Have you looked at the North Pole lately?

[moose eater]

Thanks Trich.

Yep, there's folks who are looking at not only the planet, but human inter-connectedness from the 'electro-magnetic' perspective. interesting stuff.

I would occasionally read here, over a year ago, and saw sometimes interesting assertions, as well as the standard jousting and insults being somewhat routinely levied.

I recall quite some time ago, reading in this thread, someone's comment about top secret clandestine stuff going on at the Antarctic, and they said that was why no one was allowed there.

I know folks who have worked there seasonally, for many years, doing things ranging from construction, to ice-core-sampling and data, as well as a translator who engaged in eco-tourism on a Russian-built vessel, leased to a Canadian outfit, taking smaller vessels into the bays around the Antarctic, so when I'd read that, I'd rolled my eyes a bit, and went to the next thread, but would circle back around on occasion.

It's the definite observable changes I've witnessed here, in the northern sub-arctic, over the last 42 years, with 41 of those being in various places in Alaska, that led me to come back and post the (I believe) 'meaningful anecdotes' (if those 2 words can safely be combined) re. our glaciers receding, water sources ceasing to feed lakes, the lack of unidirectional changes here, such as the interior moderating in ALL seasons, and becoming more wet/damp, while the coast apparently warms a bit more, and the oceans near us are definitely changing.

But the information has flowed in a number of directions, and some of it has been enlightening.

Today, in particular, I was more 'crippled' than usual by my less-than-standard sleep schedule, working into wee hours of the night, then being awakened early on. It hasn't helped my ability to comprehend.

Thanks for the explanations.

 

[trichrider]

post 2262 is a description of pressure gradients of solar output transferring their impact into our atmosphere.
like gusts of wind impinging a surface of water, that radiant energy translates into weather felt on the surface as waves and eddies. <oversimplification!


in earths energy budget 100% of incoming energy is re-radiated back into space.
Earth’s Energy Budget

Note: Determining exact values for energy flows in the Earth system is an area of ongoing climate research. Different estimates exist, and all estimates have some uncertainty. Estimates come from satellite observations, ground-based observations, and numerical weather models. The numbers in this article rely most heavily on direct satellite observations of reflected sunlight and thermal infrared energy radiated by the atmosphere and the surface.
Earth’s heat engine does more than simply move heat from one part of the surface to another; it also moves heat from the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere back to space. This flow of incoming and outgoing energy is Earth’s energy budget. For Earth’s temperature to be stable over long periods of time, incoming energy and outgoing energy have to be equal. In other words, the energy budget at the top of the atmosphere must balance. This state of balance is called radiative equilibrium.
About 29 percent of the solar energy that arrives at the top of the atmosphere is reflected back to space by clouds, atmospheric particles, or bright ground surfaces like sea ice and snow. This energy plays no role in Earth’s climate system. About 23 percent of incoming solar energy is absorbed in the atmosphere by water vapor, dust, and ozone, and 48 percent passes through the atmosphere and is absorbed by the surface. Thus, about 71 percent of the total incoming solar energy is absorbed by the Earth system.

Of the 340 watts per square meter of solar energy that falls on the Earth, 29% is reflected back into space, primarily by clouds, but also by other bright surfaces and the atmosphere itself. About 23% of incoming energy is absorbed in the atmosphere by atmospheric gases, dust, and other particles. The remaining 48% is absorbed at the surface. (NASA illustration by Robert Simmon. Astronaut photograph ISS013-E-8948.)


When matter absorbs energy, the atoms and molecules that make up the material become excited; they move around more quickly. The increased movement raises the material’s temperature. If matter could only absorb energy, then the temperature of the Earth would be like the water level in a sink with no drain where the faucet runs continuously.
Temperature doesn’t infinitely rise, however, because atoms and molecules on Earth are not just absorbing sunlight, they are also radiating thermal infrared energy (heat). The amount of heat a surface radiates is proportional to the fourth power of its temperature. If temperature doubles, radiated energy increases by a factor of 16 (2 to the 4th power). If the temperature of the Earth rises, the planet rapidly emits an increasing amount of heat to space. This large increase in heat loss in response to a relatively smaller increase in temperature—referred to as radiative cooling—is the primary mechanism that prevents runaway heating on Earth.


https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/EnergyBalance


get some rest bud.

 

[igrowone]

midsummer

midsummer

well, close to midsummer, time for traditional summary
in short the ice is near record lows
and both northern passages look to be on track to open this year
i think the north eastern passage will open in august

 

[St. Phatty]

well, close to midsummer, time for traditional summary
in short the ice is near record lows
and both northern passages look to be on track to open this year
i think the north eastern passage will open in august

sounds like a fun camping trip

as long as you don't mind blinding sunshine

and really hungry polar bears.

 

[moose eater]

We're burning up here. Fires still cooking away, temp on the porch felt like upper 80s to lower 90s f; didn't look, as no need for negative news beyond the experience of it.

Last I heard, the weather folks were calling for thunder storms with no rain this afternoon (aka dry lightning), and maybe some scattered T-storms later the next 2 days.

In other words, look forward to more fires started by lightning.

Still contemplating hanging some meat and fish out on the clothes line, in order to make the best of things with all of this smoke.

Told my wife I may need to increase the amount of dope I smoke, or take up cigarettes, in order to clean my lungs up after this.

 

[trichrider]

saw a photo yesterday of a waterfall in Brazil that was frozen.

Brazil straddles the equator.

last months release of climate data for US shows below average June temps.

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/us-maps/1/201906#us-maps-select

latest threat is tropical storm Barry twisting up the southern coasts wazoo.
be safe down there.


https://www.windy.com/?25.125,-85.825,5


hey moose, what time is dusk up there? oh yeah, that link right there has temperature data too.

 

[St. Phatty]

saw a photo yesterday of a waterfall in Brazil that was frozen.

Is that at altitude ?

Yes, for a jungle-y place, on the equator, subzero temps seem wierd.

is this one of those 15,000 foot altitude waterfalls ?

 

[kickarse]

Don't forget us in the southern hemisphere

we freezing down here, 6.5c under average today, love all this "global warming" bullshit
wish we would get some here

 

[moose eater]

Please try to keep up, kickarse; it's been known as 'climate change,' rather than 'global warming,' for about a half-decade or more (*closer to a decade, now), specifically because of variances in trends or patterns.

 

[St. Phatty]

Don't forget us in the southern hemisphere

we freezing down here, 6.5c under average today, love all this "global warming" bullshit
wish we would get some here

Do you have a fireplace ?

In the US you can have flammable objects delivered to your door

in the form of junk mail.

 

[kickarse]

lol yeah the fire is going, have gone thru me usual amount already, at $340 a ton for redgum, can thank the greenies for that, the fools.
They got all the redgum forrest's locked up, can only get fire wood off private property these days,
May was a shocker, I reckon its as cold as the early 80s

its only called "climate change" because the planet refuses to follow the IPCC script

 

[igrowone]

lol yeah the fire is going, have gone thru me usual amount already, at $340 a ton for redgum, can thank the greenies for that, the fools.
They got all the redgum forrest's locked up, can only get fire wood off private property these days,
May was a shocker, I reckon its as cold as the early 80s

its only called "climate change" because the planet refuses to follow the IPCC script

that sounds like you're paying 700+ for a chord of firewood, at least compared to colder climate hard woods
i see where some of the anger is coming from

 

[kickarse]

that sounds like you're paying 700+ for a chord of firewood, at least compared to colder climate hard woods
i see where some of the anger is coming from

Nah not at all, a lb is $3200 here, everything is expensive in OZ
we get paid accordingly, highest minimum wage in the world

a pack of ciggie's is $25-30 a bottle of JD is $50

redgum is one of the best burning woods here,
only mallee root is better

probably got some of the highest electricity prices in the world
all for the madness of the green dream of a climate utopia,
where we all send $ to the UN, so they can tell us how to live/think

someone should blow the UN up lol

 

[moose eater]

In the Yin & Yang of our -climate change-, I'd guesstimate we've had somewhere near 4 dozen wild fires burning lately, but the up-side has been notable lack of bugs (mosquitos, yellow jackets, other wasps, etc.), as they don't seem to care for the smoke much.

On the down-side, the spendy custom-made pleated MERV 8 filters I use as pre-filters on my HRV intake in the summer, to keep pollen, silt, tree seeds, etc., out of my HRV core, that would typically last me about 3 weeks+ each before they're 'spent,' are now failing after a week or so, maybe less, due to contaminants in the air from the fires, and my vehicles look like we've had a volcanic eruption in the mornings.

The filters cost me about $12 to $15 each after freight, and even though they claim to be high-flow, definitely reduce air flow through the ducting, even when new. Once they're clogged with ash from the fires, as well as the regular silt, etc., they SERIOUSLY reduce air-flow.

So we're paying some extra cash for the way our climate is going in that regard, but saving some $$ in the winters, as a result of burning less heating oil.

 

[trichrider]

In the Yin & Yang of our -climate change-, I'd guesstimate we've had somewhere near 4 dozen wild fires burning lately, but the up-side has been notable lack of bugs (mosquitos, yellow jackets, other wasps, etc.), as they don't seem to care for the smoke much.

On the down-side, the spendy custom-made pleated MERV 8 filters I use as pre-filters on my HRV intake in the summer, to keep pollen, silt, tree seeds, etc., out of my HRV core, that would typically last me about 3 weeks+ each before they're 'spent,' are now failing after a week or so, maybe less, due to contaminants in the air from the fires, and my vehicles look like we've had a volcanic eruption in the mornings.

The filters cost me about $12 to $15 each after freight, and even though they claim to be high-flow, definitely reduce air flow through the ducting, even when new. Once they're clogged with ash from the fires, as well as the regular silt, etc., they SERIOUSLY reduce air-flow.

So we're paying some extra cash for the way our climate is going in that regard, but saving some $$ in the winters, as a result of burning less heating oil.

https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4728


This visualization shows carbon emissions from fires from January 1, 2003 through December 31, 2018. The colorbar reflects the quantity of carbon emitted.


Chinese air pollution dimmed sunlight enough to impact solar panels

Pollution from coal and biomass burning blocks 13% of solar electricity.

Scott K. Johnson - 7/10/2019, 3:45 AM

Enlarge
Han Jun Zeng / Flickr
97 with 53 posters participating

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Coal is seen by many as an enemy of renewable energy and the first fossil fuel in line for elimination as things like solar and wind generation have gotten cheaper. But counterattacks from coal can go even further than lobbying against pro-renewable policies, it seems. According to new research, China’s coal-driven air pollution is significantly reducing the output of solar panels by dimming the Sun.
China is easily number one in terms of new solar construction right now, accounting for over half of the world’s installs in 2017, for example. Between 2010 and 2017, China went from having less than 1 gigawatt of solar capacity to 130 gigawatts, and the country is headed for around 400 gigawatts by 2030. After a run of transformative economic growth powered by coal and other fossil fuels, China is dealing with choking air pollution that is a major driving factor in this solar push.
Recent research has compiled a record of solar radiation measurements around China going back to the late 1950s. The research shows a declining trend in solar radiation until about 2005, when it leveled off and began to tick back upward. That tracks the increasing particulate air pollution due to coal-burning power plants and manufacturing—as well as biomass burning—that has only recently been addressed.
A team led by Bart Sweerts at ETH Zürich took that record and fed it into generation models for China’s solar installations to calculate how much generation has been lost—and how much would be gained by cleaning up the air.
The researchers found that, over the entire record between about 1960 and 2015, the average potential solar generation declined by about 13%. Expressed in terms of capacity factor—the fraction of a solar panel’s maximum output that is actually produced on average—the drop from the start to the lowest point in 2008 was 0.162 to 0.142.

Enlarge / The impact of air pollution on potential solar output, here shown by capacity factor (the amount of electricity a panel produces compared to its technical max).
Sweerts et al./Nature Energy
The change wasn’t the same everywhere, though, as air pollution and local conditions varied. The five worst provinces actually saw potential generation drops of fully 20-28%. These included industrial centers in the east but also some clearer high-elevation areas in the west where a small amount of air pollution can have a big impact.
If China could go back to its 1950s air quality, its existing solar installations in 2016 would have produced an additional 14 terawatt-hours of electricity for free. As more solar panels are built, that number would only grow. By 2030, cleaner air could net an additional 70 terawatt-hours of electricity each year—about 1% of total projected electricity generation at that point.
To put some dollar signs on these numbers, the researchers used the current feed-in tariff of $0.14 per kilowatt-hour and a projected drop to $0.09 per kilowatt-hour in 2030. In 2016, this would mean cleaner air would have brought $1.9 billion worth of electricity. In 2030, the extra 13% or so of solar potential could be worth over $6 billion per year.
For another comparison, solar panel efficiency improvements increased generation by about 10% between 2005 and 2017, helping to make them more cost-competitive. Getting back to 1950s air quality would do more than that in China. As a business proposition, air pollution is holding solar back.
Of course, the researchers note that this is a drop in the bucket compared to the total health and economic cost of air pollution in China. But it adds another valuable—and perhaps surprising—benefit to eliminating pollution from coal and biomass.


Nature Energy, 2019. DOI: 10.1038/s41560-019-0412-4 (About DOIs).

 

[moose eater]

In the winters here, Trich, we get thermal inversions over the Valley 'bowl,' that seal in temp, contamination, etc, and while Fairbanks (a ways away from me, though we share a river valley) has nearly ZERO industrial effluent, (with the exception of the utility companies and the military base & post, with automobiles and wood stoves being primary contributors to PM 2.5), we can have air quality closer to town that is as bad as, or worse than Beijing, China some days. Literally. not exaggerating.

There's been a major (expensive) wood-stove-buy-out program in place here for some time now, via the Borough. I haven't taken advantage of it ($2,500 toward your new wood stove (or ?? heat), though it has to be installed professionally. I've known persons with PLENTY of discretionary income, who still went in and had the Borough pay for their new wood stoves. Mixed feelings about that.

I have an old, welded, heavier steel, custom flat-top barrel stove in the day-light basement that I only burn if the power goes out on a cold day, and stays off for more than 2-3 days at sub-zero temps.

My 2000 watt Honda can power my low-mass high efficiency boiler for the top 2 floors' HWBB, but I don't try to let it power both the boiler AND the 60,000 btu air-handler in the basement, fearing that it might over-load.

With R-42 walls in the basement, and an un-insulated slab (for ground-sourced heating in the winter and cooling in the summer), the basement rarely needs it; even with no power and no heat directly.

I've got 36 vertical ft. of the newer style 2,100 (?) degree f. -rated metal bestos running up through the top of my roof, through a chase we built in the center of the home, to keep the stack centered up top for down-draft reasons.

So, even when we're not burning up in the summers here, we have outrageous air-quality in some places.. in this place located a stone's throw from pristine wilderness, with nearly zero industrial air emissions.

On a positive note, and somewhat humorous if you're not seriously susceptible to respiratory issues, the Hospital announced last week that they were setting up a 'smoke respite room' for persons to seek if they were overcome by the air quality. I'm normally fairly immune to actual physical symptoms rom smoke, other than being ;'cranky,' but I was feeling a heaviness in my chest last week, up until rain the other day.

The larger grocery store in town has decent air-handlers, in my experience. I went in there when we had limited visibility outside from the smoke last week, and their air was cool, clean, etc. I tried to extend my shopping list a bit. ;^>)

 

[St. Phatty]

There's been a major (expensive) wood-stove-buy-out program in place here for some time now, via the Borough. I haven't taken advantage of it ($2,500 toward your new wood stove (or ?? heat), though it has to be installed professionally. I've known persons with PLENTY of discretionary income, who still went in and had the Borough pay for their new wood stoves. Mixed feelings about that.
;^>)

Any chance of getting state or federal grants for -

a light dep greenhouse ?

 

[moose eater]

Any chance of getting state or federal grants for -

a light dep greenhouse ?

Explain?

 

[St. Phatty]

Explain?

Did you receive any correspondence?

Well I was sort of kidding but if it was possible to get a grant for electric gear to help set up a grow room ...

 

[moose eater]

Well I was sort of kidding but if it was possible to get a grant for electric gear to help set up a grow room ...

State's more bankrupt by the minute these days, and I don't think the feds have that sort of a sense of humor yet.

Growers of veggies, etc., have received grants for farming, as well as volunteer labor from the university, but that had nothing to do with ganja production.

My languishing plan for a formal framed 'modern'' greenhouse, currently framed in, and partially covered in wavy poly for long enough I don't want to say, is designed to have heat/sun activated 'jacks' at vertical vents and roof panel vents, of varying lift capacity, as well as solar powered louvers and axial fans in the gable ends, with thermo-couplers set to 12-volt, and smaller panels on sun-trackers of scant design, with the vents and fans set to open up a about 72 degrees f.

We're members of the 'board of the month' club, however, on that particular project. "You don't want to just rush into these things, ya' know..."