Climate
hrynyshyn | September 18, 2009It's a surprisingly complicated question. There are few reliable sources of data on just how much energy and resources are involved in extracting petroleum from the bitumen-laden sands of northern Alberta. But the inertia that comes with the tens of billions of dollars that have been invested in the tar sands so far means that it's an important question that needs to be answered as we plan our future energy portfolios. Keeping the planet's temperature to a habitable range depends on which fuels we use.
All of which means it's critical to carefully evaluate claims about the greenhouse-gas…
hrynyshyn | September 14, 2009One of Canada's best journalists, Andrew Nikiforuk, is the author of a just-released report on Canada's tar sands from Greenpeace. "Dirty Oil: How the tar sands are fueling the global climate crisis" is not a peer-reviewed paper, it was commissioned by environmental activists, and it relies heavily on other non-peer-reviewed reports by non-objective organizations. Despite all that, it's still a solid, reliable read that every Canadian and American with an interest in energy policy should download promptly.
There isn't a lot new in the report for anyone who's been following the massive…
hrynyshyn | September 10, 2009Miles Grant at Grist has alerted us to a new global-warming pseudoskeptic website, PlantsNeedCO2.org, with questionable parentage. Although "Plants Need CO2 is a 501 (c)(3) non profit corporation" it appears to be closely associated with decidedly profit-oriented types.
The domain name is registered to Houston-based Quintana Minerals, although the company's IT chief, Sammer Arnouk, told me they've registered hundreds of sites to all kinds of groups, including non-profits. There is none of the usual information on the "about us" link beyond a bio of a spokesperson, one H. Leighton Steward, "a…
hrynyshyn | September 9, 2009Climatologists have long known that aerosol "haze" plays an important role in determining just hot things get on Earth. But figuring out just what the role is has proven frustrating. The tiny, airborne particles that fly out of smokestacks, tailpipes and ordinary biomass fires can either help cool the earth by reflecting sunlight, for example. But they can also settle on snow in the form of soot and absorb heat. Now comes a paper that claims to have calculated the net effect. If the researchers are right, they've identified an important piece of the climate change puzzle.
Just as important,…
hrynyshyn | September 8, 2009The typical western post-industrial human being has two roles to play in society: citizen and consumer. Both offer the opportunity to exert power and influence, and whether we like it or not, neglecting one over the other invariably gives competing interests an opening. On matter climatological, most campaigners have been focused in recent times on the political sphere, and understandably so: legislation and regulatory proposals are on the table in the U.S., Europe, Australia and elsewhere. But there are those who are keeping an eye on the marketplace, where it may also be possible to effect…
eklemetti | September 4, 2009Lets get right to it!
"Manmade volcanoes": can they solve global warming?
It does indeed seem that something is happening beneath Kanlaon in the Philippines. PHIVOLCS reports that the volcano experienced 257 volcanic earthquakes from August 23 to September 1, well above the usually "background" level of ~20-30 a week. Most of this seismicity is centered on the northwest slope of the volcano, suggesting that if magma is moving, it is moving up under this side of the system. However, the seismicity doesn't necessarily have to be magma moving up to erupt. It could very easily be moving up in the…
hrynyshyn | September 2, 2009While the U.S. Senate's sense of urgency on the climate change front wanes, a new campaign originating on the other side of rapidly warming pond is urging us all to get with the program by cutting our emissions sooner rather than later. This is obviously a good idea from a scientific point of view, but what are its chances of success?
The 10:10 campaign draws on the always-obvious-when-you-think-about-it, but until recently largely ignored, fact that it matters very much how quickly we reduce the carbon emissions that are trapping all the extra heat in the atmosphere and oceans. A pair of…
hrynyshyn | August 31, 2009Hypothetical: If you had to make do with just one source of news, what would it be? I don't mean which medium, either. Let's narrow it down to one outlet, one group of journalists operating under a collectively identity, working with a common set of standards and principles. Twenty years ago, I probably would have chosen a newspaper, likely the New York Times, with its breadth and depth of coverage, one of the best (and now last surviving) sections devoted to science, and a largely intact reputation for honesty and accuracy.
Today, I have a different answer. Not because the Times' reputation…
hrynyshyn | August 27, 2009Yes, your car, and your toaster and television, too, if your electrical utility includes coal- or gas-fired power plants in its portfolio, are contributing to a shift in the Earth's axis by changing the distribution of water in the oceans. This according to a new paper in Geophysical Research Letters (in press).
The effect isn't large enough for anyone to worry about -- at just 1.5 cm, or less than a inch per year, Polaris will still be the North Pole star for a while yet -- but the authors of paper write that
The proposed polar motion signal is therefore not negligible in comparison to other…
hrynyshyn | August 25, 2009In an effort to launch what it calls "the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century," the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to defend the science of climate change at a public hearing.
Believe it or not. As reported by the L.A. Times:
"It would be evolution versus creationism," said William Kovacs, the chamber's senior vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs. "It would be the science of climate change on trial."
The goal of the chamber, which represents 3 million large and small businesses, is to fend off potential…
hrynyshyn | August 24, 2009There's a fascinating exchange between two of England's better minds, George Monbiot and Paul Kingsnorth, over at the former's blog/website under the rubric of "Should we seek to save industrial civilization?"
It begins with Kingsnorth's lament over the implications of all the exponential growth curves he's come across in recent times:
Sitting on the desk in front of me are a set of graphs. The horizontal axis of each graph is identical: it represents time, from the years 1750 to 2000. The graphs show, variously, human population levels, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, exploitation of…
hrynyshyn | August 21, 2009If you pay attention to environmental matters in North Carolina, you already know this, but I'm still catching up on a month's neglect:
The NC Senate voted 42-1 earlier this month to ban most wind turbines from the state's windiest regions. While offshore wind farms are still kosher (for the time being), anyone hoping to take advantage of the some prime kinetic energy in the Blue Ridge Mountains will have some serious lobbying to do. Rarely does anything attract that kind of support. 42 to 1?
The legislation, which amends section 113 of the General Statutes, doesn't come right out and say no…
hrynyshyn | August 20, 2009For me, the most interesting parallel between the national debates over how to stop heating the planet and how to reform health care insurance is the response both have generated in my own brain.
For years now, the failure of a sizable portion of the American public to accept the need to sharply reduce the primary causes of anthropogenic global warming has elicited frustration and, at times, fury. Similar emotions jump across my synapses in the face of daily news reports of the paranoid reaction of what is probably the same demographic slice of the country to proposals for government-run…
khannula | August 20, 2009Anne Jefferson, a hydro-geomorpho-climate geologist at UNC-Charlotte, has officially joined Highly Allochthonous as Chris Rowan's co-blogger. Anne's been unofficially co-blogging there for a while, but it's great to see her role made more official. And it's especially great to see someone with expertise in water and surface processes on Sb.
(Anne and I are also working together on a survey about women geoscientists and blogs - if you haven't taken it, please check it out.)
hrynyshyn | August 18, 2009From the Center for American Progress, via Climate Progress:
and from the comments to Joe Romm's post:
Mark Shapiro says:
August 18, 2009 at 11:01 am
. . . "It would be great if the skeptics were right!"
That's a near-perfect rejoinder whether debating a skeptic or just chatting with friends. Followed with:
"Then the only value of clean, safe renewable energy would be clean air, better health, stronger national security, and conserving our natural heritage.
(I'm easing back into real blogging after a few weeks of vacation followed by intense real work.)
hrynyshyn | August 10, 2009The similarities between the campaign against mitigating the consequences of climate change and the campaign against health insurance reform go far beyond the use of distortion and fiction. The parallels are everywhere.
For example, those with vested (monied) interests in the status quo are turning to the same lobbying and public relations outfits to carry out the campaigns. The latest firm to be identified is Bonner & Associates, which, according to the Virginia Daily Progress,
was founded in 1984 by Jack Bonner and is considered a pioneer in the field of "strategic grassroots," in…
hrynyshyn | July 30, 2009Returning from a non-wired vacation I find much has happened in the past couple of weeks. One team of researchers is arguing that sea levels won't rise as much as other fear, another team finds the northern peatlands will release more carbon than we once thought, a new study pegs the potential savings from energy efficiency at more than 20%and YouTube temporarily yanked a recent Climate Crock of the Week video for no good reason.
All worth exploring. But the best was the July 21 episode of The Daily Show in which Jon Stewart tries to explain the Markey-Waxman climate bill without falling…
khannula | July 29, 2009Earth Science Week 2009 will be October 11-17 (ending on the 20th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake!). This year's theme is "Understanding Climate." There are photo, visual arts, and essay contests, and Thursday is going to be the first "Women in Geosciences" day. (And then Friday will be "frantically put posters together for GSA" day. Maybe the people who prefer AGU can make this year's Earth Science Week happen...)
The Association for Women Geoscientists has a new website (at the old address). They're now collecting dues online, but the transition to a paperless world has been…
hrynyshyn | July 17, 2009If predicting climate trends was as easy as predicting the reaction of global warming pseudoskeptics there wouldn't be any deniers left. When I came across a new study in Nature Geoscience on the cause of the massive shift in the climate 55 million years ago, my first reaction was, "How long will it take before someone completely misrepresents this paper as evidence that undermines anthropogenic global warming?"
Not long. See here, here and here, if you have the time.
In the paper, Richard E. Zeebe of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaii and his…
hrynyshyn | July 16, 2009As someone with a marine biology degree, I've been asked to help spread the word about the threat to ocean ecosystems from falling pH levels -- what everyone who doesn't have a marine biology degree calls ocean acidification. It's a worthy cause. Read the following letter, review this report and then go to this site and do something about it:
We are both lifelong boaters. What we have learned from sailing across the Pacific over the past 6 years, and especially from scientists focused on marine conservation, is startling. Whether you spend time on the water or not, Ocean Acidification…