Clipmarks | n2sooners's 'science' clips

Solar rays drive global warming

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:13:07 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: planetgore.nationalreview.com

Dr. Qing-Bin Lu, of Canada’s University of Waterloo, says NASA satellites and laboratory measurements show cosmic rays are the real cause of the seasonal hole in the earth’s ozone layer over the Antarctic.

Dr. LU says the severest ozone loss will occur over the South Pole this month — with another large ozone-triggered hole occurring around 2019.

If the South Pole gets an ozone-hole maximum in the coming weeks, it will strengthen the case for cosmic rays, and endorse a Modern Warming driven by solar variations rather than human-emitted CO2.

The solar model is already endorsed by oxygen isotopes in ice cores from both Greenland and the Antarctic, by microfossils in the sediments of nine oceans and hundreds of lakes worldwide, and by cave stalagmites from every continent plus New Zealand.

The case for a solar-driven climate is also strengthened by a drop in global temperatures over the past 18 months

forecast by the sunspot index since 2000, but was not predicted by the global climate models.

Tags: sun, global warming, climate change, science, religion, politics

Whale fart captured on film.

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 08:49:39 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: mine.myxer.com

Okay, we’re doing everything we can to not be crass about this phenomena that was recently photographed by the captain of a U.S. research ship.

According Australian Antarctic Division principal research scientist Dr Nick Gales: “The white bits in the photo are pieces of ice-floe, the stream of pinky color behind the whale is a fecal plume — a.k.a. ‘poo’ — the large circle in the water is indeed the physical eruption of the whale’s flatulence.”

Old school techniques demanded that the whales be killed to see what they’re ingesting … but these days, scientists can actually determine what the animals have munched on by analyzing their feces. The prey’s DNA can be identified in the poop.

Stop giggling. This is awesome science stuff.

As for the fart-on-film, scientists say it’s likely that flatulence is just as common in whales as it in humans.

We’re doing everything we can not to make a “pull my flipper” joke. Really.

Mined by: J.C. Hutchins

Tags: gas, science, whales

Major renewable energy discovery

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 04:19:24 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners
clipper's remarks: They talk mostly about solar power, but this isn't so much about solar power as it is about power storage, so it could work just as well with wind energy.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

ScienceDaily (Aug. 1, 2008) — In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.

Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.

Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun.

A snapshot showing the new, efficient oxygen catalyst in action in Dan Nocera's laboratory at MIT. (Credit: MIT/NSF)

Tags: energy, solar power, wind, electricity, science

NASA: 70% of climate change due to Pacific oscillations, not CO2

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:47:55 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners
clipper's remarks:

What this means is no matter how much you change your CO2 footprint, how much you try to be CO2 green, no matter how much liberal governments tax you - you cannot save the planet from its natural cycles.

Say they reduced the CO2 25%. Say the CO2 is the driver for the remaining 30% of Global Warming (which it cannot be, but let’s just be only half as ridiculous as the IPCC), then all that effort would only impact 7.5% of the forces driving the global climate. The other 92.5% would roll on, impervious to the effort. And since CO2 is not 100% of the remaining 30% of the equation (more like 10%), a more realistic expectation is that all the suffering that would go into dropping CO2 levels by 25% would result in a less than 1% change in the forces driving our climate.

Clip Source: strata-sphere.com

It has been scientifically demonstrated that 70% of the Global Warming in the last century (and cooling in the last decade) is due to the Pacific Ocean Oscillations, not CO2:

One necessary result of low climate sensitivity is that the radiative forcing from greenhouse gas emissions in the last century is not nearly enough to explain the upward trend of 0.7 deg. C in the last 100 years.

On this issue, it can be shown with a simple climate model that small cloud fluctuations assumed to occur with two modes of natural climate variability — the El Nino/La Nina phenomenon (Southern Oscillation), and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation — can explain 70% of the warming trend since 1900, as well as the nature of that trend: warming until the 1940s, no warming until the 1970s, and resumed warming since then.

The gentlemen making this claim is the lead investigator one of NASA’s flagship Earth Observing Observatories

Tags: climate change, global warming, science, religion, politics

Jupiter

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:59:20 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: www.boston.com

Jupiter is in the news again, this time because its "Baby Red Spot" - a storm less than a year old - appears to have been swallowed up by the massive storm known as the Great Red Spot. This is good occasion to share some of the best photographs of Jupiter and its larger system of rings and moons, as seen by various probes and telescopes over the past 30 years. (16 photos total)

Tags: jupiter, science, space, solar system, planet, photography

Black hole now a racist term?

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:39:58 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: cityhallblog.dallasnews.com

A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon.

County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts.

Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections "has become a black hole" because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.

Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole."

That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.

Mayfield shot back that it was a figure of speech and a science term. A black hole, according to Webster's, is perhaps "the invisible remains of a collapsed star, with an intense gravitational field from which neither light nor matter can escape."

Tags: racism, politics, science, humor, ignorance

I Love the Greens

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 00:25:49 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: www.redstate.com

Promoted from diaries: I think that it's well past time that we stopped letting those malicious, Gaia-raping, ecophobic hippies stand in the way of carbon-neutral energy sources, don't you? Particularly since we all know that they're just doing it because there's darned good money in promoting antinuke hysteria among the Luddite Left. [Further UPDATE: please note that the previous should not be considered to include ordinary, decent Greens, particularly the ones willing to trade coal plant mega-wattage for nuclear mega-wattage on an one-to-one basis.] - Moe Lane

A picture is still worth a thousand words. This one is worth at least then thousand. We have so many people arguing we should punish Oil to get to tomorrow. Almost no one says stop punishing nuclear. If we had of been reasonable about nuclear power back in the day we wouldn't be talking about alternative energy now.

BTW I really do love the Greens:
If it weren't for them what would I do for laughter or blog entries ?

Tags: global warming, climate, environment, science, politics, religion, nuclear

Plastic bags evil?

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 22:24:40 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags that they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims.

The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false

this figure is based on a misinterpretation of a 1987 Canadian study in Newfoundland, which found that, between 1981 and 1984, more than 100,000 marine mammals, including birds, were killed by discarded nets. The Canadian study did not mention plastic bags.

Fifteen years later in 2002, when the Australian government commissioned a report into the effects of plastic bags, its authors misquoted the Newfoundland study, mistakenly attributing the deaths to “plastic bags."

Regardless, the erroneous claim has become the keystone of a widening campaign to demonise plastic bags.

David Santillo, a marine biologist at Greenpeace

“It’s very unlikely that many animals are killed by plastic bags,”

On a global basis plastic bags aren’t an issue

Tags: environment, science, plastic bags, fraud

The CFL trap

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 04:44:36 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: www.junkscience.com

The speeding freight train carrying toxic waste liability for makers, sellers and purchasers of compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) was only faintly audible in the distance last spring when this column first warned of it. Now we’re beginning to see that environmentalist-stoked train speed toward its victims, who President Bush and Congress just finished tying to the tracks.

The energy bill enacted last December mandates that traditional incandescent bulbs be phased out starting in 2012. CFLs are pretty much the only alternative.

Clean Water Action told the media in 1997

that the mercury level in tuna is so high that a 35-pound child eating more than 2-ounces a week would exceed the EPA’s “safe” level

Environmental Defense began pooh-poohing mercury concerns stating, “In short, the exposure from breaking a CFL is in about the same range as the exposure from eating a can or two of tuna fish.”

Two-ounces of tuna used to be a horror, but in the name of CFLs, two cans became no problem.

Tags: cfl, environment, mercury, health, politics, science, religion

Environmentalist vs Environmentalist

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 03:43:56 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — In an environmental dispute seemingly scripted for eco-friendly California, a man asked prosecutors to file charges against his neighbors because their towering redwoods blocked sunlight to his backyard solar panels.

Experts say such clashes could become more common as California promotes renewable energy and solar systems become more popular.

After more than six years of legal wrangling, a judge recently ordered Richard Treanor and his wife, Carolyn Bissett, to cut down two of their eight redwoods, citing an obscure state law that protects a homeowner's right to sunlight.

The Solar Shade Control Act means that homeowners can "suddenly become a criminal the day a tree grows big enough to shade a solar panel," Treanor said.

"I think it's unfair that a neighbor can take away this source of energy from another neighbor," he said.

Both sides say they want to do what's best for the environment.

Tags: global warming, climate change, solar power, trees, science, politics, religion

Global warming = fewer hurricanes?

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:16:41 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners
clipper's remarks: Now no matter what happens during hurricane season it can be blamed on global warming...

Clip Source: www.miamiherald.com

a new report concludes that global warming actually is diminishing the number of hurricanes that strike Florida and the rest of the United States -- and the phenomenon is likely to continue.

The study, produced by two respected South Florida researchers, found that the planet's oceans have been warming for more than a century. No surprise there, but this may be:

Those warmer oceans are producing stronger crosswinds that tend to suppress the development and growth of hurricanes, according to the scientists.

''We found a gentle decrease in the trend of U.S. landfalling hurricanes as global oceans warmed up,'' said Chunzai Wang

Many other studies have used computerized statistical models to predict the future consequences of global warming, but Wang and Lee conducted a rigorous ''observational'' examination of records reaching back to 1854.

Tags: global warming, climate change, religion, science, politics, hurricanes

US banning incandescent bulbs

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 21:00:18 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: www.businessandmedia.org

The U.S. Congress looks poised to follow Australia and other allies in effectively banning traditional light bulbs. In a front-page story December 17, USA Today reporter Paul Davidson praised the provision of the energy bill that phases out “inefficient” bulbs in favor of more expensive high-tech bulbs.

Davidson declared that the “new generation of energy-efficient lights … will cost consumers more but return their investment in a few months.” The compact fluorescent bulbs, which cost about four times as much as a incandescent bulb, can pay for themselves in saved energy costs as long as they don’t burn out or break prematurely.

But while Davidson mentioned one drawback of CFLs – that their “yellowish tints” are annoying to some eyes – he failed to mention the major flaw of the new technology: mercury.

Even if the bulb doesn’t break, CFL users are supposed to dispose of used bulbs through state-run household hazardous waste programs,

Tags: global warming, climate change, energy, mercury, hazardous waste, science, religion, politics

Eco-warriors are worst polluters

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:20:01 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

A survey of travel habits has revealed that the most environmentally conscious people are also the biggest polluters.

"Green" consumers have some of the biggest carbon footprints because they are still hooked on flying abroad or driving their cars while their adherence to the green cause is mostly limited to small gestures.

Identified as "eco-adopters", they are most likely to be members of an environmental organisation, buy green products such as detergents, recycle and have a keen interest in green issues.

But the survey of 25,000 people

found that eco-adopters are seven per cent more likely than the general population to take flights, and four per cent more likely to own a car. The survey found similar trends in France and the United States.

Geoff Wicken, the author of the report, pointed to David Cameron, the Conservative leader, as a classic eco-adopter because despite styling himself as a green warrior he also takes flights in private helicopters and planes.

Tags: global warming, climate change, religion, science, politics, hypocrisy

Prediction: More alarmism in 2008

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 18:20:49 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners
clipper's remarks: “In the last few months,” Mr. Gore said, “it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter.” But he was being too modest. Thanks to availability entrepreneurs like him, misinterpreting the weather is getting easier and easier.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Today’s interpreters of the weather are what social scientists call availability entrepreneurs: the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels.

British meteorologists made headlines predicting

2007 the hottest year on record

it was actually lower than any year since 2001

BBC confidently proclaimed, “2007 Data Confirms Warming Trend.”

the Arctic sea ice last year hit the lowest level ever recorded by satellites, it was big news

the Antarctic sea ice last year reached the highest level ever recorded by satellites, it was pretty much ignored

Hurricane Katrina

was supposed to be a harbinger of the stormier world

the next two hurricane seasons were fairly calm

availability entrepreneurs changed the subject

Droughts in California and Australia became the new harbingers of climate change

never mind that a warmer planet is projected to have more, not less, precipitation over all

Tags: global warming, climate change, science, religion, politics, gore, media, msm, bias

400 scientists dispute man made global warming

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 00:10:13 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: epw.senate.gov

Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called "consensus" on man-made global warming.

This blockbuster Senate report lists the scientists by name, country of residence, and academic/institutional affiliation. It also features their own words, biographies, and weblinks to their peer reviewed studies and original source materials as gathered from public statements, various news outlets, and websites in 2007. This new "consensus busters" report is poised to redefine the debate.

Many of the scientists featured in this report consistently stated that numerous colleagues shared their views, but they will not speak out publicly for fear of retribution.

"Many of my colleagues with whom I spoke share these views and report on their inability to publish their skepticism in the scientific or public media," Paldor wrote.

Background: Only 52 Scientists Participated in UN IPCC Summary

Tags: global warming, climate change, politics, science, religion