for that.
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Climate Change
Glad you like it Chas, I got a 1st in economics and psychology at university and it's my baby/brainchild. I wish I knew how to publicise this reform/revolution. I wrote a "script" for the possible creation of a video espousing the benefits of SAUBI - they go faaaaaar beyond avoiding climate change apocalypse. Ah, what the hell, here it is:

1. Videos of climate protest roadblocks (scientists, doctors, the more respected the better), HS2 marching forward and planes chucking out pollution.

Narrator: "The government has declared a climate emergency and yet very little has changed. A Status Adjusted Universal Basic Income could be the wider societal reform needed, fundamentally addressing our destruction of the planet and with many wider benefits to boot. "


2. Videos of “rats racing” (animated perhaps), clips of us using our luxuries.

“As things stand, trying to make as much money as possible is the standard way of life – the rat race, if you will. This despite the fact that we in the West are overwhelmingly bathed in luxury, barring financial mismanagement, able to eat whatever we want whenever we want, smartphones, central heating, personal cars, snazzy trainers etc etc etc. The government's absurd definition of absolute poverty is simply meaningless, being based on relative measures alone, and utterly divorced from the World Health Organisation's definition of two dollars a day.”


3. Videos of environmental destruction and obscene wealth.

“A Status Adjusted Universal Basic Income, status adjusted so, for example, children and millionaires get a far lower amount, SAUBI for short, could take the emphasis OFF boundless consumerism, economic growth and wealth acquisition. Given the damage we're currently doing to the planet through Climate Change and ecological destruction that has to happen, and could easily be paid for through harvesting just a fraction of the obscene levels of wealth held by the very wealthiest in society.”


4. Videos of beaming proud green SAUBI living people. Automated call-centres and factories. Somebody selling drugs and declining to claim unemployment benefit.

“As automation of the goods and services industries continues apace, the level of economic inactivity is ever increasing. Successive governments have been revising down the unemployment figures for many decades by redefining the way they measure it, in order to appear to “out do” the previous administration. If you don't claim unemployment benefits, you're not unemployed, for example.”


5. Videos of a beaming “Green SAUBI person,” insurance sales, gambling advertising and cold calling.

“There need be no pressure for those living solely on SAUBI to find paid work – living on SAUBI, consuming and polluting relatively little, would be praiseworthy. Much unnecessary, unpleasant, guilt ridden and damaging economic activity would stop under SAUBI, as SAUBI living would be preferable for the individual. Unnecessary, polluting government funded projects put in effect purely in the name of “creating jobs” would also no longer be necessary.”


6. Videos of something breaking/being broken, depression, anxiety, substance abuse (smack and alcohol), over-eating (obesity),

“The way things stand if you're “not working” you are “broken” according to how the language operates. What a blow to anybody's self esteem, to be thought of as “broken” by society, let alone “dole scum.” All those unable to find work due to having a criminal record? All those unable to work due to disability? Broken, one and all. Many suffer depression and anxiety due to this, many more abuse substances.


7. Videos of crimes being committed and a happy prisoner back on the block.

“Why is there such a high reoffending rate for released prisoners? It's not only that they struggle to find satisfying work which provides decent self-esteem once free, but also because there's a sense of community and belonging in prison, sorely missing in our dog eat dog rat race society. At base, when people are told they're societal down and outs, people feel like rubbish, and when people feel like rubbish, we behave badly.”


8. All positive videos, people with friends and family, relaxing in beautiful nature, playing sport, painting, reading, partying, watching films and cooking.

“SAUBI is a caring policy, looking after people's well-being, self-esteem and the environment by taking the onus off dog eat dog rat race boundless greed, consumption and materialism. Who knows what further knock on positive effects that "shift" from the current socio-economic system might have for society at large. After all, the best things in life are free, and true happiness comes from having good relations with fellow human beings and decent self esteem, not boundless consumerism.”


ETA: just re-read it (wrote it several years ago) and it could be improved a lot I think.
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Climate Change
The Mediterranean is experiencing the worst heat wave in its history. Temperatures in excess of 40C/104F in many places (Rome, Athens). Near the Colosseum, free water is distributed. Akropolis temporarily closed. In southern Spain they have near 45C/113F
R.I.P. Hannes
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Climate Change
Quote:From a CNN article:

In a statement on Tuesday, Petteri Taalas, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, called this relentless cascade of extreme weather “the new normal.”

But some scientists now baulk at that framing.

“When I hear it, I get a bit crazy because it’s not really the new normal,” said Hannah Cloke, a climate scientist and professor at the University of Reading in the UK. “Until we stop pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere we have no idea what the future looks like.”

She is one of many scientists who warn that, while this summer is very bad, it’s only just the beginning. As long as global temperature continues to rise, they said, the world should brace for escalating impacts.

Cloke probably should have added that because the full impacts of greenhouse gas emissions are delayed, even after we stop polluting the atmosphere they will continue to warm the earth for another twenty years or so.
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Climate Change
Quote:Per a CNN article:

A vital system of ocean currents could collapse within a few decades if the world continues to pump out planet-heating pollution, scientists are warning – an event that would be catastrophic for global weather and “affect every person on the planet.”

A new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature, found that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current – of which the Gulf Stream is a part – could collapse around the middle of the century, or even as early as 2025.

****

It’s been clear for a while that the AMOC will weaken in the coming decades.... In 2021, a study found the AMOC was showing signs of instability due to climate change. But until now, we haven’t had a time frame.

The new study “provides a novel analysis that focuses on when the AMOC tipping point will occur,” de Menocal said, and the study’s prediction the collapse will occur around 2050 “is alarmingly soon given the globally disruptive impact of such an event.” Although, he added, it is important to note that there is no observational evidence yet that the AMOC is collapsing.

I would guess that would have the biggest impact on the weather in Europe.
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Climate Change
(01-10-2022, 10:37 AM)Aractus Wrote: To summarise: the data does not support the finding that extreme weather events are more likely with a warmer climate. Why not? They're so extreme that climate models can't predict them either way (that is with today's climate & atmospheric gas levels vs pre-industrial).
My guess: this will be the dumbest thing I read today. First you tell us the data does not support the conclusion; then you tell us there is no conclusion...IMO: you should pick a lane for your non-sense, and stay in it.
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Climate Change
(07-25-2023, 05:22 PM)Alan V Wrote:
Quote:Per a CNN article:

A vital system of ocean currents could collapse within a few decades if the world continues to pump out planet-heating pollution, scientists are warning – an event that would be catastrophic for global weather and “affect every person on the planet.”

A new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature, found that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current – of which the Gulf Stream is a part – could collapse around the middle of the century, or even as early as 2025.

****

It’s been clear for a while that the AMOC will weaken in the coming decades.... In 2021, a study found the AMOC was showing signs of instability due to climate change.  But until now, we haven’t had a time frame.

The new study “provides a novel analysis that focuses on when the AMOC tipping point will occur,” de Menocal said, and the study’s prediction the collapse will occur around 2050 “is alarmingly soon given the globally disruptive impact of such an event.” Although, he added, it is important to note that there is no observational evidence yet that the AMOC is collapsing.

I would guess that would have the biggest impact on the weather in Europe.

Eastern Europe, Iceland, and Svalbard would probably be a lot colder in the winter, but I'm not sure that would be the worst of it. The Gulf Stream carries a lot of heat away from the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and eastern North America. Hotter, possibly wetter here could be worse than colder there.
Save a life. Adopt a Greyhound.
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