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Have you looked at the North Pole lately?

trichrider

Kiss My Ring
Veteran
So Pence Isn’t Convinced Global Warming Is A Threat —Why Is This Controversial?

I & I Editorial Board

7 hours ago
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4 min read

Vice President Mike Pence is catching some flak for declining to say the climate is a threat to the U.S. Despite his non-response, it’s clear he doesn’t believe it puts the country at risk. And that puts him in agreement with quite a few prominent scientists.
“Mike Pence repeatedly refuses to say climate crisis is a threat to U.S.,” says a Guardian headline.
The kids at Vox said “watch Mike Pence pack 2 big lies about the environment into a single 20-second clip,” because he’s “gaslighting in the service of climate denial.”
Esquire wanted everyone to know the vice president’s “climate-change two-step shows removing Trump won’t fix the Republican Party’s issues.”
Writing for CNN, Chris Cillizza heaped up a small hill of reports and studies that are supposed to be beyond question in their affirmation that man is changing the climate.
Pence was tripped up, so to speak by Jake Tapper, who was hosting a Sunday show on CNN. Tapper wanted to know if “human-induced climate emergency is a threat to the United States.” The question was premised on a January national intelligence report on global threats, which said climate change is “likely to fuel competition for resources, economic distress and social discontent.”
It’s truly maddening how the global warming alarmists have remained so sure they are right that human activity is dangerously warming the planet. They cite “consensus,” “settled science,” the United Nations, and researchers who have taken on the role of priests in the green religion. They are fanatical in their devotion to their “truth.”
Rather than dodge the question, Pence should have made his case. He could have quoted the administration’s own climate adviser, William Happer, a retired Columbia and Princeton physics professor and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, who has said “there’s a whole area of climate so-called science that is really more like a cult. … It will potentially harm the image of all science.”
Happer set off the easily agitated members of the cult by insisting a few years ago that carbon dioxide, the gas that they have so successfully demonized, is beneficial for the planet. He brought the fire, as well, when noted that he’s “concerned that many children are being indoctrinated by” panicky science, a statement that only the indoctrinators themselves would find objectionable.
Pence could have also quoted Richard Lindzen, the retired Massachusetts Institute of Technology atmospheric physicist who wrote a letter to the administration in 2017 — signed by 300 scientists, meteorologists, astronauts, and engineers — which said the “harsh regulation” of carbon dioxide was not “scientifically justified” and is of “no environmental benefits.”
Pence could have also chosen the words of famed British physicist Freeman Dyson, who once said “all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated.” Or those from Roy Spencer, the University of Alabama-Hunstville climate scientist who has pointed out the inconvenient: 95% of the climate models have predicted warming that has never happened.
Climatologist John Christy, Spencer’s colleague at the University of Alabama-Hunstville would have been another fine choice. He told the New York Times some years ago that every time he hears the phrase, “the science is settled,” he says “I say I can easily demonstrate that that is false.”
These few aren’t lone voices in the wilderness. Many other scientists have said they believe human activity is warming Earth, but to such a small degree that it’s not a threat. The alarmists call these researchers “deniers.”
Again, we ask how alarmists can remain so absolutely certain, so narrow-minded, given the wide-open window of doubt. There’s no healthy skepticism allowed in their minds, none permitted in the thoughts of others. They want to bully and silence those who refuse to fall into submissive agreement with them. Their intolerance shows just who the real blind zealots are.


https://issuesinsights.com/2019/06/...arming-is-a-threat-why-is-this-controversial/


you're right...you're not my science teacher, but you could learn a thing or two from what i posted...or not.
not interested in your platitudes. show some of your precious science that is settled...you know...the stuff that proves you could teach me anything at all.

you fail at that also. just more ad hominem idiocy.
i knew you couldn't do it, maybe not couldn't, but wouldn't because it upsets your narrative.

weak sauce dude, learn to code!
 

trichrider

Kiss My Ring
Veteran
Unchanged seasonal variation shows that Carbon dioxide concentration increase is probably not due to fossil fuel combustion

Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere varies seasonally with the May peak being about 6 ppm higher than the October low. These are very regular and are a reflection of biogenic and chemical interactions from plants, the soil and the oceans
This concentration is the net result following all the mechanisms by which carbon dioxide is produced and absorbed. Since 1960 the mean concentration has risen about 25% from about 320 ppm to just under 400 ppm now (399 as of yesterday) but the seasonal variation has remained virtually unchanged during this time.

This is not new and analyses the 25 year period from 1997 but I have only just come across it.
SOURCES AND SINKS OF CARBON DIOXIDE
CO2 seasonal variation

The constancy of seasonal variations in CO2 and the lack of time delays between the hemispheres suggest that fossil fuel derived CO2 is almost totally absorbed locally in the year it is emitted. This implies that natural variability of the climate is the prime cause of increasing CO2, not the emissions of CO2 from the use of fossil fuels.
The annual increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is in sharp contrast with the annual change in the seasonal variations (last 25 years)
The mean values are:
Annual CO2 increase = 1.572 ± 0.013 ppm per year
Seasonal CO2 increase = -0.001 ± 0.013 ppm per year
The general assumption is that about 40% of man-made carbon dioxide shows up as this increase with the remainder being absorbed by the enhanced action of sinks.
The justification for this conclusion is supported by measurements of the falling proportion of 13C in the atmosphere which is taken to signal the appearance of CO2 from fossil fuel emissions. ……
The correlation of changes in δ13C with ENSO events and the comparison with a simple model of a series of cascades suggest that the changes in δ13C in the atmosphere have little to do with the input of CO2 emissions from the continuous use of fossil fuels.
Even though the combustion of fossil fuels only contributes less than 4% of total carbon dioxide production (about 26Gt/year of 800+GT/year), it is usually assumed that the sinks available balance the natural sources and that the carbon dioxide concentration – without the effects of man – would be largely in equilibrium. (Why carbon dioxide concentration should not vary naturally escapes me!). It seems rather illogical to me to claim that sinks can somehow distinguish the source of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and preferentially choose to absorb natural emissions and reject anthropogenic emissions! Also, there is no sink where the absorption rate would not increase with concentration.
Carbon dioxide emission sources (GT CO2/year)

  • Transpiration 440
  • Release from oceans 330
  • Fossil fuel combustion 26
  • Changing land use 6
  • Volcanoes and weathering 1
Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere by about 15 GT CO2/ year. The accuracy of the amounts of carbon dioxide emitted by transpiration and by the oceans is no better than about 2 – 3% and that error band (+/- 20GT/year) is itself almost as large as the total amount of emissions from fossil fuels.
SOURCES AND SINKS OF CARBON DIOXIDE
Conclusions:
During the 1977 to 2001 time period analysed:
Changes in the isotope ratio are discontinuous. The temporal peaks in 13C appear to correlate with the CO2 concentration changes. Further the temporal peaks in 13C and the CO2 peaks correlate with ENSO events.
The yearly increases of atmospheric CO2 concentrations have been nearly two orders of magnitude greater than the change to seasonal variation which implies that the fossil fuel derived CO2 is almost totally absorbed locally in the year that it is emitted.
A time comparison of the SIO measurements of CO2 at Mauna Loa with the South Pole shows a lack of time delay for CO2 variations between the hemispheres that suggests a global or equatorial source of increasing CO2. The time comparison of 13C measurements suggest the Southern Hemisphere is the source. This does not favour the fossil fuel emissions of the Northern Hemisphere being responsible for ther observed increases.
All three approaches suggest that the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere may not be from the CO2 derived from fossil fuels. The 13C data is the most striking result and the other two approaches simply support the conclusion of the first approach.

https://ktwop.com/2013/05/05/unchan...s-probably-not-due-to-fossil-fuel-combustion/
 

TychoMonolyth

Boreal Curing
Unchanged seasonal variation shows that Carbon dioxide concentration increase is probably not due to fossil fuel combustion

...
How dumb is that.

Ok. Simple experiment dude.

Picture the planet without us and our fossil fuel burning. Zero humans on the planet.

Now picture us the way we are with us pumping out the CO2 the way were are.

Tell me we aren't affecting it.

But having read some of your posts the last 6 months, i realize you're probably paid for by a concerned industry.
 

Phaeton

Speed of Dark
Veteran
The last non asteroid extinction event happened before humans, but...
It was still caused by fossil fuel burning.
It was the coal beds of Siberia overlaying a major eruption along a fracture line. The amount of coal burned was on a par with what we are headed for now, and the resulting contamination wiped out 96% of life on the planet, even the oceans died.
It was not us that time but the cause was exactly what is going on now.

I do not get excited, the chance to change was a hundred years in the past.
Acceptance when action is futile.
 

White Beard

Active member
In fact, a group of scientists issued a statement in 1912, stating that the world, through coal burning, deforestation, and other means, was pumping 2 billions of tons of carbon into the air annually, and pointed out that given the rate of increase they had discovered, it would raise global temperatures enough to become a problem in a hundred years.

And LOOK! Here we are! (Take that, you conniving-Chinese-believers...)
 
M

moose eater

When in doubt, party on.... said Wayne and Garth...

When in doubt, party on.... said Wayne and Garth...

I agree Phaeton.

It’s my understanding that, whatever the causes, we’re too far past the threshold to ‘turn this freighter around.’ We’re headed to where ever we’re headed to, and once you get past the hand-wringing, aside from doing what you can in your own sphere of existence to contribute less to the problem, acceptance of the outcomes is the healthier route, in re. to mental health/stability.

Thus, what I regard as some fitting music.

Hot Tuna
‘Eve of Destruction’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfAk1NunbW4

Hot Tuna
‘Ak-47’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC5UtNHS4Es
 

St. Phatty

Active member
I agree Phaeton.

It’s my understanding that, whatever the causes, we’re too far past the threshold to ‘turn this freighter around.’



Yes, basically.

We could do part of it - e.g. reduce consumption enough to reduce the amount of oil and gas that we use.

It would require a Zen Cult like devotion to minimization of consumption.

Normally economic activity involves energy use.

A 50% reduction in energy use ... would be about a 50% economic contraction. It's very linear, some good curves @ PeakProsperity.com

One of the few countries that I think could do it would be China, since it's still sort of a centralized economy. And they can order people around.

Even if we did reduce energy consumption 50% ... we're still adding CO2 to the atmosphere.


In other words, like Moose Eater said ... it's a big freighter.

All those Russian women looking for rich husbands in Miami, did not come to the US to meet some guy who wants to ride his bicycle everywhere.

We have a society where a whole lot of people want to live like Kings and Queens = consumption = energy consumption = CO2.
 

armedoldhippy

Well-known member
Veteran
i admit that it is possible that we are beyond the point of no return. are you saying that because we (maybe) can't possibly stop before we hit something, that it is a waste of time pumping the brakes in an attempt to lessen the damage? really?
 
F

Frylock

i admit that it is possible that we are beyond the point of no return. are you saying that because we (maybe) can't possibly stop before we hit something, that it is a waste of time pumping the brakes in an attempt to lessen the damage? really?

And who knows what future science will come up with to deal with or even reverse our situation?
 
M

moose eater

Can't speak for St Phatty, but I'm saying maybe we can slow down the arrival at what ever end, but from what I've seen/read, the end -is- unavoidable.

But yeah, the giant blue pill for the Cosmos, borne of yet-to-be-revealed developments, might put a new glow on it.

Otherwise, I find the music above fitting for any kamikaze mission.

And now, I'm going to do something I've never been able to do before on my computer; go to the links I posted, and listen to the music, while watching the vids. BECAUSE I JUST GOT FIBER-OPTIC!!!

I have stepped into the modern age, likely with a larger carbon foot-print, and I think I can hear Jorma calling me now. ;^>)
 

St. Phatty

Active member
https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2

https://www.co2.earth/monthly-co2

2 tables of data. Where is that curve, CO2 ppm vs. time ?

mlo_full_record.png


Besides economic consumption & "War-generated CO2" (where the US is an unfortunate leader), there are semi-natural events such as forest fires in Siberia.

In 2003, they had a fire that burned 47 million acres. 73,000 square miles. The approx. chemical reaction for that fire:

C1 {Cellulose} + C2 {Lignin} + C3 {other carbon molecules in wood} + Y*O2 ==> Z*CO2 + {smoke, potassium, other stuff}

(Z - the number of moles of CO2 from the 2003 fire - is a really, really big number.)

Russia has an interesting policy about wildfire - they mostly don't worry about them. "Let it Burn", however you say that in Russian. China's biggest fire (in terms of casualties) was in 1987, in the Northeast, on the border with Russia.

So to reduce the rate of CO2 increase, all sorts of things need to happen:
1. Americans have to give up their materialism. And the Chinese, and Europe ... etc.
2. The Pentagon has to give up their wars and their 700+ military bases.
3. The human species has to materially reduce all aerobic plant de-composition processes. (de-composition Chemistry is similar to combustion - most of that pile of leaves is converted to CO2.)

So to reduce the rate of CO2 generation, assumes all sorts of things for which there is little or no basis in human history.

Are you going to convince the Pentagon to stand down ?

Are you going to convince Israel to stop goading the US into starting wars ?

Are you going to convince my princess neighbor in San Diego that she doesn't need a water fountain on her patio ?


The primary thing which would reduce the rate of increase of CO2 generation is to cut human population a lot, e.g. by 50%.

If we were hit by a significant meteor and half the human population died, well that would reduce the human-generated part of the annual CO2 increase.

The things that would have helped - e.g. mass transit - well most of the mass transit systems in the US have been torn up - deliberately.

We didn't get here by accident - we got here because the US chose to pursue CO2-prolific technologies (petro-chemical based Western tech) many decades ago, especially after WW2.

Following Wayne Gretzky's advice - skating to where the puck is going to be, when you get there - I wonder what grass grows like when CO2 levels are 500, 600, 700, 1000 ppm.

As one of the wildfire managers in Arizona's current 100K+ acre wildfire commented, "there's grass growing in the desert and that's what 's burning. Never seen that before." They attribute the grass to spring rains, and miss the part about CO2 augmentation.

When you look at the solutions, e.g. burying biomass that might otherwise de-compose into CO2, those solutions involve burning more gasoline. To do otherwise, you would need a fleet of all-electric bull-dozers etc. - and the electricity source would be nuclear.
 

trichrider

Kiss My Ring
Veteran
so glad you got tech now m.e., was your harvest at copper river excellent?
i was about to suggest wifi at a restaurant or truck-stop...



tycho, the ocean and it's inhabitants produce more CO2 than humans.
Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
“The oceans contain 37,400 billion tons (GT) of suspended carbon, land biomass has 2000-3000 GT. The atpmosphere contains 720 billion tons of CO2 and humans contribute only 6 GT additional load on this balance. The oceans, land and atpmosphere exchange CO2 continuously so the additional load by humans is incredibly small. A small shift in the balance between oceans and air would cause a CO2 much more severe rise than anything we could produce.”

will you now blame the oceans and phytoplankton for their part?
play the blame game, i'm not in it.


i actually admit Frylock has a point, that humans may actually be capable of reversing the present paradigm and allowing Teslas "hooking their machinery to the wheelwork of nature" comment regarding the energy from space....stolen from society by the rockefellers vanderbilts morgans and others, to be realized.


and the other solution mentioned by st. phatty is eugenics, or some 'natural' occurence...

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"If we were hit by a significant meteor and half the human population died, well that would reduce the human-generated part of the annual CO2 increase."[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]...which if that significant, would most likely create perpetual winter by the amount of aerosol injection it would produce, killing the other half as well.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]here's an interesting article i found this morning:[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]

24 June 2019
Conceptual model can explain how thunderstorm clouds bunch together

Climate research:

Understanding how the weather and climate change is one of the most important challenges in science today. A new theoretical study from associate professor, Jan Härter, at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, presents a new mechanism for the self-aggregation of storm clouds, a phenomenon, by which storm clouds bunch together in dense clusters. The researcher used methods from complexity science, and applied them to formerly established research in meteorology on the behavior of thunderstorm clouds. The study is now published in Geophysical Research Letters.

self-aggregating-storm-clouds496.gif
In an area with more clouds, the colder, denser air under them, caused by the rainfall, extends downwards and outwards from the cloud. A gust front is formed, and collides with fronts from other clouds. The air is subsequently forced upwards, and a new cloud is formed by the rising air. Illustration: Søren Granat


The life and death of a storm cloud

When the sun warms up the surface of the ocean, warm, humid air rises from the ocean surface, forming tall, columnar thunderstorm clouds, which reach heights of approximately 12 km and measure typically only a few kilometers across. As these clouds produce rain, some of it evaporates and cools the local area under the cloud. By this, the initial circulation of air, forming the cloud, is shut down and the cloud dissipates. If it were this simple, this should be the end of the thunderstorm cloud. However, the dense air below the cloud needs to equilibrate with less dense air surrounding it: “Cold air is denser, and it spreads away from the cloud. Gust fronts are formed which can collide with gust fronts from other clouds. As a consequence the air rises up, and new clouds are produced. This means that areas where sufficiently many clouds are, are more likely to set off additional clouds", Jan Härter explains (Illustration 1). “Areas with fewer clouds exhibit further reduction of clouds. As energy needs to enter the system, and since energy comes from the sunlight, there is a limit to how big the cloud lumps can grow – so we put a constraint into our model. The result is that cloud clusters form, with cloud-free regions in between. This is also seen in observations for the tropical ocean.”


Combining theory with real world phenomena

Building models is purely theoretical, but still manages to explain a phenomenon. “It is a theoretical argument, a suggestion for a mechanism that can now be tested. Clustering of thunderstorm clouds has been observed in the real world, but still lacks a scientific explanation. If we contrast two extreme cases, where one cloud is created, it ends up shutting itself down. Then statistical mechanics says no convective self aggregation will take place. Comparing this to another model where two clouds create another one, aggregation can take place. That’s basically what the theoretical model can do”. Jan Härter goes on: “This type of self organization is hugely interesting and can occur in a range of systems from biology to magnetism.


Preparing for the destructive force of the weather

Tropical meteorology is, due to the strong interaction of clouds with solar irradiation there, relevant for climate change. More clustering in a future climate might affect how much the ocean warms, relative to the rate seen today. Prediction of clustering of storm clouds could affect the weather in Denmark as well, and fairly recent events in Denmark with surprise flash floods, flooded sewers and basements, and damage to infrastructure has prompted questions on the origin of such sudden floods. Deeper understanding of how clouds interact could shed new light on the occurrence of such floods.
Illustration of the conceptual model. To begin with, the humid air is evenly distributed over the surface of the sea (the blue colour). But the self aggregating mechanism means that clouds are formed and self organize into clusters of clouds of a fairly uniform size. The white areas are cloud free. Animation: Jan Härter


Link to the scientific article >>


...and, (now that moose eater has fiber):


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYoOcaqCzxo


[youtubeif]NYoOcaqCzxo[/youtubeif]


Fatal flaw in climate change science.


:ying:
 
M

moose eater

Missed a modest surge of fish by about 2 hours; we were there, but took too much time getting settled, and trying to find a good spot to park/tent. After insufficient sleep in the previous 2 days, then 300+ miles of motating after packing and such, I was up way too many hours for my age and condition, and found myself in a state of mild to moderate hypothermia on Thursday night/Friday morning, at about 4:30 A.M. Crawled into my bag in a somewhat braced place on the fairly steep trail above the river, and got all of about an hour of sleep before the Sun baked me, waking me up.


Too cold.. Too hot. No rest for the wicked.

And once I start putting fish on a stringer in the river, my clock starts ticking, and I hate to leave them, even in glacial-fed water, for more than 24 hours or so. 36 hours at the very most, before it's time to head home and get bloody..

Going back down in early to mid-July, immediately before our annual trip to the Yukon Territory with my younger son and I, and going back to Chitina with several boats to drift, while dipping through a specific channel below the main area of the canyon, for the earlier part of the second sockeye/red run, but kings will likely be few and far between by then... if not closed by then for those of us taking part in the 'personal-use fishery.'

There's also no guarantee that just because we had a 'decent' first run of reds at Chitina, that the second run will be equal or better. We've seen them fall off abruptly in later runs, after showing heavy for the first, and visa versa. Mother Nature's 'grab bag.' She's full of mysteries sometimes. ;^>)

To quote an old adage, over-used by now, "That's why they call it fishing instead of catching."' ;^>)
---------------------------------------------
My younger son surfs via his smart phone at various places along the road, but I've always seen that as a security risk , and don't even own a true 'smart phone.'

But yeah, the new fiber optic gear ('brought to you by light' ;^>)... ), for as long as we can afford to feed our addiction, is pretty cool. Touch a button, and there you are. NEAT!! No more doing chores while stuff takes a half-hour or more to load, and then, if it loads, the frequent discovery that the screen won't work/interact properly= dead links/keys.
--------------------------------------
Recall the post I made weeks ago re. the salmon runs coming earlier, as a result of the changes we're discussing.

Oyster famers here are seeing changes, too. One up-side for the oyster farmers is that the ability to raise their own splats -may- improve, rather than having to buy splats to then raise.. The down sides include greater frequency of red tides/toxic algae blooms, acidification, newly introduced bacteria that were not here before, and so on.
 

trichrider

Kiss My Ring
Veteran
Thunderbolt of lightning, gamma rays exciting Researchers connect lightning with gamma-ray phenomena in clouds Research news


400118040.jpg


June 26, 2019

Tweet




400118042.png
A thundercloud over the city of Kanazawa. The gamma-ray glow terminated abruptly around location B. The lightning struck between locations A and B. Image: © 2019 Yuuki Wada

University of Tokyo graduate student Yuuki Wada with colleagues from Japan discover a connection between lightning strikes and two kinds of gamma-ray phenomena in thunderclouds. The research suggests that in certain conditions, weak gamma-ray glows from thunderclouds may precede lightning bolts and their accompanying gamma-ray flashes.
In the city of Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, in central Japan, Wada and colleagues work with local schools and businesses to install radiation monitors onto buildings. These radiation monitors are not there due to some worry about local radiation levels, though. They form a network, the purpose of which is to detect radiation coming from the sky. It may surprise some, but it’s been known for around 30 years that thunderstorms can bring with them gamma-ray activity.
“Forever, people have seen lightning and heard thunder. These were the ways we could experience this power of nature,” said Wada. “With the discovery of electromagnetism, scientists learned to see lightning with radio receivers. But now we can observe lightning in gamma rays - ionizing radiation. It’s like having four eyes to study the phenomena.”

400118043.jpg
A thundercloud can carry over 1 billion volts of electricity. Image: © 2019 Yuuki Wada

There are two known kinds of gamma-ray phenomena associated with thunderclouds: gamma-ray glows, weak emissions which last about a minute, and short-lived terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs), which occur as lightning strikes and are much more intense than gamma-ray glows. Both occur in regions of thunderclouds sandwiched between layers of varying charge. The charged regions accelerate electrons to near the speed of light. At these speeds, referred to as relativistic, electrons that stray very close to the nuclei of nitrogen atoms in the air slow down a little and emit a telltale gamma ray. This is called bremsstrahlung radiation.
“During a winter thunderstorm in Kanazawa, our monitors detected a simultaneous TGF and lightning strike. This is fairly common, but interestingly we also saw a gamma-ray glow in the same area at the same time,” continued Wada. “Furthermore, the glow abruptly disappeared when the lightning struck. We can say conclusively the events are intimately connected and this is the first time this connection has been observed.”

The mechanism underlying lightning discharge is highly sought after and this research may offer previously unknown insights. Wada and team intend to further their investigation to explore the possibility that gamma-ray glows don’t just precede lightning strikes, but may in fact cause them. Radiation levels of the gamma-ray flashes are quite low, approximately a tenth the level one may receive from a typical medical X-ray.
“Our finding marks a milestone in lightning research and we will soon double our number of radiation sensors from 23 to about 40 or 50. With more sensors, we could greatly improve predictive models,” explained Wada. “It’s hard to say right now, but with sufficient sensor data, we may be able to predict lightning strikes within about 10 minutes of them happening and within around 2 kilometers of where they happen. I’m excited to be part of this ongoing research.”
Further investigations will likely still take place in Kanazawa as the area has rare and ideal meteorological conditions for this kind of work. Most radiation observations in storms come from airborne or mountain-based stations as thunderclouds are generally very high up. But winter storms in Kanazawa bring thunderclouds surprisingly close to the ground, ideal for study with the low-cost portable monitors developed by the research team.
The researchers created these unique portable radiation monitors in part with technology derived from space-based satellite observatories designed for astrophysics experiments. This is appropriate as the data from this kind of research could be useful for those who research astrophysics and in particular solar physics in the context of particle acceleration. But there is a more down-to-earth offshoot as well.
“Paleontologists who study life from the last 50,000 years or so use a technique called carbon-14 dating to determine the age of a sample. The technique relies on knowledge of the levels of two kinds of carbon, carbon-12 and carbon-14,” said Wada. “It’s commonly thought carbon-14 is created by cosmic rays at a roughly constant rate, hence the predictive power of the technique. But there’s a suggestion thunderstorms may alter the ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-14, which may slightly change the accuracy of or calibration required for carbon-14 dating to work.”
Wada and colleagues will continue to unpick the mysteries of lightning, one of nature's most captivating and iconic phenomena. An upcoming collaborative project based in France will launch a dedicated satellite for worldwide lightning observations from space.


https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/press/z0508_00052.html
 

trichrider

Kiss My Ring
Veteran
Intercomparison of the POES/MEPED Loss Cone Electron Fluxes With the CMIP6 Parametrization



H. Nesse Tyssøy1, A. Haderlein1, M. I. Sandanger1, and J. Stadsnes11



Birkeland Centre for Space Science, Department of Physics and Technology, University of Bergen (UiB), Bergen, Norway



Abstract
Quantitative measurements of medium energy electron (MEE) precipitation (>40 keV) are a key to understand the total effect of particle precipitation on the atmosphere. The Medium Energy Proton and Electron Detector (MEPED) instrument on board the NOAA/Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites(POES) has two sets of electron telescopes pointing ~0° and ~90° to the local vertical. Pitch angle anisotropy,which varies with particle energy, location, and geomagnetic activity, makes the 0° detector measurements a lower estimate of the flux of precipitating electrons. In the solar forcing recommended for Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) 6 (v3.2) MEE precipitation is parameterized by Ap based on 0° detector measurements hence providing a general underestimate of the flux level. In order to assess the accuracy of the Ap model, we compare the modeled electron fluxes with estimates of the loss cone fluxes using both detectors in combination with electron pitch angle distributions from theory of waveparticle interactions.The Ap model falls short in respect to reproducing the flux level and variability associated with strong geomagnetic storms (Ap > 40) as well as the duration of co-rotating interaction region storms causing a systematic bias within a solar cycle. As the Apparameterized fluxes reach a plateau for Ap > 40, the model's ability to reflect the flux level of previous solar cycles associated with generally higher Ap values is questioned. The objective of this comparison is to understand the potential uncertainty in the energetic particle precipitation applying the CMIP6 particle energy input in order to assess its subsequent impact on the atmosphere.


https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1906/1906.10460.pdf




https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/goes-electron-flux
......................



Carbon dioxide can disassociate to form oxygen under uv light in upper atmosphere

Oxygen in our atmosphere comes mainly from photosynthesis and not many multi-step abiotic processes producing oxygen from carbon dioxide are known.
But now work with a vacuum ultra violet laser (simulating uv light in the upper atmosphere) shows that the resulting excitation of carbon dioxide molecules can lead to the production of oxygen by disassociation. Vacuum ultra violet (200 – 10 nm; 6.20 – 124 eV) is strongly absorbed by atmospheric oxygen, but 150–200 nm wavelengths can propagate through nitrogen. This is particularly intriguing since it would be controlled by the oxygen concentration in the upper atmosphere. A lack of oxygen would lead to an increase of available vacuum uv available to trigger the disassociation of any carbon dioxide present. This could be a continuous and natural process where carbon dioxide, excited by solar ultra violet light in the upper atmosphere, is broken down to produce oxygen.
Perhaps this happens often enough and in sufficient volume to dampen CO2 concentration increase in the atmosphere.
UC Davis chemists have shown how ultraviolet light can split carbon dioxide to form oxygen in one step. Credit: Zhou Lu

Z. Lu, Y. C. Chang, Q.-Z. Yin, C. Y. Ng, W. M. Jackson.


Evidence for direct molecular oxygen production in CO2 photodissociation. Science, 2014; 346 (6205): 61
DOI: 10.1126/science.1257156



Abstract: Photodissociation of carbon dioxide (CO2) has long been assumed to proceed exclusively to carbon monoxide (CO) and oxygen atom (O) primary products. However, recent theoretical calculations suggested that an exit channel to produce C + O2 should also be energetically accessible. Here we report the direct experimental evidence for the C + O2 channel in CO2 photodissociation near the energetic threshold of the C(3P) + O2(X3Σg–) channel with a yield of 5 ± 2% using vacuum ultraviolet laser pump-probe spectroscopy and velocity-map imaging detection of the C(3PJ) product between 101.5 and 107.2 nanometers. Our results may have implications for nonbiological oxygen production in CO2-heavy atmospheres.


UC Davis Press Release:
UC Davis graduate student Zhou Lu, working with professors in the Departments of Chemistry and of Earth and Planetary Sciences, has shown that oxygen can be formed in one step by using a high energy vacuum ultraviolet laser to excite carbon dioxide. (The work is published Oct. 3 in the journal Science).
“Previously, people believed that the abiotic (no green plants involved) source of molecular oxygen is by CO2 + solar light — > CO + O, then O + O + M — > O2 + M (where M represents a third body carrying off the energy released in forming the oxygen bond),” Zhou said in an email. “Our results indicate that O2 can be formed by carbon dioxide dissociation in a one step process. The same process can be applied in other carbon dioxide dominated atmospheres such as Mars and Venus.”
Zhou used a vacuum ultraviolet laser to irradiate CO2 in the laboratory. Vacuum ultraviolet light is so-called because it has a wavelength below 200 nanometers and is typically absorbed by air. The experiments were performed by using a unique ion imaging apparatus developed at UC Davis.
Such one-step oxygen formation could be happening now as carbon dioxide increases in the region of the upper atmosphere, where high energy vacuum ultraviolet light from the Sun hits Earth or other planets. It is the first time that such a reaction has been shown in the laboratory. According to one of the scientists who reviewed the paper for Science, Zhou’s work means that models of the evolution of planetary atmospheres will now have to be adjusted to take this into account.

https://ktwop.com/2014/10/07/carbon...-to-form-oxygen-under-uv-in-upper-atmosphere/

paper here: https://sci-hub.tw/10.1126/science.1257156
 

trichrider

Kiss My Ring
Veteran
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/28/california-mussels-cooked-heat

interesting article about the effect of the recent Pacific Coast heat wave on the ocean in South Sonoma /North Marin coast.

Got so hot at low tide that it killed the mussels on the rocks.

Not sure how rare that is.

https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/bodega-bay-ca/94923/june-weather/2155127
June
2019
Tue Jun 25
Actual Temp
60° /54°
Hist. Avg.
63°/51°
Wed Jun 26
Actual Temp
59° /49°
Hist. Avg.
63°/51°
Thu Jun 27
Actual Temp
55° /49°
Hist. Avg.
63°/51°


Yesterday
Actual Temp
58° /51°
Hist. Avg.
63°/52°
Tonight Jun 29
53°
Clear to partly cloudy
Hist. Avg.
63°/52°

Sun Jun 30
61° /53°
Plenty of sun
Hist. Avg.
63°/52°

https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/bodega-bay-ca/94923/june-weather/2155127


A record-breaking June heatwave apparently caused the largest die-off of mussels in at least 15 years at Bodega Head, a small headland on the northern California bay. And Sones received reports from other researchers of similar mass mussel deaths at various beaches across roughly 140 miles of coastline.


sure they did....Fukushima?
smh

the interwebs are educational, don't misuse them and they will remain a source.
apologies would be appropriate for misleading with such hyperbole, not to me , but to your fans who think you're providing information supporting an empty premise.
 
M

moose eater

We were over 90 f. on my porch this afternoon.

I called the Fairbanks airport/NOAA/Nat'l Weather Service a few minutes ago, and they said 88 .f at that time.

Smokey. Fires burning in damned near any direction you drive, though far away. Yet, even with the distance, the smell of forest fires (and yesterday, noteworthy smoke and haze) is in the air but thick.

All the joy of the campfire aura, but without the wienies or darkness.... or sing-alongs.
 

St. Phatty

Active member
We were over 90 f. on my porch this afternoon.

I called the Fairbanks airport/NOAA/Nat'l Weather Service a few minutes ago, and they said 88 .f at that time.

Smokey. Fires burning in damned near any direction you drive, though far away. Yet, even with the distance, the smell of forest fires (and yesterday, noteworthy smoke and haze) is in the air but thick.

All the joy of the campfire aura, but without the wienies or darkness.... or sing-alongs.

From the NIFC website -

States currently reporting large fires:
Alaska (33)
Arizona (3)
California (1)
Colorado (1)
Nevada (1)
New Mexico (4)
Utah (1)

https://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/nfn.htm
 

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