Climate Change

[Matts]

Also banning Aquanet hairspray. Got rid of a lot of CFCs AND beehive hairdos.

When aquanet went to propane and butane, it became the prime fuel for spud guns. Works like a dream.

 

[Roccus7]

If this isn't a call to arms, I don't know what is...

Hot poles: Antarctica, Arctic 70 and 50 degrees above normal​

pressherald.com/2022/03/19/hot-poles-antarctica-arctic-70-and-50-degrees-above-normal/

By SETH BORENSTEIN March 19, 2022

Earth’s poles are undergoing simultaneous freakish extreme heat with parts of Antarctica more than 70 degrees warmer than average and areas of the Arctic more than 50 degrees warmer than average.

Weather stations in Antarctica shattered records Friday as the region neared autumn. The 2-mile high Concordia station was at 10 degrees, which is about 70 degrees warmer than average, while the even higher Vostok station hit a shade above zero degrees, beating its all-time record by about 27 degrees, according to a tweet from extreme weather record tracker Maximiliano Herrera.

The coastal Terra Nova Base was far above freezing at 44.6 degrees.

It caught officials at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, by surprise because they were paying attention to the Arctic where it was 50 degrees warmer than average and areas around the North Pole were nearing or at the melting point, which is really unusual for mid-March, said center ice scientist Walt Meier.

“They are opposite seasons. You don’t see the north and the south (poles) both melting at the same time,” Meier told the Associated Press on Friday evening. “It’s definitely an unusual occurrence.”

“It’s pretty stunning,” Meier added.

“Wow. I have never seen anything like this in the Antarctic,” said University of Colorado ice scientist Ted Scambos, who returned recently from an expedition to the continent.

“Not a good sign when you see that sort of thing happen,” said University of Wisconsin meteorologist Matthew Lazzara.

Lazzara monitors temperatures at East Antarctica’s Dome C-ii and logged 14 degrees Friday, where the normal is minus-45 degrees: “That’s a temperature that you should see in January, not March. January is summer there. That’s dramatic.”

Both Lazzara and Meier said what happened in Antarctica is probably just a random weather event and not a sign of climate change. But if it happens again or repeatedly then it might be something to worry about and part of global warming, they said.

The Antarctic warm spell was first reported by The Washington Post.

The Antarctic continent as a whole on Friday was about 8.6 degrees warmer than a baseline temperature between 1979 and 2000, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, based on U.S. National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration weather models. That 8-degree heating over an already warmed-up average is unusual, think of it as if the entire United States was 8 degrees hotter than normal, Meier said.

At the same time, on Friday the Arctic as a whole was 6 degrees warmer than the 1979 to 2000 average.

By comparison, the world as a whole was only 1.1 degrees above the 1979 to 2000 average. Globally the 1979 to 2000 average is about half a degree warmer than the 20th century average.

What makes the Antarctic warming really weird is that the southern continent – except for its vulnerable peninsula which is warming quickly and losing ice rapidly – has not been warming much, especially when compared to the rest of the globe, Meier said.

Antarctica did set a record for the lowest summer sea ice – records go back to 1979 – with it shrinking to 741,000 square miles in late February, the snow and ice data center reported.

What likely happened was “a big atmospheric river” pumped in warm and moist air from the Pacific southward, Meier said.

And in the Arctic, which has been warming two to three times faster than the rest of the globe and is considered vulnerable to climate change, warm Atlantic air was coming north off the coast of Greenland.

 

[Matts]

Coupled with the price of gas, maybe this will push folks to look closer at higher fuel efficiency and non-combustion sources of electricity so we are not so dependent on oil?
HaHaHa, just kidding. I mean digging in their denial heels more firmly.

 

[Aquarius]

More on climate change. This is "chilling". No pun intended.

With energy prices going up, we are in trouble.

 

[jpd]

If this isn't a call to arms, I don't know what is...

Hot poles: Antarctica, Arctic 70 and 50 degrees above normal​

Somehow when the records for coldest days are smashed, it's not evidence against global warming - it's weather.
But when a hot day comes up here comes all the global warming predictions - and it's not weather.

Interesting how that works.

 

[Matts]

A hot day or a cold day mean nothing. Averages and trends mean everything.

 

[Matts]

jpd, I see you liked my post making light of climate change deniers. To paraphrase Inigo Montoya, you keep using that like, I don't think the post means what you think it means. Also, virtually all averages and trends over the last 10 or 20 years for the arctic, antarctic and temperate zones show rapid temperature increases and support the need for us to do something, fast.

 

[Chevy1]

If this isn't a call to arms, I don't know what is...

Hot poles: Antarctica, Arctic 70 and 50 degrees above normal​

pressherald.com/2022/03/19/hot-poles-antarctica-arctic-70-and-50-degrees-above-normal/

By SETH BORENSTEIN March 19, 2022

Earth’s poles are undergoing simultaneous freakish extreme heat with parts of Antarctica more than 70 degrees warmer than average and areas of the Arctic more than 50 degrees warmer than average.

Weather stations in Antarctica shattered records Friday as the region neared autumn. The 2-mile high Concordia station was at 10 degrees, which is about 70 degrees warmer than average, while the even higher Vostok station hit a shade above zero degrees, beating its all-time record by about 27 degrees, according to a tweet from extreme weather record tracker Maximiliano Herrera.

The coastal Terra Nova Base was far above freezing at 44.6 degrees.

It caught officials at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, by surprise because they were paying attention to the Arctic where it was 50 degrees warmer than average and areas around the North Pole were nearing or at the melting point, which is really unusual for mid-March, said center ice scientist Walt Meier.

“They are opposite seasons. You don’t see the north and the south (poles) both melting at the same time,” Meier told the Associated Press on Friday evening. “It’s definitely an unusual occurrence.”

“It’s pretty stunning,” Meier added.

“Wow. I have never seen anything like this in the Antarctic,” said University of Colorado ice scientist Ted Scambos, who returned recently from an expedition to the continent.

“Not a good sign when you see that sort of thing happen,” said University of Wisconsin meteorologist Matthew Lazzara.

Lazzara monitors temperatures at East Antarctica’s Dome C-ii and logged 14 degrees Friday, where the normal is minus-45 degrees: “That’s a temperature that you should see in January, not March. January is summer there. That’s dramatic.”

Both Lazzara and Meier said what happened in Antarctica is probably just a random weather event and not a sign of climate change. But if it happens again or repeatedly then it might be something to worry about and part of global warming, they said.

The Antarctic warm spell was first reported by The Washington Post.

The Antarctic continent as a whole on Friday was about 8.6 degrees warmer than a baseline temperature between 1979 and 2000, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, based on U.S. National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration weather models. That 8-degree heating over an already warmed-up average is unusual, think of it as if the entire United States was 8 degrees hotter than normal, Meier said.

At the same time, on Friday the Arctic as a whole was 6 degrees warmer than the 1979 to 2000 average.

By comparison, the world as a whole was only 1.1 degrees above the 1979 to 2000 average. Globally the 1979 to 2000 average is about half a degree warmer than the 20th century average.

What makes the Antarctic warming really weird is that the southern continent – except for its vulnerable peninsula which is warming quickly and losing ice rapidly – has not been warming much, especially when compared to the rest of the globe, Meier said.

Antarctica did set a record for the lowest summer sea ice – records go back to 1979 – with it shrinking to 741,000 square miles in late February, the snow and ice data center reported.

What likely happened was “a big atmospheric river” pumped in warm and moist air from the Pacific southward, Meier said.

And in the Arctic, which has been warming two to three times faster than the rest of the globe and is considered vulnerable to climate change, warm Atlantic air was coming north off the coast of Greenland.

I got a alert from the weather channel about this today

 

[wader]

Most Great Barrier Reef coral studied this year was bleached

More than 90% of Great Barrier Reef coral surveyed this year was bleached in the fourth such mass event in seven years in the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem, Australian government scientists said. Bleaching is caused by global warming, but this is the reef's first bleaching event during a...

www.yahoo.com

 

[wader]

Trump Policies Sent U.S. Tumbling in a Climate Ranking

For four years under President Donald Trump, the United States all but stopped trying to combat climate change at the federal level. Trump is no longer in office, but his presidency left the country far behind in a race that was already difficult to win. A new report from researchers at Yale and...

www.yahoo.com

For four years under President Donald Trump, the United States all but stopped trying to combat climate change at the federal level. Trump is no longer in office, but his presidency left the country far behind in a race that was already difficult to win.

A new report from researchers at Yale and Columbia universities shows that the United States’ environmental performance has tumbled in relation to other countries — a reflection of the fact that, while the United States squandered nearly half a decade, many of its peers moved deliberately.

But, underscoring the profound obstacles to cutting greenhouse gas emissions rapidly enough to prevent the worst effects of climate change, even that movement was insufficient. The report’s sobering bottom line is that, while almost every country has pledged by 2050 to reach net-zero emissions (the point where their activities no longer add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere), almost none are on track to do it.

he report, called the Environmental Performance Index, or EPI, found that, based on their trajectories from 2010 through 2019, only Denmark and Britain were on a sustainable path to eliminate emissions by midcentury.

Namibia and Botswana appeared to be on track with caveats: They had stronger records than their peers in sub-Saharan Africa, but their emissions were minimal to begin with, and the researchers did not characterize their progress as sustainable because it was not clear that current policies would suffice as their economies develop.

The 176 other nations in the report were poised to fall short of net-zero goals, some by large margins. China, India, the United States and Russia were on track to account for more than half of global emissions in 2050. But even countries like Germany that have enacted more comprehensive climate policies are not doing enough.

“We think this report’s going to be a wake-up call to a wide range of countries, a number of whom might have imagined themselves to be doing what they needed to do and not many of whom really are,” said Daniel C. Esty, the director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, which produces the EPI every two years.

The United States ranked 43rd overall, with a score of 51.1 out of 100, compared with 24th place and a score of 69.3 in the 2020 edition. Its decline is largely attributable to the bottom falling out of its climate policy: On climate metrics, it plummeted to 101st place from 15th and trailed every wealthy Western democracy except Canada, which was 142nd.

 

[wader]

Giant Deep Ocean Turbine Trial Offers Hope of Endless Green Power

(Bloomberg) -- Power-hungry, fossil-fuel dependent Japan has successfully tested a system that could provide a constant, steady form of renewable energy, regardless of the wind or the sun. Most Read from BloombergStocks Trim Gains as Inflation Concerns Increase: Markets WrapNATO Should Think...

www.yahoo.com

 

[Roccus7]

Giant Deep Ocean Turbine Trial Offers Hope of Endless Green Power

(Bloomberg) -- Power-hungry, fossil-fuel dependent Japan has successfully tested a system that could provide a constant, steady form of renewable energy, regardless of the wind or the sun. Most Read from BloombergStocks Trim Gains as Inflation Concerns Increase: Markets WrapNATO Should Think...

www.yahoo.com

It's about F-ing time!! NO "NATURAL" SOURCE of alternate electricity is as dependable as tidal, no worries if the wind dies, if it's cloudy, if the river is low because of a drought, yada, yada, yada. For well over 90% of the time you can accurately calculate how much power that turbine will be generating!!

Yeah, at the change of tide it will stop for a while, but beyond that, it's going to be spinning...

 

[Avenger]

It's about F-ing time!! NO "NATURAL" SOURCE of alternate electricity is as dependable as tidal, no worries if the wind dies, if it's cloudy, if the river is low because of a drought, yada, yada, yada. For well over 90% of the time you can accurately calculate how much power that turbine will be generating!!

Yeah, at the change of tide it will stop for a while, but beyond that, it's going to be spinning...

THANK YOU! I've been saying that for what seems like eternity. That and proper biofuels, not the ones paid for by the taxpayer at the behest of the corn lobby are the answers. Not remaking the entire infrastructure in ten years. But I guess there's just not enough graft in that.

 

[Matts]

In October 2020, Verdant Power of New York installed three tidal power turbines with its new TriFrame mount at its Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy site in New York’s East River. With support from WPTO, NREL, and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), Verdant is scheduled to test throughout 2021. The project aims to demonstrate a streamlined installation and maintenance approach as well as long-term system reliability that will help inform future deployments for Verdant and others in the marine renewable energy industry.
...

Because of the strong water currents that change direction between flood and ebb tides about four times each day, the East River is an ideal site for tidal power generation. Since 2002, Verdant has tested multiple generations of turbines at the site for varying amounts of time. In 2012, the Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy project became the first tidal turbine project to receive a FERC hydrokinetic pilot project license. This license was developed by FERC specifically for marine renewable energy technologies that integrate with the grid. The license was issued in January 2012 for a period of 10 years, and in 2014 Verdant installed the world’s first array of grid-connected tidal turbines in the East River.

Tidal Testing Underway in New York’s East River

In 2020, Verdant Power deployed their fifth generation Free Flow System turbines with their new TriFrame™ mount in New York’s East River.

www.energy.gov

 

[CELLFISH]

only one thousand homes, it’s a start… C22..

 

[Matts]

The most common way to commercially harness tidal power is with a “barrage.” A dam is built across an inlet and the change between low and high tide causes water to flow through tunnels in the dam. The flow of water turns a turbine, which powers a generator, transforming mechanical energy into electricity.

Successful tidal power sites depend on a large “tidal range”—the difference between the low and high tides. The shape of the shoreline must allow for the construction of a barrier.

If the tides are high, like in canada, you get a huge amount of water dropping many feet, which is quite a lot of energy.
with the east river, you have a relatively slow river that stops 4 times a day.
You can't restrict navigation or flood NYC with a dam across the east river.
you cant put 30 foot turbines on the bottom.
so you are left with relatively small turbines along parts of the shoreline and you need an awful lot of those small turbines.

But it's a start.

Now, a hydro dam across plum gut? that would be something.

 

[Avenger]

The most common way to commercially harness tidal power is with a “barrage.” A dam is built across an inlet and the change between low and high tide causes water to flow through tunnels in the dam. The flow of water turns a turbine, which powers a generator, transforming mechanical energy into electricity.

Successful tidal power sites depend on a large “tidal range”—the difference between the low and high tides. The shape of the shoreline must allow for the construction of a barrier.

If the tides are high, like in canada, you get a huge amount of water dropping many feet, which is quite a lot of energy.
with the east river, you have a relatively slow river that stops 4 times a day.
You can't restrict navigation or flood NYC with a dam across the east river.
you cant put 30 foot turbines on the bottom.
so you are left with relatively small turbines along parts of the shoreline and you need an awful lot of those small turbines.

But it's a start.

Now, a hydro dam across plum gut? that would be something.

Yes, but you could put a bunch of them in the Hudson River. I'm sure they'd be more effective than those stupid wind "turbines" that will pollute our shores.

 

[wader]

Lake Mead nears dead pool status as water levels hit another historic low

Lake Mead's water levels this week dropped to historic lows, bringing the nation's largest reservoir less than 150 feet away from "dead pool" — when the

www.yahoo.com

Lake Mead nears dead pool status as water levels hit another historic low​

Lake Mead's water levels this week dropped to historic lows, bringing the nation's largest reservoir less than 150 feet away from "dead pool" — when the reservoir is so low that water cannot flow downstream from the dam.

Lake Mead's water level on Wednesday was measured at 1,044.03 feet, its lowest elevation since the lake was filled in the 1930s. If the reservoir dips below 895 feet — a possibility still years away — Lake Mead would reach dead pool, carrying enormous consequences for millions of people across Arizona, California, Nevada and parts of Mexico.

"This is deadly serious stuff," said Robert Glennon, an emeritus professor at the University of Arizona who specializes in water law and policy.

Persistent drought conditions over the past two decades, exacerbated by climate change and increased water demands across the southwestern United States, have contributed to Lake Mead's depletion. Though the reservoir is at risk of becoming a dead pool, it would most likely take several more years to reach that level, Glennon said.

 

[BennyV]

Lake Mead nears dead pool status as water levels hit another historic low

Lake Mead's water levels this week dropped to historic lows, bringing the nation's largest reservoir less than 150 feet away from "dead pool" — when the

www.yahoo.com

Lake Mead nears dead pool status as water levels hit another historic low​

Lake Mead's water levels this week dropped to historic lows, bringing the nation's largest reservoir less than 150 feet away from "dead pool" — when the reservoir is so low that water cannot flow downstream from the dam.

Lake Mead's water level on Wednesday was measured at 1,044.03 feet, its lowest elevation since the lake was filled in the 1930s. If the reservoir dips below 895 feet — a possibility still years away — Lake Mead would reach dead pool, carrying enormous consequences for millions of people across Arizona, California, Nevada and parts of Mexico.

"This is deadly serious stuff," said Robert Glennon, an emeritus professor at the University of Arizona who specializes in water law and policy.

Persistent drought conditions over the past two decades, exacerbated by climate change and increased water demands across the southwestern United States, have contributed to Lake Mead's depletion. Though the reservoir is at risk of becoming a dead pool, it would most likely take several more years to reach that level, Glennon said.

Inflow doesn’t equal outflow. Outflow has grown considerably over that time period. This can be spun however you like. More people = more water use.

 

[wader]

Inflow doesn’t equal outflow. Outflow has grown considerably over that time period. This can be spun however you like. More people = more water use.

if you read the article there Ben they discussed that. One of two contributing factors.. The other was 20 year drought so less snow melt which is being blamed on climate change.