scalbers

The latest back and forth (plenty of it) can be tracked here: http://www.ecatnews.net/ There are now two companies trying to out do each other to commercialize this soon. We'll likely find out within the next year if this is more than a "potential" energy revolution.

Here are some links that help to tell the story of the acceleration of overall Antarctic ice sheet loss: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL040222.shtml http://www.springerlink.com/content/m874025907838v1m/ Even if oceans are playing a role, in the long run the oceans would be warming up as part of the global warming trend. Antarctic sea ice is paradoxically gradually increasing, at a rate much lower than the corresponding melt in the Arctic. Another recently published paper documents air temperatures have in fact risen overall in Antarctica over the past 50 years. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged I think 2mm/yr of sea level rise is mostly from thermal expansion and 1mm/yr is from the melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

Antarctic ice sheet is melting at an accelerating rate this decade as measured by the GRACE and IceSat satellites.

GRACE and IceSats satellites are documenting accelerating melting of Greenland and Iceland ice sheet this past decade. This may be contributing to an increase of the sea level rise rate to 3mm/yr (up from the 2mm/yr average in the 20th century).

For all odd numbers one can construct a Pythagorian triangle. Let A be odd. Then B = (A^2 / 2) - 0.5 And C = (A^2 / 2) + 0.5

Wikipedia has a nice summary of various proofs, including the one above: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_theorem#Proofs

I recall the integer squares 5:12:13 and I see this can be constructed for every odd number: http://www.friesian.com/pythag.htm

There is a proposed DEMO plant to come on the heels of ITER. Also here is a powerpoint on a "fast track" to fusion power. http://www.journalday.org/activity/branches/South_West/Events/page_8460.html Here is the Wikipedia page on DEMO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO

The answer is 5000 Gigatons of carbon as published here: http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2005.fate_co2.pdf

With some casual Google searching here is a sort of related paper: Remarks on the issue of time and complex numbers in canonical quantum gravity http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9607028 Also this one: Complex Numbers, Quantum Mechanics and the Beginning of Time http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9302002 Then we have this one: Complex angular momentum in black hole physics and quasinormal modes http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0212093

An extended La Nina can also influence the 5-year mean as is happening now. I saw Jim Hansen give a talk this week in Boulder and he showed an updated version of this graph to help make that case for the current "cooling": http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.E.lrg.gif

It's interesting to note that the 5-year mean is starting to dip now. However it had dipped also in the early 1980s and early 1990s, only to resume the upward trend shortly thereafter. The earlier dips were due more to volcanic eruptions. Perhaps the La Nina / Pacific Decadal Oscillation effect is contributing this time? It's true all that radiative forcing from CO2 should warm the air up eventually, now the energy is being diverted into the oceans - and they will be holding this energy for a long time.

Perhaps these cosmic rays are more local than we think. If they just come from within this galaxy they might be less affected by CMB photons (and also intergalactic magnetic fields)?

Sounds good, though I hope all those people around the world who aspire to have "American" standards of living will be patient enough to wait until after 2050.

The trend on population is in the right direction though I'd say it should go further. As standards of living rise and use of resources per person rise, the sustainable population of Earth may end up being less than what it is at present. So once the number levels off I think it should perhaps start to decrease.