Climate Science

The debate on climate change often gets into the chalenging of data sets and the way these are interperated. The "consensus" is often quoted. This consensus has to be the IPCC's report(s), surely. There are many other articles which get sighted as some sort of authority on what the consensus is but lets stick to the actual IPCC one. They (the IPCC) say that the worste case scenarion is that we have a 6.4 degree temperature rise by 2100 which will give us a 59cm sea level rise. Since making that prediction the temperature rise has been lowered to a worste case of 3.2 degrees. So that would be halving of the sea level rise (less really but..) to less than kn…

The people have been urning for a pointed topic. A tornado is basically a circular wind. As wind spins around it is thrown outwards creating a vacuum. The vacuum pulls it inwards. It spins really fast. This is a suspected tornado. This is results of a tornado. This is a non-casualty of a tornado. This radar is not full size so the purple high points are hard to see. There is one in Michigan and one or two in North Carolina. The activity in North Carolina is where the discussion starts. This is a water vapor satellite image. Notice the bursting action in North Carolina. This is a signature characteristic of a locally generated tornado. The is fur…

My father and I were having a discussion on why wind occurs. We already knew that it was air particles rushing from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure but we determined a problem with that. If that is the case should it not always be windy? Since there will always be areas of low and high air pressure shouldn't you always feel wind? If you are in an area of high pressure you would feel wind hitting you as it goes to an are of low pressure. Furthermore, if you are in an area of low pressure wind would hit you as it comes to fill the area. On a clear day with no clouds in the area it should be high pressure everywhere so why is it so windy? Thanks for a…

Hello everyone. You may be able to tell by the lack of understanding surrounding my following message that I am no scientist, and I realize that this is a speculative, vauge idea, if not a bit of a pipe dream. However, it is something I feel should be expressed, so please bear with me... The idea is based on the fact that blue green algea, or cyanobacteria, is the most efficient photosynthesizer on earth (or so I remember reading somewhere). Here's a related factoid, from Wikipedia: Algae and other monocellular organisms From a 2010 study by the University of Maryland, photosynthesizing Cyanobacteria have been shown to be a significant species in the global ca…

Boulder scientists report record-early high CO2 readings at key site this This graph is like smooth-smooth-smooth-SteveO riding downhill in a grocery cart. Weeeee! Graphs from The Keeling Curve The current CO2 at the site is 398.88 ppm, for the record, which appears to be about on the blue graph curve. Anyone want to propose an idea as to where the "spring board" in the data is coming from?

A way to reverse global warming by reducing CO2 in the atmosphere is to irrigate the deserts. I don't know how to do this, but it will take a huge magnitude of fresh water and maybe that can be made in many desalination plants all over the world. Then you need a lot of explosives to dig out huge irrigation ditches extending into all the great deserts of the world. Then plant LOTS of trees.

Watched the Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham debate the other day, and one point was made I've never really looked in to: Bill Nye pointed to ice core layers showing hundreds of thousands of summer/winter cycles. This doesn't bother me because I'm rather confident the earth is old enough for that, but I approach all new information with what I consider to be a healthy dose of skepticism. Not everyone agrees with my unit f measurement, but that's irrelevant. So, what is looked for in the ice to define a summer/winter cycle? Is it anything beyond simple stratification? Or are individual gas samples taken to look for seasonal changes? Anyone able to link me to some goo…

I read much on how "humanity" is to blame for air pollution. But don't scientist create harmful chemical substances used in today's products? From hairsprays, to gas and fuels, from air-conditioners, to the very preservatives in food. I am aware of the more earth friendly alternatives of these products, however they can be quite expensive and un-affordable to " most of us, causing human awareness on these Atmospheric Concerns to be less of a concern when financial limitations are presented. There is also the issues of scientific testing in where in the past have gone wrong causing not only depletion in the Ozone Layer but also costing animals and wildlife …

Hi all, James Hansen helped form the SCGI which is a think tank for solving our climate and energy problems. They promote the Tom Blees book, "Prescription for the Planet" which promotes GenIV waste-eating nuclear power like the Integral Fast Reactor to replace coal and gas, and boron to replace oil. It's a good read, especially the chapter on boron replacing oil. What do people think? FREE PDF download of book here. Let me know what you think. link removed

Hi People, So, I feel like I don't really have a complete understanding of the greenhouse effect and I would like to understand it in a bit more depth. My questions for all you people well-versed in Chemistry and/or Physics are as follows: How much of the greenhouse effect is caused by GHGs trapping and re-radiating ... light energy radiating from the sun? light energy reflected from the surface of the earth? or light energy that's been absorbed by the surface of the earth and re-radiated outward? am I missing anything? When energy is absorbed by a CO2 molecule and re-radiated, how much energy is lost? Can energy that's been re-radiated by a carbon dioxide mol…

Hello responsible citizens, perspicacious scientists, and megalomaniac engineers! A research team has found much liquid meltwater 5-50m below ice surface between the ice particles in Greenland's ice sheet: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25463647 http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2043.html Observed over 70,000km2, this reservoir could represent 140*1012kg/yr meltwater, or 0.4mm/yr sea level rise, half the contribution of Greenland, provided it does flow into the Ocean now or later, which is still unclear. Human technology may prevent this contribution to sea level rise. Collect this water, bring it to the surface when the…

I"am intrested in how to reduce energy tornado, that brings destraction and death. What there are methods of dealing with this disaster?

greetings, i would like to clear any an all topics related to climate change. my ice age model has proved itself accurate, and can make accurate predictions. earthquakes storms, volcanic eruption etc. please ask me what ever the case is, i would love to show you everything you wanted to know about climate shift. prediction is only half of what we are seeing..

Hi all, I have run 3 models using SimSphere. The first one varies soil moisture (10% - 100%) with no vegetation cover. The second varies fractional vegetation cover (0% - 100%) for deciduous forests at 2m. The third one varies fractional vegetation cover (0% - 100%) for deciduous forests at 20m. The relationships are as follows: 1. Soil moisture with no vegetation cover: INCREASED soil moisture INCREASED latent heat DECREASED sensible heat DECREASED PBL depth 2. Deciduous forest at height 2m: INCREASED fractional vegetation cover DECREASED latent heat INCREASED sensible heat INCREASED PBL depth 3. Deciduous forest at height 20m: INCREASE…

I am doing a science project trying to figure out which types of plants retain the most moisture in soil, as an attempt to combat desertification. A garden expert suggested different plants for me to use, based on the fact that they use little water and provide a lot of shade. But, he suggested to me for my setup, to use grow lights, accompanied by an under-plant heating pad, rather than a heating/grow light. Now that I think about it, don't his choices for plants seem moot? What is the point of using plants that create a lot shade, if the heat is coming from under the plant, rather than rays from above it? The plants I am using are Bermuda Grass, Evening Prim…

The proposal in this video makes sense. Do you agree? Would you sign on? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efAUCG9oTb8

Hello! My name is Cesar, I´m from Mexico, and i am planning a project for a contest with a company. The first target is the project difussion, it means get ideas for Social Networks, Blogs, or Forums like this. The company has a ecology process, which helps to get better sales. I´´m looking for ideas. Thank you

Hello, everyone: I'm looking for ideas of what I could include in a photograph with the purpose of showing the current view of society on ecology and the care for the environment. I was thinking of something involving plastic bottles being yelled at, or something like that, showing how people blame it on the trash they generate instead of realizing they're the ones putting it in the earth in the first place. I'll be glad to hear you input. Thanks. -Jesús Tamez

How does Canadian weather effect Solar Hot-Water systems?

"When it comes to extreme weather, the connection is pretty clear; the warmer the world, the wilder it gets. And with the speed that emissions still enter the atmosphere, we're right on track for an unrecognizable future." http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Kpigok-lVK4 NOTE: Celsius [centigrade] is used throughout the whole clip. So double the Celsius degrees, for any of those "change in temperature" numbers, to get Fahrenheit degrees of change... roughly. * === Several worthwhile quotes are found in this less-than-20 minute Australian video, such as: This last quote cleverly refers to evaporation and precipitation globally; a…

Please help me out, I have a question about CO2 balance. There seems to be quite a big discussion going on about this subject. One opinion is that there is a natural dynamic balance in CO2 emission and absorption, and the man made CO2 production is disturbing this balance. The contrary opinion is that ther is no balance and CO2 levels have allways varied. At least that's what I understand. Hence my question : Is there a natural balance in CO2 emission and absorption or not. Please enlighten me

Hi, my textbook has given the following weather sounding as a typical formation of a cumulonimbus (thunderstorm) cloud. But I don't really understand why this can happen on this figure. The LCL is situated left of the environmental temperature (red curve) so actually, the air parcel should stop rising in the middle between the LCL arrow and the Γ = Γd arrow (since it's in a stable layer) right? So i see this as a situation where no clouds can form. Can someone confirm this or explain why I'm wrong? Thanks!

The video links below are interesting from three perspectives. First, they show how much scientists disagree with each other. Second, they show how scientists eventually come to a partial consensus. Third, they show the ups and downs of the climate change debate. I have followed the debate since its beginnings in the 70s, but I learned things from watching this series. Both sides of the climate change debate have been wrong and had to swallow their pride from time to time, which makes a good story. Unfortunately, it has also confused people and made scientists appear foolish. But, the important thing is to learn from mistakes, and improve our knowledge. It is our best…

This is a pretty solid talk, and the speaker is good (which helps). Does the plan presented suffer from any fatal gaps or flaws? Do you think there are better approaches? Is it feasible? Do we have a choice?

Hi, I'm having troubles understanding the principles of dew point temperature. From wikipedia: "The dew point is the temperature below which the water vapor in a volume of humid air at a given constant pressure will condense into liquid water" "Relative humidity is the ratio of the partial pressure of water vapor in an air-water mixture to the saturated vapor pressure of water at a prescribed temperature" so RH = e/es. My question is: If air cools, it could hold less water vapor, so es will decrease (Clausius Clapeyron law) so that RH must increase. But how do I have to interpret dew point temperature? The definition says air must cool at a constant pressu…