pscot
pscot's Journal
In the waning days of 2016 we were warned: save the data
I had no idea then that this disappearing act had just begun.
Since January, the surge has transformed into a slow, incessant march of deleting datasets, webpages and policies about the Arctic. I now come to expect a weekly email request to replace invalid citations, hoping that someone had the foresight to download statistics about Arctic permafrost thaw or renewable energy in advance of the purge.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/28/arctic-researcher-donald-trump-deleting-my-citations
Nine lines of evidence for climate change
http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2017/03/23/how-do-we-know-that-humans-are-causing-climate-change-these-nine-lines-of-evidence/The research falls into nine independently-studied but physically-related lines of evidence, that build to the overall clear conclusion that humans are the main cause of climate change:
Simple chemistry that when we burn carbon-based materials, carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted (research beginning in 1900s)
Basic accounting of what we burn, and therefore how much CO2 we emit (data collection beginning in 1970s)
Measuring CO2 in the atmosphere and trapped in ice to find that it is indeed increasing and that the levels are higher than anything we've seen in hundreds of thousands of years (measurements beginning in 1950s)
Chemical analysis of the atmospheric CO2 that reveals the increase is coming from burning fossil fuels (research beginning in 1950s)
Basic physics that shows us that CO2 absorbs heat (research beginning in 1820s)
Monitoring climate conditions to find that recent warming of the Earth is correlated to and follows rising CO2 emissions (research beginning in 1930s)
Ruling out natural factors that can influence climate like the Sun and ocean cycles (research beginning in 1830s)
Employing computer models to run experiments of natural vs. human-influenced “simulated Earths” (research beginning in 1960s)
Consensus among scientists that consider all previous lines of evidence and make their own conclusions (polling beginning in 1990
The President was in high levelmeetings all day
There was definitely no golf played.
https://twitter.com/ChrisRuddyNMX/status/843164640054001664/photo/1
Meanwhile, the rape of Queensland intensifies
...
He was flanked by the premier of Queensland Anastasia Palaszczuk, who was in town leading a 25-member delegation of mayors and state officials after visiting the Mundra port and solar power farms of the Adanis in Gujarat over the weekend.
Adani said he expects the first coal to come out of the mines by 2020.
....
The Adani group entered Australia in 2010 with the purchase of the greenfield Carmichael coal mine in the Galilee Basin in central Queensland, and the Abbot Point port near Bowen in the north.
Echoing Adani's confidence, the premier sounded sanguine about securing the pending federal approvals anytime soon as her country's national parliament is in session now and is keen to begin a debate on the project.
http://www.newindianexpress.com/business/2017/mar/19/adani-hopes-to-start-australian-coal-mine-project-by-august-1583183--1.html
the planet is warming quite a lot more than we thought
The oceans may be storing 13 percent more heat than previously estimated, according to a new study co-authored by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
The finding, published in the journal Science Advances, is based on a new analysis of how ocean temperatures have changed since 1960. The research team, led by Lijing Cheng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, compared their results to estimates published in the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2013.
"In other words, the planet is warming quite a lot more than we thought," said NCAR scientist Kevin Trenberth, a study co-author.
The vast majority of excess heat trapped on Earth by greenhouse gas emissions—about 90 percent—is stored in the oceans, but measuring how the heat content of the oceans has changed over time has been a challenge due to sparse observations.
Historically, the temperature of ocean waters was measured by a variety of ships, but this limited observations to areas where ships traveled. In more recent decades, measurements of ocean heat have increased, thanks to new observational techniques. In 2000, scientists began deploying a network of thousands of floats called Argo to profile conditions in the top layer of the ocean extending down 2,000 meters (6,562 feet). Argo achieved near global coverage in 2005, though some remote regions are still not sampled.
To fill the large gaps in the historical ocean temperature record, the research team used a combination of statistical techniques an
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-03-ocean.html#jCp
6th District race heating up
In the past month, while the state’s thirteen other Congressional Districts added a combined 62,000 voters to their registration tallies, the Sixth has added nearly 10,000. We’ll update voter registration statistics from the State as they are made available. The deadline for voter registration in this contest is March 20th.
https://decisiondeskhq.com/upcoming-races/georgias-sixth-district-adds-10000-voters-in-a-month/?utm_content=buffer53cdf&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Viewer discretion advised;
This was locked on Reddit. The_Donald's fanboys must have had an attack of the vapours
Magnitude 4.2 earthquake hits near Belfair
There’s little doubt in local seismologists’ minds that the numerous tremors recorded in the Puget Sound region over the past several days are related to a phenomenon that some say increases the risk of a major earthquake.
Earthquake Warning System passes test in Belfair earthquake
Just how much the event increases the risk of a mega-quake is up for debate, but one thing is for sure, the tremors are spreading.
“Just over a week with strong tremor[s] every day and spreading mostly north,” the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network wrote on its blog.
About every 14 months, the Cascadia Subduction Zone that stretches from Northern Vancouver Island to Cape Mendocino, Calif., experiences an episodic tremor and slip, or “slow slip” for short. During these events, the Juan de Fuca Plate moves westward and adds stress to the Cascadia Subduction Zone some. Some scientists believe the 620-mile subduction zone is at slightly higher risk for a major earthquake.
The last slow slip event was recorded around the end of December 2015 through January 2016.
http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/strong-tremors-recorded-for-the-past-week-under-hood-canal/498251255
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