Octopus Overlords

Pyperkub wrote:

Rip wrote:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016 ... ember-201/

Scientists such as Professor Peter Wadhams, of Cambridge University and Prof Wieslaw Maslowski, of the Naval Postgraduate School in Moderey, California, have regularly forecast the loss of ice by 2016, which has been widely reported by the BBC and other media outlets.

Prof Wadhams, who is considered a leading expert on Arctic sea ice loss, has recently published a book entitled A Farewell To Ice in which he repeats the assertion that the Arctic would free of ice in the middle of this decade.

As late as this summer he was still predicting an ice-free September.

Yet when figures were released for the yearly minimum on September 10, they showed that there was still 1.6 million square miles of sea ice (4.14 square kilometres), which was 21 per cent more than the lowest point in 2012.

Scientists warn that such claims risk detracting from the real issue. Losing Arctic sea ice is a major problem because ice reflects up to 70 per cent of sunlight while open water reflects just ten per cent, meaning the rest is absorbed by the planet, which speeds up global warming. A massive melt of freshwater could also disrupt global ocean currents, and change weather systems.

For more than a decade most scientists have accepted that the Arctic will be free ice-free by 2050, while the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calculates there is a 66 per cent chance of no ice by the middle of the century if emissions continue to increase annually.

Yet in 2007 Prof Wadhams predicted that sea ice would be lost by 2013 after levels fell 27 per cent in a single year. However by 2013 ice levels were actually 25 per cent higher than they had been six years before. In 2012, following another record low Prof Wadhams changed his prediction to 2016.

The view was supported by Prof Maslowski who in 2013 published a paper in the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences also claiming that the Arctic would be ice-free by 2016, plus or minus three years.

However far from record lows, this year the Arctic has seen the quickest refreeze ever recorded with the extent of sea ice growing 405,000 square miles (1.05 million square kilometres) in just three weeks since the September 10 minimum. The Danish Meteorological Institute said that refreezing is happening at the fastest rate since its daily records began in 1987.

Where the heck is Moderey California?

A number of studies, using varied methodologies, have all indicated that an overwhelming majority of scientists accept the evidence for human-driven climate change. But it's clear the public doesn't know that. Barely more than half of liberal Democrats say that there's a scientific consensus. Less than a third of moderate Democrats do, and only about 10 to 15 percent of all Republicans do. Similar numbers were obtained when Pew asked whether scientists knew if climate change is occurring, what its causes are, and what the best ways to address it are. None of these issues is at all scientifically controversial, yet only 11 percent of conservative Republicans felt that we understand the cause.

Pyperkub wrote:Where the heck is Moderey California?

Malachite wrote:

Pyperkub wrote:Where the heck is Moderey California?

It's where they keep the whales and the nucular wessels.

US Secretary of State John Kerry told delegates meeting here that hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) gases were "disastrous for our climate".

Widely used in refrigeration and air conditioning, the chemicals are playing a growing role in driving up global temperatures.

Mr Kerry urged representatives from almost 200 countries to finalise a deal that would rapidly phase them out.

Eliminating HFCs could curb warming by up to half of a degree by 2100.

The rise in the use of HFCs came about as a result of the Montreal Protocol. That landmark agreement, signed in 1987, eliminated the chloroflurocarbons (CFCs) that were enlarging the hole in the Earth's protective ozone layer.

As a replacement in hairsprays, fridges and air conditioning, HFCs worked wonderfully well. The only drawback is their global warming potential - up to 4,000 times greater than CO2. HFCs are playing a rapidly increasing role in pushing up the planet's temperature.
...
Delegates were also wrangling over money to help industries in developing countries to phase out HFCs. Last month a group of donor countries and philanthropists pledged $80 million dollars to help the transition. Negotiators were warned that now was the time for agreement.

"No-one will forgive you if we cannot find a compromise at this conference," warned UN Environment Executive Secretary Erik Solheim.

"This is one of the cheapest, easiest and lowest hanging fruits in the entire arsenal of the climate negotiations I am absolutely confident that we can find that compromise."

Malachite wrote:

Pyperkub wrote:Where the heck is Moderey California?

It's where they keep the whales and the nucular wessels.

em2nought wrote:John Kerry won't be happy till Americans are living in caves, and painting pictures of vegetables on the walls.

em2nought wrote:Efficient conversion of carbon dioxide to ethanol discovered by accident. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science ... o-ethanol/

geezer wrote:

em2nought wrote:Efficient conversion of carbon dioxide to ethanol discovered by accident. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science ... o-ethanol/

That would be potentially amazing.

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:I'm skeptical because a discovery of that potential magnitude would likely not be published in ChemistrySelect, a journal that has only existed for two months...

Isgrimnur wrote:He's in on the ground floor of the horseshoe crab semen market. His interests are clear.

em2nought wrote:John Kerry won't be happy till Americans are living in caves, and painting pictures of vegetables on the walls.

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:I'm skeptical because a discovery of that potential magnitude would likely not be published in ChemistrySelect, a journal that has only existed for two months...

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:

Isgrimnur wrote:He's in on the ground floor of the horseshoe crab semen market. His interests are clear.

I would call it more opaque...

Isgrimnur wrote:I was hoping for opalescent.

New research carried out in north Queensland could drastically reduce the impact the agricultural industry has on the global environment.

A company commercialising a CSIRO-developed, seaweed feed product, which slashes the amount of greenhouse gases cattle burp and fart into the atmosphere, has won a $1 million international prize for its work reshaping the food system.

CSIRO-affiliated company Future Feed said it would use its Food Planet Prize winnings to create an international commercial fund to help First Nations communities generate income from cultivating and selling the seaweed.
...
Future Feed director and CSIRO scientist Michael Battaglia said that when added to cattle feed, the product, which contains Australian 'super seaweed' Asparagopsis, virtually eliminated methane from the animals' bodily emissions.

"We know that just a handful [of the product] per animal per day, or 0.2 per cent of their diet can virtually eliminate 99.9 per cent of methane," Dr Battaglia said.

He said the potential for the product to reduce the world's greenhouse gas footprint, if commercialised, was massive.

“We share the view that the risks of climate change are real and require serious action,” he said, adding that Exxon had long supported a tax on carbon in preference to the current “hodgepodge” of regulations around the world.

He said that Exxon had been applying an internal carbon price of up to $80 per tonne, reflecting the possible future cost of climate regulation, when making investment decisions for the past 10 years.

Isgrimnur wrote:Seaweed

New research carried out in north Queensland could drastically reduce the impact the agricultural industry has on the global environment.

Professor of aquaculture at James Cook University in Townsville, Rocky De Nys, has been working with the CSIRO studying the effects seaweed can have on cow's methane production.

They discovered adding a small amount of dried seaweed to a cow's diet can reduce the amount of methane a cow produces by up to 99 per cent.

"We started with 20 species [of seaweed] and we very quickly narrowed that down to one really stand out species of red seaweed," Professor De Nys said.

The species of seaweed is called asparagopsis taxiformis, and JCU researchers have been actively collecting it off the coast of Queensland.
...
Professor De Nys said methane gas was the biggest component of greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture industry, and the findings could help alleviate climate change.

He also added that the vast majority of methane comes from the cow's burp rather than the gas from the other end of the cow.

To test the effectiveness of each individual seaweed species, the CSIRO created an artificial rumen.
...
"They get a little bit of material from inside the rumen that has all those microbes, and then they add them to different grasses or substrates, and then you add a little bit of seaweed to that. "As they ferment ... just like you would see in a compost bin or somewhere else, the gas is created and it creates pressure."

He said by measuring and sampling the pressure of the gas, they were able to determine how much methane gas was in it.

"Once you establish that works then you can go to whole animals," he said.

"We have results already with whole sheep; we know that if asparagopsis is fed to sheep at 2 per cent of their diet, they produce between 50 and 70 percent less methane over a 72-day period continuously, so there is already a well-established precedent."

Enough wrote:I'm sure this will tip Rip into being an ardent believer of climate change, heh. Exxon now admits climate change is a real and requires serious action.

“We share the view that the risks of climate change are real and require serious action,” he said, adding that Exxon had long supported a tax on carbon in preference to the current “hodgepodge” of regulations around the world.

He said that Exxon had been applying an internal carbon price of up to $80 per tonne, reflecting the possible future cost of climate regulation, when making investment decisions for the past 10 years.

Southern fires rage with 41.6 million now living in drought...


...Thursday's national drought report shows 41.6 million people in parts of 15 southern states now live in drought conditions. The worst is in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, but extreme drought also is spreading into western North and South Carolina

Pyperkub wrote:Climate Change effects hit the US South:

Southern fires rage with 41.6 million now living in drought...


...Thursday's national drought report shows 41.6 million people in parts of 15 southern states now live in drought conditions. The worst is in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, but extreme drought also is spreading into western North and South Carolina

Pyperkub wrote:Climate Change effects hit the US South:

Southern fires rage with 41.6 million now living in drought...


...Thursday's national drought report shows 41.6 million people in parts of 15 southern states now live in drought conditions. The worst is in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, but extreme drought also is spreading into western North and South Carolina

Jaymann wrote:The solution? Elect a climate change denier!

Captain Caveman wrote:

Scraper wrote:

Captain Caveman wrote:

There are too many lines on that graph to be able to actually read it. I can clearly see last year, but anything before that is a guess.

Scraper wrote:

Captain Caveman wrote:

There are too many lines on that graph to be able to actually read it. I can clearly see last year, but anything before that is a guess.