http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change hourly 1 1901-01-01T00:00+00:00 http://gmane.org/img/gmane-25t.png http://gmane.org http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3548 <pre>IEA: World has stalled on clean energy http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/EE_World_has_stalled_on_clean_energy_1...&lt;http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/EE_World_has_stalled_on_clean_energy_1704131.html&gt; "The world's governments are failing on almost every level to clean up their energy systems and must intervene to support nuclear power, said the IEA, noting that only renewables and electric vehicles are 'on track'." </pre> David B. Benson 2013-04-18T04:33:39 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3545 <pre>I pass a link with our contribution to the debate about the effects of methane emissions in the Arctic. http://theconversation.edu.au/methane-hydrates-a-volatile-time-bomb-in-the-arctic-9891 Best regards Antonio </pre> antoniodelgado 2012-10-17T11:46:18 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3542 <pre>If the average drive to the poll for the US 2008 election was 2 miles round trip, the it put about 1/4 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. (The rest of the factors in this calculation are pretty easy to estimate, but I am not sure about the average miles driven to vote.) There are all these books and web sites about things to do to save the Earth, but not a single one of them mentions voting by mail. Advocating voting by mail as an efficiency that should be practiced by an environmentalist should have the effect of increasing voter turnout among environmentalist. Environmentalist can get very deducated and habitual about these minor efficiencies. These have a feel good effect. They seem addictive. They seem to be a kind of ethical ritual practice. Perhaps this could increase voter turnout among young environmentalist. Voter turnout among the young is relatively low. Hanson and others argue that these minor personal efficiencies are not effective and certainly not a substitute for political ac</pre> Tom Adams 2011-07-18T12:25:33 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3541 <pre>1. We can get a scientific consensus even when there is no hypothesis test supporting the consensus. 2. Solutions involve engineering, and we can still screw up the engineering even when the science is right. 3. Politics and social factors bias what solutions get implemented, even if good engineering points elsewhere 4. People get passionate about doing good and can find ways neutralize the skeptics without addressing the issues they raise. 5. The consensus tends to follow the funding. There can be a synergism between funding, consensus, passionate dogooders. </pre> Tom Adams 2011-07-12T13:16:12 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3540 <pre>Begin forwarded message: From: "Fairewinds Update" &lt;update&lt; at &gt;fairewinds.com&gt; Date: July 10, 2011 7:15:17 PM MST Subject: Boston Video Released Video at the following website: http://fairewinds.com/content/why-fukushima-can-happen-here-what-nrc-and-nuclear-industry-dont-want-you-know? VIDEO UPDATE: June 10th, 2011 Why Fukushima Can Happen Here: What the NRC and Nuclear Industry Dont Want You to Know. The well-known safety flaws of Mark 1 Boiling Water Reactors have gained significant attention in the wake of the four reactor accidents at Fukushima, but a more insidious danger lurks. In this video nuclear engineers Arnie Gundersen and David Lochbaum discuss how the US regulators and regulatory process have left Americans unprotected. They walk, step-by-step, through the events of the Japanese meltdowns and consider how the knowledge gained from Fukushima applies to the nuclear industry worldwide. They discuss "points of vulnerability" in American plants, some of which have been unaddressed by the NR</pre> Jim Torson 2011-07-11T04:03:37 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3539 <pre>Here is an excellent 2-hour video that is a panel discussion that includes four very credible and very qualified people discussing Fukushima and nuclear power in general. I highly recommend it. </pre> Jim Torson 2011-07-10T12:33:13 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3536 <pre>For several years, Roy Spencer has been promoting some work he did which he claims shows that the feedback from clouds is negative. Spencer has been a vocal critic of the science of climate change and he works are frequently referenced by denialist, such as Rush Limbaugh. Here's a link to Spencer's 2010 paper: http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Spencer-Braswell-JGR-2010.pdf Spencer has even written a book about his thinking, " The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists ". It now appears that Spencer's work is seriously flawed, according to an analysis by geologist Barry Bickmore, which he presents in three parts on his blog: http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/roy-spencers-great-blunder-part-1/ Worse yet, another analysis by Arthur Smith goes to the heart of the situation with a detailed look at the math: http://arthur.shumwaysmith.com/life/content/mathematical_analysis_of_roy_spencers_climate_model For those in the US who might</pre> Eric Swanson 2011-03-11T16:10:01 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3534 <pre>Yes folks, he said it: "Global warming is real, it's a man-made problem, it's something we need to fix," he said on Tuesday. http://qcl.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/general/carbon-tax-no-climate-cureall-lomborg/2093288.aspx?src=rss I'd say he's a little late. The damage from his previous confusion still rings loud after the denialist have spread his words far and wide. He still doesn't really want to DO anything. He just hopes for the appearance of some low cost energy alternatives. What does he think all us engineers and scientists have been doing for more than 40 years after the Arab/OPEC Oil Embargo??? E. S. </pre> Eric Swanson 2011-03-04T15:56:08 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3533 <pre>*How does it Matter to my Social values and Environmental Ethics?* You might have come across, as I, the ‘social values’ and ‘environmental ethics’, while your interaction with people in various organizations and institutions across development sector (d-sector) i.e. social and environmental domains. I am talking about our public sector organizations, civil society groups, research institutions, think tanks, corporate led societies, international bodies, to name a few. People talk about corruption by politicians and bureaucrats, policy flaws, poor planning and implementation, poor monitoring, un-coordinated or non-integrated approach and missing post program/project follow-ups. *Reduce your carbon foot prints for ‘me’: *I have seen the advocates of this ‘tag’ line running; Air conditioners while they are not in offices, *using plastic bags when they shop, using bath tubs and un-necessary showers when they take baths*, travelling in cars to nearby markets where they could simply walk, using</pre> K N Vajpai 2011-01-28T04:31:14 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3532 <pre>I am looking for a political middle ground. Yes there is a possibility of planetary cooling as a result of internal climate vatiation and yes there is still a significant climate risk. These arise for the same reason - climate as a complex and dynamic system in theoretical physics. 'Climate is an example of a complex and dynamic system in theoretical physics. There is real world evidence for this in, especially, Pacific ocean/climate shifts. The first manuscript (Pacific SST and Climate) is an interdisciplinary review of relevant peer reviewed science. Pacific Ocean science suggests the potential for global cooling over the next decade or three as a result of what the Royal Society called internal climate variation in their recent climate science summary. This is a difficult concept to follow, requiring a basis in interdisciplinary science. Nonetheless, it must objectively be accepted as a very real possibility that would create a very real quandary for carbon reduction politics...' http://www.eart</pre> Robert I Ellison 2011-01-22T08:54:56 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3523 <pre>Greetings from the flood zone. I am fine - thank you - but traumatised by the deaths and angered and saddened by idiots who seek to make a political point out of tragedy. Both sides of this argument are full of shit - intellectual featherweights who are instant internet experts on everything and are utterly convinced of their own logical infallibility. Both sides angling to blame the deaths and destruction on the other. I wish they would pull their f....... heads in. Rant over - I thought I would see if I could put a ruler under 20 years of work. Neither the floods or the current La Nina are notably unusual over the longer term - it is part of a Pacific decadal pattern that is likely to lead to decades more intense and frequent La Nina. see - http://www.earthandocean.robertellison.com.au/index.html As an Australian hydrologist, I was introduced to the concept of drought dominated and flood dominated regimes (DDR and FDR) in the late 1980’s. These are 20 to 40 year periods dominated by droughts foll</pre> Robert I Ellison 2011-01-16T01:10:15 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3521 <pre>Isn't there any American out there that is willing to speak up against the propaganda pumped out by Fox News against action on global warming? Is no one willing to admit that the battle against global warming has been lost, because the majority of US citizens have would rather read what they want to hear from the Australian Rupert Murdoch, than the truth from the New York Times? Were a' doomed! Cheers, Alastair. </pre> Alastair 2011-01-11T01:05:06 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3520 <pre>The carbon free voting campaign that started in California: http://www.carbonfreevoting.com/ should be taken nationwide Look here to learn how to vote by mail in your state: http://www.longdistancevoter.org/ In some states, voting by mail is called absentee voting and some have no-excuse absentee voting that premits every voter to vote by mail. For example, in my state, NC, no-excuse absentee voting is allowed and you can arrange to have a absentee ballot sent to certain close relatives and in-laws. Spread the word. You will be surprised how many pro-environment voters you will find that don't know that voting by mail is even permitted in their state. </pre> Tom Adams 2010-12-07T15:48:49 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3514 <pre>Hi! i would like to share my findings for the reasons of sea level rise, which i concluded during a study of climate change. Reasons of Ocean Change&lt;http://climatevariability.blogspot.com/2010/10/reasons-of-ocean-change.html&gt; A successful attempt has been made to assess the causes of observed sea level rise. During the peaked of last ice-age (21,000 years ago) the average global sea level was 120m lower than today. As fresh water continue to add into the oceans from melting down of ice sheets and glaciers, sea level rose over a meter per century. Global mean sea level change results from two major processes, mostly related to recent climate change, that alter the volume of water in the global ocean: i) thermal expansion, and ii) the exchange of water between oceans and other reservoirs (glaciers and ice caps, ice sheets, other land water reservoirs - including through anthropogenic change in land hydrology, and the atmosphere).Vertical land movements such as resulting from glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA),</pre> a a 2010-11-07T16:10:44 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3507 <pre>There's a claim making it's way around the internet that the Gulf Stream has slowed. The proposed cause is the impact of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Here's a link to a blog with the earliest post I found with a brief Google search, first dated 29 Aug 2010: http://europebusines.blogspot.com/2010/08/special-post-life-on-this-earth-just.html The Gulf Stream is a wind driven Western Boundary Current. I saw no discussion of this as the cause of the flow, only various conjectures about the impact of the chemicals used to disperse the oil from the blown out BP well. I think this claim is not supported by the facts and the spreading of this idea only adds to the confusion in the public mind regarding climate change. Of course, the Gulf Stream isn't the THC. While changes in the THC sinking in the Nordic and Labrador Seas might impact the path of the waters derived from the warm Gulf Stream, such as the North Atlantic Drift Current, that would not imply a shutdown of the basic wind driven flow. T</pre> Eric Swanson 2010-10-27T09:05:23 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3498 <pre>I want to bring this to the attention of those who might be shopping for fuel-efficient cars. ESC is considered to be the greatest advance in safety since the seatbelt. It will be required on all 2012 cars in the US, but it's still optional or not available on some 2010 and 2011 models: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_stability_control#Effectiveness Fuel-efficient cars tend to be the ones that don't ESC as a standard feature. With a little care, you can get a fuel-efficient car with near- optimal safety. This is good site to use: www.informedforlife.org But be aware that informedforlife uses average values when NHTSA or IIHS did not test a particular safety parameter. This can bias the safety measure for some models. You can see which values are missing and replaced with the average if you look carefully at the data displays. This site identifies which cars have ESC standard, optional, or not available: http://www.iihs.org/research/topics/esc.html When ESC is optional on a mode</pre> Tom Adams 2010-09-30T15:22:58 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3481 <pre>'Furthermore, FS is highly anticorrelated with cosmic ray fluxes reaching Earth on a wide range of timescales [60]. This makes any relationship of FS with UV emissions and top-down solar forcing a relevant factor in the considerable debate about reported correlations between climate (in particular global or regional cloud cover) and GCRs. Indeed some authors have noted that apparent solar cycle variations in cloud cover are in better agreement with the UV irradiance variation than that of GCRs [61–63], although we note that other studies that have tried to discriminate between electromagnetic irradiance and direct cosmic ray effects do find some evidence for the latter [64, 65]. A great many palaeoclimate studies have found links between regional or local climate indicators and cosmogenic isotopes and so it has been argued that this is either evidence for a direct cosmic ray effect or that the cosmic rays are proxy indicators for the correlated irradiance variability [66]. In particular, the much cited and</pre> Robert I Ellison 2010-09-17T23:43:59 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3468 <pre>Climate Risk Policy for Sceptics Beyond a couple of simple physical fundamentals of climate change – that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that human beings are changing the composition of Earth’s atmosphere – there are variations in climate from the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Arctic Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Southern Annular Mode and the Indian Ocean Dipole. Peer reviewed scientific literature says that these natural variations may result in no global warming for another decade at least. It happened last century. Just when carbon dioxide emissions were taking off at the end of the 2nd World War, global surface temperatures fell from 1945 to 1976. Imagine what no warming for another 10 years will do to the politics of climate change, when already most of the world has fallen by default into the sceptic camp. Just before opening the champagne bottles, think about the idea that humans are changing the composition of the atmosphere</pre> Robert I Ellison 2010-09-11T01:42:15 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3467 <pre> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXOgY7dVwPQ&amp;feature=related Lots of 3D glasses for this Grammy tribute are available on Ebay and Amazon. They were widely distributed for free. Another Earth Song Tribute that does not require 3D glasses: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnfHUaitf-Q&amp;feature=related </pre> Tom Adams 2010-09-13T14:32:47 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3463 <pre>Hi Everybody, I got some questions about GCM simulations in the southwestern US. I am not sure if I could ask these here. Maybe somebody had some experiences about this. I am working on a project about climate change impact in the southwestern US. My study area range *31°-34°**N* and 112° -108° ** *W*. For the GCM models, the longitude are 248° -252°E. I retrieved some GCM outputs of several GCM models (including HadCM3, ECHAM5, CCCma (T_63), GFDL_CM2.1, NCAR_PCM, NCAR_CCSM3) for this area from IPCC data center. I compared the simulations of 20C3M experiment to the historical data, and found that the GCM models simulated more precipitation in winter month than that in summer monsoon month. That's way too far from the observations. First, I thought maybe I retrieved the data from the wrong grid cell, and checked them out many times, it's still the same. So I just wonder whether anybody have the same experiences and could share some information with me. Thanks John </pre> yongguang zhang 2010-08-27T19:52:27 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.general.global-change/3462 <pre>Dear Members: For the information of the members, the Climate Himalaya Initiative http://www.climatehimalaya.net has a dedicated news portal http://chimalaya.org/ , that updates the Climate Change related news on regular basis. Those interested in Climate Change related issues, get regular updates by subscribing or becoming member. The ongoing includes; Pakistan Floods, Leh Cloud Burst, Climate Change Modeling, Domestic Actions by countries, Actions by Asian countries, Cancun Climate Summit, Criticism of IPCC, etc.....! There are options for subscription, membership, tweeting, facebook, among others....! You can visit and explore at http://www.climatehimalaya.net Warm regards K N Vajpai Convener and Theme Leader Climate Himalaya Initiative http://www.climatehimalaya.net http://chimalaya.org http://www.climatehimalaya.ning.com </pre> K N Vajpai 2010-08-19T04:43:09 Search the mailing list at Gmane query http://search.gmane.org/?group=$group=gmane.science.general.global-change