The mouth of the Amazon is the worst source of “pollution”.
Bad news for fans of The Amazon River. A new study shows that while the Amazon rain forest is the Lungs of The Planet, pulling down gigatonnes of CO2, the river undoes all the good the trees do, and pours all the CO2 back into the sky. Damn that river eh? Lucky it only discharges one fifth of the worlds freshwater.
Apparently most researchers thought bacteria couldn’t digest the tough woody lignin of tree debris fast enough to prevent it getting to the ocean*. Underestimating microbial life seems a common affliction, and we hear was a big surprise that only 5% of the lignin actually ends up reaching the ocean where it might sink to the floor and be sequestered. The rest is broken down by bacteria and released into the air. The clues were there for years that the Amazon was giving off lots more CO2 than people expected, but the consensus was that it “didn’t add up”. So much for that consensus.
Yet another victory for observations over opinions.
Until recently, people believed much of the rain forest’s carbon floated down the Amazon River and ended up deep in the ocean. University of Washington research showed a decade ago that rivers exhale huge amounts of carbon dioxide — though left open the question of how that was possible, since bark and stems were thought to be too tough for river bacteria to digest.
A study published this week in Nature Geoscience resolves the conundrum, proving that woody plant matter is almost completely digested by bacteria living in the Amazon River, and that this tough stuff plays a major part in fueling the river’s breath.
The finding has implications for global carbon models, and for the ecology of the Amazon and the world’s other rivers.
“People thought this was one of the components that just got dumped into the ocean,” said first author Nick Ward, a UW doctoral student in oceanography. “We’ve found that terrestrial carbon is respired and basically turned into carbon dioxide as it travels down the river.”
Tough lignin, which helps form the main part of woody tissue, is the second most common component of terrestrial plants. Scientists believed that much of it got buried on the seafloor to stay there for centuries or millennia. The new paper shows river bacteria break it down within two weeks, and that just 5 percent of the Amazon rainforest’s carbon ever reaches the ocean.
“Rivers were once thought of as passive pipes,” said co-author Jeffrey Richey, a UW professor of oceanography. “This shows they’re more like metabolic hotspots.”
Read more at Science Daily
Cue geo-engineering suggestions
How do we stop that river, can we divert it underground, or cover it in white reflective plastic — do you think? Would it be better to dose it with megatonnes of antibiotics, and can we have a grant to study that? Does this mean flushing antibiotics down the toilet helps change the weather? Don’t send those old pills to landfill…
Remember there are global carbon markets running (limping) churning over $170 odd billion a year pretending that they can account for carbon flows in a meaningful way. Shame there are just a few odd gigatonnes still unaccounted for. Does this mean the parts of the Amazon that WWF “own” which were projected to net them as much as $60 billion may actually have a net worth of zero dollars when the “downstream” effect of their pollution is taken into account? We wouldn’t let the big mining corporations ignore their downstream pollution, so why let that naughty river get away with it?
Can someone calculate how many coal fired powerstations this river is equivalent too?
What Nature giveth, nature taketh away.
REFERENCE
Nicholas D. Ward, Richard G. Keil, Patricia M. Medeiros, Daimio C. Brito, Alan C. Cunha, Thorsten Dittmar, Patricia L. Yager, Alex V. Krusche, Jeffrey E. Richey. Degradation of terrestrially derived macromolecules in the Amazon River. Nature Geoscience, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1817
Image: NASA c/o Wikimedia
* Clarified thanks to Gee Aye #12. Added: “… fast enough to prevent it getting to the ocean”
Order WWF to stop polluting the river, and threaten them with fines of the appropriate level. Even at european carbon prices they should be bankrupt.
(and they should be so their place can be filled by an organisation that cares about conservation).
283
Where would one even know where to begin with this thread?
Lucky they are not in Australia otherwise they would have to pay a carbon tax.
Obviously the only geo solution here is to chop down all the trees.
198
Geophysical Research Letters: Article first published online: 14 MAY 2013
DOI: 10.1002/grl.50377
Intensification of the Amazon hydrological cycle over the last two decades
Quote Abstract–
“The Amazon basin hosts half the planet’s remaining moist tropical forests, but they may be threatened in a warming world.
Nevertheless, climate model predictions vary from rapid drying to modest wetting.
Here we report that the catchment of the world’s largest river is experiencing a substantial wetting trend since approximately 1990.
We propose that the Amazon precipitation changes since 1990 are instead related to increasing atmospheric water vapor import from the warming tropical Atlantic.”
*
Only a rain tax will save the Amazon.
93
“Only a rain tax will save the Amazon.”
OMG dont give them ideas, I can see Christine Milne noting it down right now.
53
This does not make sense to my limited knowledge of climate. When the rainforest is replaced with grassland or crops, evaporation is reduced. Reduced evaporation means reduced precipitation. Also, global ocean temperatures have not increased enough to account for significantly increased precipitation (see here), so where is the cooling of the ocean surface elsewhere in the world? It is not in the Arctic, or sea ice would be increasing.
The issue here is not with the central conclusions of the paper. It is that in discovering one anomaly with an imposed, consistent, view of the world raises more questions than it answers. This is why the most important part of maintaining consensus is prevention of questions being articulated.
72
As a minor point of fact, when a hydrocarbon is burned it yields roughly as much water vapour as it does CO2. Roughly double in volume if I recall the gas laws correctly. That varies and some hydrocarbons like cellulose, the too tough to digest substance in the Amazon, will yield about 5 H2O for every 6 CO2. Maybe that’s your excess.
13
Duster,
I think you are a bit muddled between the point of my comment (remove the forest and rainfall decreases) and that of the article (rivers exhaling huge amounts of carbon)
No matter. If I interpret you correctly, water vapor is being generated by burning down the rainforest. This is true, but totally insignificant. Why? Two reasons.
First is time. Water vapor released by destruction of the rainforest through burning is a one-off. Try a little number-crunching. Assume the one-off water vapor release from burning is equivalent to the forest evaporation in one year and that the area being burnt is 1000km2 a year. To keep the water vapor emissions in balance each year would need the burning of the equivalent cumulative area destroyed. In about 12 years that would be the equivalent of the entire Amazon rainforest every year.
Second is empirical reality. Most of the rainforest now removed is through logging and not burning. Hardwood timber is hugely valuable (even sold illegally), whilst illegal burning is highly visible.
12
Yet another entirely inconvenient conundrum for the carbon haters, and their Babel-esque edifice of tottering uncertainty.
262
You have quite the way with words. Love your work.
72
Thank you for your generosity Safetyguy66!
This site is a golden thread in a sisal world. I am thankful for the sterling work of Jo and the insightful contributions of fellow non-believers.
61
Well put Manfred!
Cheers,
Speedy
11
An alternative
01
Ive always bristled at the suggestion by the more “hippily inclined” people I know that before we invented combustion the planet was “in harmony maaaan”.
When you look at the history of the CO2 ppm in the atmosphere then compare it to what the gaia apostles call “normal” you can only assume that basically everything is “normal” except us.
I think this attitude says a lot more about gaia alarmists hatred of their own species than it does anything about our extremely narrow and limited understanding of what is in fact “normal” for this planet and what indeed “normal” in this context even means. We have little or no idea.
Michael Chriton summed it up, “we cant accurately model the stock market but we think we can accurately model the climate”. Id keep a few tight jackets and soft rooms ready for anyone who thinks they are certain they know what this planet is capable of.
Nice link Jo thanks.
112
Even though the storyline is a little exaggerated, ‘State Of Fear’ should be compulsory reading. Makes a lot more sense than ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ ever will
21
Even the discworld makes more sense than Algoreworld with it`s millions of degrees temperature at it`s core
21
And, the discworld is home to some humour, farce and a fair swag of philosophy. J
11
Years ago had a very interesting discussion in an HK pub with a guy that sold “bugs”. Basically a company gave him an example of their waste; he then threw in a selection of “bugs” and later analysed which ones had died as there was no “food” for them. The company bought freeze dried bugs added water to wake up the bugs and hey presto and in time cleaned up water.
This all started when a biologist noted that the oil in a stream had disappeared (been eaten) by the time it was just a few metres downstream. Apparently a similar natural process helped clean up after the BP oil rig disaster. Are they not also extracting gold from dumps by the same process? So not really surprising that there are bugs eating lignin in a dog-eat-dog world.
141
Surely more of a bugs-eat-everything world.
01
I can: it is equivalent to no known coal-fired power stations.
The reason? The Amazon is better than carbon neutral: it permanently sequesters carbon from the environment.
I’d also like to add that it may have been better to read the paper that has been referenced instead of relying solely on the rather poor PR-piece.
Not only does Hannah Hickey appear confused as to the difference between “The Amazon” as a geographical area, and “The Amazon” river, thereby confusing herself about the 40% of Amazon fixed carbon than never enters the river systems, but she doesn’t even get her facts correct on how much of the Amazon’s carbon uptake remains fixed rather than being respired:
My reference is,
Ward et al, ‘Degradation of…’, Nature Geoscience, 2013
413
i would also prefer to see the article.
But I can’t get it through my university’s library—not yet, anyway.
Has Margot read the article?
21
Yes.
23
No, it does not. How could you possibly come to such a conclusion?? Did some greenie tell you that???
41
Back slider,
The Maggot has stumbled upon a very intriguing concept, imagine if you will an organism that is designed to permanently remove the very thing that keeps it alive.
23
Crakar, in your opinion, what is vegetation made of, at a molecular and atomic level?
And in the study that we are discussing, what happens to “5%” of that vegetation?
32
.
I only have some basic figures on this question:
1. Total of dissolved and particulate carbon carried by rivers (10 to power of 15 g C/yr) for all rivers world.
2. Estimated 16% of carbon matter is transported to all river systems from rain forests.
3. Estimated 3.5% of all carbon is carried by the Amazon River world wide.
Old info & data from GOLDSCHMIDT CONFERENCE TOULOUSE 1998
My maths is not that good but here goes,
10 to power 15 grams Carbon/yr
10 to power 9 tonnes Carbon/yr (conversion to tonnes)
16% = 1.6 billion tonnes Carbon/yr (from rain forests)
3.5% = 56 million tonnes Carbon/yr. (from only Amazon)
Hope I got that 10 to 15 right?? It doesn’t seem enough?
HELP.
62
Dave says here:
Just using the figures he has here, that amount of CO2 carried by the Amazon into the Atlantic is the equivalent of around three and a quarter large scale (2000MW+) coal fired power stations.
I’ll have to go with that, because I can’t find too much information on the subject.
Tony.
92
Hi Tony,
The other figure is that the biomass of the Amazon Rain forest:
So the other way – is how much of this biomass is emptied into the river? The the ecology is stable – then the turnover according to the same paper above is around 30%.
Equals nearly 26 Billion tonnes. Which works out using your ratio:
1500 plus large scale power stations (every year).
72
We have to assume that it is just the Amazon at this stage. We have no evidence that this bacteria exists anywhere else.
92
We may have to assume that the specific bacteria in the Amazon River MAY be specific to the Amazon. But the patterns of life tend to get repeated over and over again in all the different parts of the world. Hence, if there is a food source in the Amazon River (carbon based foods), and there is a bacteria that accesses that food source in the Amazon, then the repeating pattern of life means that there will be other bacteria that access the food sources in the other rivers of the world.
There will be a similar type of carbon seeking bacteria(carbohydrate-eating bacteria)in the Mekong, Nile, Ganges, Mississippi, Indus and so on as well as in the swamps, lakes wetlands and flood plains. The general principle seems to be that, where there is a plant-based food source, there will be an animal, insect, bird or bacteria that accesses that food.
Now the people who want to do delaying defence on this issue and say, ‘Well, prove it to me that there are food eating bacteria in the Mekong etc,’ are only doing just that – delaying defence.
81
Thank you David.
I am no biologist, as you rightly surmised. But if you are correct, then all of the arguments for sequestration become somewhat suspect, since everything flows to the sea eventually.
31
No, it doesn’t flow to the sea. It circulates back to the atmospheric carbon cycle. The CO2 is released by these living bacteria back to the atmosphere.
All of the carbon in all the trees in the Amazon comes from the sky (the atmosphere) in the first place. None of the carbon in any of the plants and trees in the Amazon – or any forest or grassland in the world for that matter – comes from the ground. It comes from the air by photo synthesis. Even the carbon in the deepest roots of every tree in the Amazon comes from the air. It does not come from the ground.
The portion of this carbon in trees (or any plant) drawn down from the atmosphere by photosynthesis that can be sequestered for a long period, is the portion that is pulled down into the roots. Much of this is ‘labile’ carbon which can be relatively easily oxidised back to the atmosphere (such as by ploughing in grasslands overturning the roots and exposing them to the oxidising forces of sun, wind and atmosphere). But another portion can be sequestered for much longer periods if it is turned into humus by the action of a range of fungi, bacteria, earthworms, insects and so on.
For more on this I suggest you google the work of Dr Christine Jones – an Australian soil scientist. You might also like to Google the book ‘Should meat be on the menu’ on Amazon for more information.
The main point I want to make is that carbon from the atmosphere is constantly being cycled between the atmosphere and the forests in a constantly repeating cycle. The terrestrial carbon ‘sink’ of a tree is not a fixed sink forever. At times the carbon in the tree is in the tree and at times the carbon that was in the tree is in the atmosphere again. Even a living and growing tree is going through this process when it drops its bark or when it shed boughs as it grows taller or when it sheds leaves.
61
I’m no biologist, or scientist of any stripe, but to me it stands to reason that ‘nature’ would have provided a food source for all those trees, and I’m pretty sure that there aren’t any herds of wildebeest “sweeping majestically ” through the rain forest.
21
This is not new news.All rain forests produce more co2 than oxygen.Its so suppressed that this “discovery” is a grave and terrible shock[for the faithful].Carbon capture is bogus.Anyway,I hope some of”them”learn something.
23
Geoffrey, your understanding is wrong. Even if a basic knowledge of Botany wasn’t enough to know it, the paper under discussion quite clearly says that the opposite is true. Have a look at the carbon cycle diagram, for example.
45
I see we have a new Maxine entity,loathsome and stupid.
13
Geoffrey, insults do not address the issue.
Rainforests could only “produce more CO2 than O2” if they were decaying faster than they were growing. And if that were the case, then soon there wouldn’t be any forest.
You do understand the process of photosynthesis, right?
45
The Amazon is connected to the Orinoco.
12
You seem to have missed out the *source* of the carbon:
A coal-fired power station takes sequestered carbon and releases it into the atmosphere.
The Amazon takes atmospheric CO2 and sequesters 75 million tonnes of carbon every year.
420
In other words…
What coal-fired power plants do is never good.
What the Amazon does is never bad.
62
That’s not even remotely what I said. Why the rush to value-judgments?
311
Ah, the coal-fired bogie raises its head.
Everything that is organic, or has been organic, releases, CO2 as some stage in its history.
Such understanding used to be taught in schools, as “the carbon cycle”, but of course that is no longer politically correct.
You are going to have to lift the quality of your propaganda, Margot, it you think to make an impression on this site.
For starters, I suggest you look at the comment from Geoffrey Cousens, at 8.1.2.2
92
RW,
This is a concept that Maggot will never understand, remember the original point Jo made? We are talking about the Amazon river expelling a large amount of Co2 sequestered by the rain forest. This is a concept too complicated for Maggot to come to grips with.
43
Umm….actually, I’m pretty sure *I* have come to grips with this: The Amazon rainforest breathes in about 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2 each year. It respires less than that. The net difference is about 75 million tonnes.
59
Did God weigh that?
02
“Only a rain tax will save the Amazon” – LOL.
surely our govt has already resorted to outright theft of bank accounts! bolt has a thread on this and one commenter says their child’s $500 account was also taken. went to sky news channel’s menu and this does not even rate a mention:
Queensland pensioner emerged from heart surgery to find bank had emptied account and given it to Federal Government
Earlier, it was reported that legislative changes rushed through Parliament late last year mean money can now be identified as “unclaimed” after an account has been inactive for more than three years, instead of seven years.
Banks have already begun searching for inactive accounts that fit the new definition and transferring the cash to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, as required. ASIC then passes the money to the Commonwealth of Australia Consolidated Revenue Fund…
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/money/money-matters/queensland-pensioner-emerged-from-heart-surgery-to-find-bank-had-emptied-account-and-given-it-to-federal-government/story-fni0ctkz-1226647919220
41
The important thing to do when faced with such a situation is to always try and turn a negative into a positive.
In this case the negative is co2 levels in the river produced by the very trees which sucked in the CO2 (once percieved as a positive) but we can spin this around and claim a new major branch of climate science has been born in acidifying rivers.
Untold wealth can be gained through grant money to research the effects of such a thing, always remember as one gravy train pulls into the station there will be another about to leave.
123
Yes, but those wanting to apply for research funding will go before grants committees who reject far more applications than they accept.
If you wanted a gravy train, you’d ditch science and get into property development or forex dealing.
The trick to a good conspiracy is to come up with something that actually makes some kind of sense. So far, Crakar, you’re not convincing.
517
Hi Maggot good to see you back,
Remember Maggot before you can be convinced of something you must first understand the concept, for example those that are too stupid to understand the concepts of Samsungs new 5G wireless will never agree it is more beneficial than Sonys fibre.
In this case if you are too stupid to understand the concept of jumping from one gravy train to another (i think you are too stupid) then i will never sound convincing, not that it matters as your stupidity will disqualify you from a seat at the table when it comes to making all the important decisions.
[Please don’t resort to ad homs, they do not help the discussion -Fly]
53
Oh, come on, get off the grass! “Property development?” “Forex dealing?”
Both are areas where Governments, and the nonproductive parasites who work for them, just love to play [insert deity of choice], whilst changing the rules and tilting the playing field, but adding nothing to the total wealth of the nation or the benefit of the populous.
The trick to a good conspiracy is to provide tenure and a regular income to a large group of people who, as a self-supporting monopoly, can create a series of situations where individual people feel obliged to, or are required to, contribute part of their earnings to the support of the group. Of course, these individuals get nothing in return, because the sole function of the group is its self support.
This is the area where the business of climate change takes on the appearance of a religion. In fact a lot of religions use guilt as a motivator, as does the climate change industry.
The difference of course between the climate change industry and other religions, is that Governments have gotten themselves involved, and have legislated for whole Departments to be established, with a mandate to perpetuate the conspiracy for as long as possible. This, of course is funded by taxes, which are extracted from the same individuals who support the climate change industry directly.
Good conspiracies, are those where the money goes around and around, so everybody believes that they are benefiting. But of course all enterprises need operating expenses, so some money gets syphoned off to support the perpetuators of the scam that is at the heart of the conspiracy.
When sufficient people see the conspiracy/scam for what it is, that is the point where it collapses, and a few people (just a token number) go to jail.
The remainder just look for the next excuse, and a new conspiracy emerges.
71
But Rereke, calling Government employees, “nonproductive parasites” would be an insult to anybody who has anything on the CV along the lines of, say, “Worked at Department of Climate 1999-2005”. Are you sure you mean to insult people in this way?
If you want to demonstrate that climate change is a scam, you’re going to have to do a lot better than that. Scientists are among the smartest and most altruistic in society. It is inexplicable how all scientists the world over could agree on,
– greenhouse theory as a fact
and
– CO2 emissions rises
if these two things were a “scam”.
Bottom line is, I can either believe you are telling the truth, or, I can believe respected science organisations like CSIRO and BoM.
A good sceptic will have no trouble figuring the correct choice there.
55
False dichotomy. There is a third choice. You could think for yourself instead of farming out your brain to other people.
The correct question is “which argument makes more sense” not “which person made it”.
74
Ouch!
11
That’s obviously wrong.
There’s this thing called expertise.
I can’t do my own heart surgery, instead I get an expert to do it. If I’m suspicious of that expert’s opinion, I can go to another expert and compare their opinions.
What I *don’t* do, is ask my lawyer or my accountant – they are experts in other things. And I certainly don’t ask anybody that can’t demonstrate any discernable expertise at all – those people’s opinions is of nil value.
The fact is, scientists are far more trustworthy than lawyers or real estate agents. And if all the scientific bodies in the world are telling me that climate change is real, I’m not about to disagree with them on account of the opinions of some inexpert off the internet.
33
The fact is that some scientists hide their data and some fools “trust” them.
33
Used to be…. not anymore. You really should try to keep up with what is happening around you.
33
Margot,
I am a government employee and trust me most of them are nonproductive parasites in fact an issue has arisen today which would confirm ths however alas i am not at liberty to supply any further details…………..as i said you will just have to trust me 🙂
The rest of your coment shows you have missed RW’s point completely
32
are there implications for hydro???
15 April: World Bank: Water Resources Management: Sector Results Profile
Managing Water Resources in a Changing Climate
Hydropower: Hydropower is currently the world’s largest source of affordable renewable low-carbon energy and offers a hedge against energy price fluctuations…
http://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2013/04/15/water-resources-management-results-profile
31
Great post Jo. Fabulous information. With regard to the Amazon, I pointed out in a book I wrote some time ago that there are times when the Amazon itself (ie, the forest itself and the trees themselves) give off vast amounts more carbon dioxide than what they ‘absorb’ through photosynthesis. This ‘extra’ they are giving off is measured in the billions of tonnes – makes our power stations, and the whole of the anthropogenic emissions from Australia, look pretty inconsequential. Typically this extra flux-out in the Amazon is in a dry time and this can reverse itself when things get wetter again. There are self completing cycles all over the place in nature.
This same process of trees and forests giving out more CO2 than they are absorbing can be seen in the Australian bush. In a dry or drought time the foliage of the trees becomes sparse and spindly. In a wet time the foliage thickens up. In the dry time the tree reduces/stops/minimises photosynthesis and drops leaves which then oxidise to release CO2. In a wet time the process reverses.
There is no magical role of the forests just being the ‘lungs of the planet’ all the time. Let’s remember that the ‘lungs of the planet’ analogy is a bit of a problem for those who advance it. The analogy is actually cockeyed because it makes the wrong point. Our lungs actually take in free oxygen from the atmosphere. Our bodies then use this oxygen in combustion and give off CO2 – similar to the process that happens in a power station. So, I often wonder what is the point that people are making when they talk about the Amazon being the ‘lungs of the planet’.
Where the ‘lungs of the planet’ analogy also breaks down is in the fact that, in the entire life cycle of a tree, it emits exactly the same amount of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as it originally drew down from the atmosphere through the process of photosynthesis. It may take a while but it eventually balances – in the end a tree produces no more oxygen that it absorbs when it oxidises.
So, the carbon in the trees doesn’t even have to make it to the river to be oxidised by bacteria and other processes. It’s happening all the time in the forest itself as trees live and die.
111
Jo, you might need to refine this comment
Most researchers who have anything to say about this, or who do research in this area are aware of the processes of fungal and bacterial degradation of lignin. The fact of degradation was known a long time ago and more recently has been better characterised (ie metabolic pathways defined etc). The refinement which you make later, but don’t link to the bit i quoted, is that the speed and efficiency of this process was thought to be such that a large amount of lignin, and the carbon it holds, would be trapped somewhere (eg in anoxic environments) before being degraded.
As you point out, actually measuring and observing what takes place in situ is far superior to extrapolating from data and observations collected elsewhere.
61
Thanks Gee Aye, I’ve clarified that. You sound more familiar with that biochemistry than I am. What line of work are you in?
82
No I am not knowledgeable about lignin degredation but I have some experience in related areas and I’ve been to talks about litteral breakdown and such – so I knew enough to worry about your statement and do a quick check. I’m across various lines of work (for want of a better expression) but I am applying my science indirectly on the hill, sometimes on behalf of others, and directly down closer to the lake.
11
Gee Aye,
What is your opinion on this below?
The link only explains the life-cycle of lignin phenols, together with 95 other phenolic compounds. These only make up less than 50% of carbon sequested in plants (rain forest).
Yet the Science Daily states this:
I find the Daily report off the mark for the following reasons:
1. Only 55% of the lignins end up in the River.
2. Lignins make up less than 50% of plant carbon sequestration in rainforests.
3. I make it that only 50% or near enough is exhaled by the Amazon River itself.
4. Item 3 depends on the lignin ratio of carbon in the rain forest.
The other comment by Science Daily says this:
And the lignin breakdown was not measured in the river itself, it was measured in the lab as stated here: Under these conditions, Ward collected river water samples in all four seasons. He compared the original samples with ones left to sit for up to a week at river temperatures
So in reality – the headline should read in Science Daily as
51
The rest of the carbon is in the form of cellulose, which is rapidly degraded both aerobically and anaerobically once the lignin is removed.
21
Dave,
your question is complicated and is not one I am equipped to answer (although I’m not sure I fully understand what you are asking). It seems to me that Bob Sykes has suggested something that is missing from your equation (although I understand that cellulose is accessible to degradation even when lignin is intact). I think it underlines how complicated is the cycling of different compounds/elements that to feel confident of giving a reasonable answer to a question about one part of the system requires extensive reading.
01
Why is this bad news?
Unless you are constantly trying to politicize everything.
It’s important information to help us make more informed decisions. But, somehow by your title I don’t think that ‘s your goal.
02
First it’s cow farts that will kill us..now it’s the bacteria? How are we going to make corks that small to plug them?
71
Nanoengineering.
41
And here`s the prototype , there are a few bugs to be worked out apart from the size , apparently mapping a Greenie`s brain waves and imprinting it on to the buttcorkbot mkI didn`t work as it just rammed it`s head up it`s own bum then started mouthing somewhat muffled sanctimonious platitudes , Ah well , back to the drawing board
51
This sort of a priori rumination by intellectual smarty pants reminds me of the very same sorts of objections to Barry Marshall’s preposterous notion in 1992, that gastric and peptic ulcers could be caused by the bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, because the consensus was that bacteria cannot live in the acid environment of the human stomach, ergo, could not be the cause. QED.
How wrong they were! Their descendants are still at it.
81
Who are you comparing to Nobel-winning scientist, Barry Marshall, precisely?
49
Do keep up, prefacing his name with “Nobel-winning scientist” is not necessary. Allen wasn’t criticizing him, he was criticizing people such as you who look down their noses at any ideas proposed by others with which you disagree and your ongoing efforts to belittle their ideas. As was done by “the experts” towards Marshall when he proposed his hypothesis, as was done up until and even somewhat after he proved it.
But leave it to you to resort to the “oh he won a Nobel” routine as though that means anything these days. Would his work have been any less important had he not received a Nobel? No it would not have.
For people who want to act as though you are so much smarter than the rest of us your reading skills are atrocious. This seems to be a trait you all share. Did they not teach reading comprehension where you were schooled?
61
It’s not called “looking down your nose”, it’s called scepticism.
Eventually, Barry was able to demonstrate his idea with hard evidence. He got a Nobel for it.
Same with plate tectonics and the theory of continental drift – geologists were very sceptical of these ideas – it took about 50 years for enough evidence to build up for the consensus to shift in favour of the idea rather than against it.
45
So long before “the consensus” finally woke up to the undeniable evidence, there were 50 years when the skeptics were right and the consensus was wrong.
Blind followers of the consensus are the ones slowing scientific progress. Those who discuss the evidence instead of mindlessly chanting “the herd, the herd” are pushing it forwards.
63
So all those who still deny that CO2 is a greenhouse gas might take 50 years to “wake up”, you reckon?
46
Margot, your denial is so sweet. You keep hoping you can post stuff pretending that serious skeptics deny GHG warming when none of us do. The real argument is obviously about the feedbacks, and the evidence goes our way entirely. You have nothing but cheap shots. Could you keep up the denial for 50 years? Looks like…
53
Thanks Jo that’s a really good comment, though many of the commenters down the page totally disagree with you. Maybe there’s no consensus among the skeptics either?
As someone learned in the climate sensitivity debate, what climate sensitivity do you think is worth worrying about? At what stage would you advocate doing something about it?
You also spend a lot of time raising doubts about the measurement and calculation of climate data; what do you think is the best way to improve these data handling and measurement systems? How can we improve the accuracy so you and others stop raising doubt and start making decisions?
14
I think you missed the part where Jo said “when none of us do”.
You claim that the “missing heat” is disappearing somewhere down into the deep depths of the ocean”. How about you measure that for us? Nobody else has.
The thing is this – we do not have any reliable ocean temperature data prior to 2003 and ten years is simply far too little data to be able to tell much at all.
You are of course aware that all known climate models have now been falsified by actual temperature data (which is why we now have the “deep down in the ocean” peek-a-boo thing)? Why do you continue to believe things that have been falsified?
01
Because climate activism is a religion.
01
There he goes again, claiming to know what we think. Though in this case I’ll make it easier for him. I think he’s a troll who is full of caca.
Memorial weekend here in the states, time to remember all those who gave their lives to protect the freedoms of those who would then try to deny us our own.
01
It’s okay, I’m not surprised that no one even bothered to engage when I asked a question about science.
But remember this, because I will keep reminding you. Jo Nova, the author of this blog stated very plainly that climate sensitivity is 1.1 degrees per doubling of CO2. That is a tacit acceptance of the theory that CO2 emissions raise global temperatures. There is no other way to interpret that statement. If doubling the CO2 concentration raises the temperature 1.1 degrees then CO2 MUST raise global temperatures.
13
Evcricket,
I am a bit late to this debate so i will just focus on your last comment OK.
You are getting confused between a doubling of CO2 and climate sensitivity.
It is generally accepted that if you double CO2 the temp will rise by 1.1C…..in a vaccuum.
What actually happens in the real world is completely different and what happens is based on the climate sensitivity.
Here is a scenario….
If we double CO2 then theoretically the temp will rise by about 1.1C however there will be numerous feed backs both +ve and -ve which determine the eventual temp.
The feed backs could be one of 3 possibilities, -ve, +ve (varying between weak and strong) or in fact neutral. The resultant of these feed backs is called climate sensitivity.
Ergo if sensitivity is high we will get strong +ve feed back (high temp rises), if sensitivity is low we will get neutral or even -ve feed backs (low temp rise or even none at all).
I hope this clears things up for you.
Cheers
Crakar24
22
It would appear to me that those who can’t make decisions are those such as Evcricket since they change their story so often when pressed for details and data. It would also be apparent to any rational thinking person that when the story changes so often that is what raises the doubts.
Short version, all Jo is doing is pointing out the inconsistencies in their own arguments which means it is they and not her who are causing the doubts.
01
No, it wasn’t skepticism. You know you still haven’t demonstrated you understood what Allen was saying without my first having to spoon feed it to you. Even after spoon feeding it to you I’m not convinced you understand it.
The “consensus” theory on ulcers was nothing more than a hypothesis with no hard evidence supporting it. Much like the premises of the global warming movement, which also has no hard evidence supporting it, it was accepted as fact by a “consensus” and then when someone with actual empirical evidence came along which supported a different hypothesis he was ignored and ridiculed by that “consensus”. That is not skepticism.
You really do have a lot to learn for someone who tries to act as though you are so smart.
11
I suppose I’m again using a Post to speak on the subject I (think I) have some expertise in, but, as with most subjects, they can always relate to electrical power generation.
While there are no Hydro plants on the Amazon, and in fact it would surprise most that there’s not one dam at all on the Amazon, Brazil sources nearly all its power from Hydro power.
I understand that sometimes power statistics are pretty boring, but some bear looking at, and Hydro here in Brazil is worth a look.
Australia has a total Capacity from all sources of power generation of 54GW.
Brazil has a total Capacity just from Hydro Power of 85GW.
Australia consumes a total of around 250TWH of power each year.
Brazil consumes a total of around 505TWH of power each year.
Australia’s population is 23 Million, and Brazil’s is 197 Million, so while their population is 8.6 times ours, they only consume twice as much power. Now some might say that shows we here in Australia are huge consumers of electricity, but what this tells me is that there’s a lot of Brazil without power connections of a reliable and constant nature like we have.
So then, Hydro in Brazil, that 85GW of Hydro, and just one of those Hydro plants is the second largest power station on Earth, Itaipu Hydro on the Parana River in their South, and the plant supplies power into Brazil and also Paraguay.
It has 20 X 700MW generators, but they only run 18 at any one time. This one plant has a Capacity of 14,000MW.
Australia has a total of 7700MW of Hydro power from 62 separate plants.
This ONE Itaipu Hydro plant supplies 98TWH of power into Brazil each year, and that equates to 40% of Australia’s total power consumption. This Itaipu Plant operates at a Capacity Factor of 89.9%. (Keep in mind here that they only run 18 of the generators at any one time)
Let’s compare Itaipu with coal fired power here in Australia. Let’s just take the majors, that’s all plants over 2000MW, and to make up the numbers here I added the next 2 largest, one from Victoria and one from Queensland. That gives us 6 of those coal fired plants (28 generators in all) with a total Capacity of just on the same as Itaipu, with it’s 18 generators on line. Itaipu supplies 18% more power than all those Australian coal fired plants.
Now, something of the scale of Itaipu would be useless here in Australia, but there is something worthy of notice here.
Remember how I said in an earlier Post that the Snowy Hydro was a vision in the late 40’s, and is now a long established, and mainly forgotten vision. I have said that perhaps we might have a new Snowy’s vision, not a new hydro scheme, but an upgrading of what is basically technology from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, all of it 40+ years old now.
When Tumut 3 went in, I mentioned that they went to Japan for the latest Hydro technology, installing the latest technology 250MW generators.
Itaipu, just like Three Gorges In China uses 700MW Generators.
Like I said, it’s just a vision really.
Tony.
91
Thanks Tony,
I think I would take more than just some “vision” to get 750MW out of Tumut 3. Where would all the extra water come from? Has new generator technology increased hydo generator efficiency. I remember that you have written about this before but I have forgotten the details.
Pumped hydro is an energy storage technology we have heard a bit about but the electricity utilities seem slow or reluctant to implement. I have thought in the past that the Kiewa scheme might be a good site for a pumped hydo scheme, since it consists of a series of cascading dams and power stations. Could you comment. Could that work as a load leveling device, ie buy electricity at times of low demand to pump the water back up, then sell it back during the time of peak demand?
01
They do use pumped storage, as do all countries with dam based hydro.
The USA and Canada have so much water that they have several water flow type hydro schemes e.g. Niagra.
The unintended consequence of the “renewable” energy schemes is that they often make pumped storage (and other short term bridging generation) unprofitable. With “renewable” electricity schemes having to dump energy into the system whenever they can, they cut the operating time available so the pumped storage (and other short term available sources) are no longer profitable.
Thus in Germany, the solar panels mightn’t generate much power but it has meant that at least one pumped storage operator and a new gas fired plant have signalled their closure.
“The most modern gas-fired power plant is the plant in Irrsching, which went online a year ago. To make a profit, it would need to run at least 4000 hours annually. But because renewable energy like wind and sun have priority when it comes to being feed-in into the power grid, the gas plant operates only about 1600 hours per year. Therefore it is a money-loser.
Bavaria Economics Minister Martin Zeil declared that Irsching V has to stay online. Otherwise grid stability and thus the electricity supply would be jeopardised …when renewables weren’t operating”.
Guess that’s another subsidy coming, this time not for “renewables” when they’re working but for when they’re not working.
21
Here, Graeme has highlighted something that is interesting, and I’ll explain why.
Tumut 3 is in fact a pumped storage type of power generator, and that means two water storage facilities, dams or pondages. The water flows from the upper pondage down through pipes to the head, drives the Francis turbines which drives the generators to make the power. The water then enters the second pondage. What happens then, is that during non peak power times, that water is then pumped back up to the upper pondage, so the water just goes through a cycle.
So, as you can see, this is a form of hydro power generation that is not quite the same as for, say, the Itaipu, or even Three Gorges, where the flow of water is continuous and the power generation is continuous.
Pumped storage power generation is typically used for peak power periods and here, for Tumut 3, that would be in the specific 4PM until 10PM period when power consumption does peak.
Hydro power, like say from the large continuous flow is one of the cheapest forms of power generation, mainly because all that needs to be recovered over the life of the plant is the cost of the dam and the hydro power complex.
However, here, with pumped storage, there is the additional cost of buying the power to pump it back to the upper pondage.
So, that’s why this pumped storage is sold during Peaking power periods, the time when electrical power costs are the greatest, because more and more (non coal fired continuous generation) is needed to come on line to top up that needed total power for consumption, and these forms of power generation cost more to run, hence greater cost for electricity sold into the market.
Note here I said a specific time, 4PM until 10PM, and typically Tumut 3 can give around three hours or so of power.
However, having said that hydro power is cheap, note here with pumped storage, there is the added cost of the reverse cycle, the purchase of power to pump the water back up to the upper pondage.
So now, in addition to the cost of the hydro power, we have to add on the cost of purchasing power for that reverse cycle.
So, here, pumped storage power is sold during that time of greatest cost, so they can recover the cost and make some on top. So that power does not become too expensive to actually sell, then they need to purchase power for the reverse cycle pumping at the cheapest rate possible, and here that is critical.
That pumping time would be during the times when power is at its absolute cheapest, midnight to 4AM, and surprise surprise, what are the only generators actually working at those hours, those much maligned coal fired power plants.
See now how critical pumped storage operations become.
Supply during Peak, and pump during the down time, set in stone hours, otherwise pumped storage power becomes too expensive to sell, literally too expensive to sell.
So, here you cannot use Wind power, or solar power to supply that pumping power because, well, the Sun isn’t shining from Midnight to 4AM, and the wind has to supply critical power at that specific critical time …… every night.
Can you see now why wind power cannot be used in conjunction with pumped storage.
The hours of delivery, and then the hours of pumping are critical and it can only be that way.
Tumut 3 delivers around 1000GWH of power to the NSW grid each year, and that equates to around 2 hours of power each day, or, if not needed then perhaps more at other times, and probably only around 4 hours worth at best, before the water needs to be pumped back up to the upper pondage for the cycle to begin again.
Take away cheap coal fired power, and you can have all the pumped storage you like, but it will become uneconomical to sell the power, because they have to add on that cost for pumping.
Just another of the reasons why coal fired power is in fact so important.
Tony.
41
Tony , you have such an eye for significance. For hitting the nail on the head.
I always read your statistics because I know they will be pertinent and cut through the darkness of institutional misinformation & general misunderstanding.
No wonder Brazil can feel holier than thou , about holding Earth summits and the like.
But if Aus were to match their consumption per head, inequity of distribution & reliability, well by that time all the jobs will already have gone ‘offshore’
02
The Amazon is a bit different than most rivers and its scale is not well known by those who have not experienced it. It has a rainy season over a large area with many long tributaries while the lower part is broad. As the rainy season progresses the water pushes out into those large areas and thus produces an inland sea that lasts long enough that the term “flood” doesn’t really fit. It’s what is expected and plants, animals, and humans have adapted to it. Where there was dry land fish swim and all the other river life move outward as the water spreads. It is warm and biological and chemical activity is massive. Headwaters are in elevated regions and are high erosion sites. This all makes for a wonderfully interesting place. Where it dumps into the Atlantic Ocean there is an impressive tidal bore called the Pororoca.
http://videosift.com/video/Surfing-The-Amazon-Longest-Wave-In-The-World
21
so if we cut down the trees and grow soybeans for the Chinese we are in fact saving the planet from dangerous carbon dioxide.
Luv it!
41
Might have a knock on effect on methane emissions though.
01
Restoring more of the forest is a better idea than stopping the river.
21
And people laughed at me when I suggested we should concrete the entire Amazon basin.
Well who’s laughing now!?!
41
Keith, I’ve got a mate who’ll do that job at a good price.
And toss in some extra expansion joints for a few slabs.
Maybe we can get James Cameron to do a documentary on it 😉
41
Could we perhaps drill first, before you cover it up?
21
Will there be enough left over to do my driveway ?
11
we could concrete the whole thing and paint it white
62
I do remember some bloke in Paraguay or somewhere was painting the top of a hill white for the usual planet saving reasons.
I guess it worked though. We are still here.
41
That would be this joker , Eduardo Gold , and He received $200,000 of the usual reasons people take up planet saving as a religion
41
Yet another idiot defacing these beautiful mountains.
21
*cough* we do remember how whitewash is manufactured, right?
22
Keith, I have a similar idea for Botany Bay, Sydney. It would be a total solution for a second airport site.
12
The Amazon has a particularly low rate of flow from source to coast. I have been trying to locate the data that provides a measure of the ‘fall’ across Amazonia. If memory serves, I read once that it might be about 2m, certainly less than 5m, which means it floods easily and possesses a sluggish directional flow, all the more suited to the bacterial digestion of lignous and chitinous corpses. In a sense therefore, it is a giant and somewhat constipated intestine whose symbiotic and commensal bacteria ensure that alles in ordnung.
Out of interest, evidence apparently indicates that The Amazon, or parts of it flowed (in reverse to the present day) from East to West, some 130 million years ago, changing as a result of continental drift.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/10/061025-amazon-river.html
52
.
Too true Manfred,
Good article where the Andes came up and the Amazon started to flow the other way over the basin which is only some 6 meters difference over millions of hectares. Very slow sluggish pools of water on the flood plain where everything gets recycled and turned over. Huge amounts of algae also exist in these areas that use massive amounts of CO2 and then in turn get deposited in the shallow areas or get swallowed by the forest. Not all gets eaten by bacteria. The soil under this basin is super rich in nutrients and carbon, there must be billions of giga tonnes fixed in the soils of the rain-forest and flood plains.
So much life and change in one area. Amazing reading. As you said earlier – so much to learn.
Thanks.
32
You mean the Amazon could be drifting backwards , faster than it’s actually flowing ?
12
I would like to suggest that there should be formed the “Amazon Carbon Credit Exchange”, where the UN can require that western (G20) governments purchase a set number of “Amazon Credits” per year. The funds raised would be used to invest in carbon offset projects of equal value to the CO2 output of the Amazon.
Thus making the Amazon river carbon neutral.
After all it is only fair that the rich should pay to preserve the Amazon on it’s pristine state.
/Sarc.
22
Filters are the solution. You can buy pump and filter systems from any good gold fish pond stockist. Soon clean the river up in no time. Just calculate the volume of water held by the river, and buy a system large enough for your needs. (You may need more than one because of its shape.)regular surface cleaning with a net should help.
Meanwhile Britains DECC attempts to save the world…
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/the-arrogantauts/
82
The regular surface cleaning with nets could be achieved by armies of volunteer Greenpeace zealots. After all, they’re making the money there.
22
That’s a brilliant depiction Fen. The drowning windmills are so apt. Apparently two main advocates & profiteers of this ongoing madness were both at No.10 in Monckton’s time.
I wonder who has done more for humanity in the meantime. Them or the ‘bag carrier’ , as the one who backed beefburgers through the BSE crisis would have it ?
02
Heh. If they’re gonna be that worried about it, just bury the whole lot and we can safely burn it as coal in a few million years.
32
And here was I, imagining that ‘the team’ was right about this as with everything else, and all time the cunning little blighters were just taking the pith…..:0)
42
UNDER THE JUNGLE
“The gradual devastation of the Amazon—the felling of thousands of square miles of forest, the clear-cutting of the jungle—has produced, paradoxically, one of the greatest archeological discoveries: a vast and complex ancient civilization.
In cleared-away areas of the upper Amazon basin, researchers, using satellite imagery, have recently pinpointed a vast network of monumental earthworks, including geometrically aligned roads and structures, constructed by a hitherto unknown civilization.”
32
Take away message, “May as well clear the whole Amazon basin as it doesn’t do any good anyway”.
Is that about right?
013
Nice lean to the left when ya photo was taken.
Nice assumption that shows you read the bold and not the rest.
72
Funny J. B., I re-read the post by Jo three times and I don’t see any mention of this. You’re wrong again.
52
I see one gigantic soccer pitch/samba parade ground/sugar cane plantation/gulag for Warmistas who enjoy getting back to nature 🙂
22
As someone who subscribes to the Stephen Hawking method of human advancement, ie. Strip mine this rock, build a mothership and get the funk out of here ASAP, I wouldnt argue with that proposition.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6158855.stm
All this poncing about trying to “save” things is just wasting time.
12
Or, to quote Ellen Ripley, “I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”
I’ve always wanted to use that line.
12
Recipe for alarmists.
Take one assumption
Add a link to a GHG paper
Fold in emotion and claim rationalism.
Ignore reality and add a dash of Consensus.
Now take worst case scenario and sprinkle freely with GHG paper.
This should leave a bitter taste on the palette.
Finish the dish with an angry hate filled tirade.
Leave with the feeling that all have been well served.
42
THE AMAZON BASIN MAY BE A THREAT
Some forty years ago in Belem, I heard the opinion of Dr. Jean Dubois, an expert on equatorial forests. As he then saw it, such forests are very old and have long reached a steady state in which the oxygen generated by photosynthesis is balanced by the oxygen consumed by the plants and by decomposition of organic matter at very fast rates. At that time a journalist misunderstood the explanation and coined the expression “lungs of the world” that has endured.
More recently, forest metabolism has been measured by automatic stations at several heights above ground and at several times during the day. The measurements suggest that the Amazon forest, far from generating oxygen, is actually consuming the oxygen of the planet like a giant fire.
So if oxygen generation is the objective cutting down the forest to give way to grain crops would make sense. This is not possible because soil and climate of the rain forest is unsuitable for cultivation. It is likely that the forest will remain the green desert it has been for five centuries. Grain cultivation is done on the savanna highlands of the Central Brazilian Plateau, south the Amazon forest.
Alan Neil Ditchfield
42
“The new paper shows river bacteria break it down within two weeks, and that just 5 percent of the Amazon rainforest’s carbon ever reaches the ocean.”
Which means that even more of the CO2 in the atmosphere is “natural” and not fossil fuel related, which means that the carbon-14 ratios, used to “prove” most of the CO2 is coal etc., are “off”.
So this changes IPCC input …. or not ……
22
Yet another demonstration that we do not even understand the carbon cycle qualitatively, let alone quantitatively.
12
Touché.
Presumably, history will reflect this sad indictment on politics meddling with [insert human endeavour here].
12
OT,
Only a week to go before the death spiral begins
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png
23
An example of delayed gratification?
12
O.K. Here’s what we have to do. Somewhere around the middle of the river we bore a hole right through the centre of the Earth. All the water will pour down that hole and all the bacteria will be killed by the intense heat (millions of degrees, isn’t it?) as the water is turned in to steam. Water from the Atlantic will follow. Being salt water, this will kill any nasty fresh-water bacteria that avoid being carried down. Of course, the sea water will then pour down the hole as well. Momentum and the pressure of the falling water will force the steam out of the other end of the hole, so we can use it in turbines to generate electricity. The steam will then be vented to the air, where it will form clouds to shade the Earth and protect us from dangerous Global Warming.
Problem solved.
32
I like it! Let’s report it to Gore and call it Ocean Sequestration or something. He’ll probably just call it ridiculous as it wasn’t him that thought of it.
12
Off the topic of this posting but I just heard the news. Ford is leaving Australia after having continuously building cars there since it started making the Model T in 1925.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-22/ford-to-close-australia-car-manufacturing-plants-afr-reports.html
12
Saw this. It’s a massive blow to Victoria, and in particular Geelong. Holden will be next. The trouble is, they have to compete with other countries who manufacture on a much bigger scale, and who subsidise ( in some cases massively ) their car industries. Then there’s the high dollar, the high relative wages, and, dare I say it, the utterly stupid and pointless f#$&ing Carbon Dioxide Tax.
The light at the end of this particular tunnel is that, at long last, my fellow Victorians may begin to see Labor in it’s current form as toxic, and catch up with the rest of the country.
02
The PM sounded so sincere , didn’t she , announcing her initiatives to help the Ford workers with a new fund of few million, in that trained way she does, as she continues to preside over the demise of the one remaining functional part of the West and in pursuit of her global socialist dream.
32
Without a vehicle industry we have no military manufacturing capacity in wartime.
That may be a consideration for the continued subsidies?
22
That is what has happened to the US. We have no steel mills anymore. No power plants. No ship yards. If we were to place an order for 1000 tanks, we would have to buy the steel from China. The factories that built our warplanes are gone. The factory that built the C-17 is a park. The factory that built our Bradley Fighting Vehicles is now “affordable housing”. The US is still operating with cold war gear. If we needed to ramp up production of ships, we would need to build shipyards from scratch, we would need to reopen closed mines, build power plants, build steel mills. It would take us at least 5 years or more to even begin production because all of our steel would be going into building steel mills.
It’s just insane.
22
We serfs find it difficult to understand such things…. it all makes perfect sense to our rulers.
22
This is a sad day, i had my first job at Ford in Geelong (apprentice fitter and turner) it was a crap place to work mind you dirty, smelly, noisy place especially where the press shop was.
Geelong makes the panels and Broadmeadows assembles the cars so both plants will shut down i suppose.
23
Serves the fraudsters right. I hope they choke on this.
02
OT again,
Its all over, everyone can relax, the end of days has been called off
This ones for you Tony
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/156393-cold-fusion-reactor-independently-verified-has-10000-times-the-energy-density-of-gas?fb_action_ids=10151695364280628&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%7B%2210151695364280628%22%
23
Well spotted there Crakar. Watching this with great interest. Lets hope it’ll turn out to be more sustainable than the earlier discoveries at Southampton & at Gran Sasso last year.
02
What scientists? Where will it be published?
It would be nice if I am wrong, but me thinks this is bovine caga.
11
“Giuseppe Levi and Evelyn Foschi (Bologna University, Italy); Torbjörn Hartman, Bo Höistad, Roland Pettersson and Lars Tegnér, all of Uppsala University in Sweden, and Hanno Essén of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, are claiming that the heat produced in the latest tests of Rossi’s E-Cat rig is “one order of magnitude greater than conventional energy sources”.
The report has been released via Arxiv.
Rossi’s claim for the E-Cat is that a “low energy nuclear reaction” puts together nickel and hydrogen, with the outputs being copper and heat. He has, however, met with a great deal of scepticism – The Register.
12
Thank goodness for this Crakar, based on the integrity of Andrea Rossi I am confident that cheap, clean energy is at hand. Since this blog will be closing soon, let me say that I’ve enjoyed sparring with you over the years. Drop me an email if you want to see behind the leaf.
12
I face a dilemma………….
The cold fusion link was for Tony and was posted TIC.
But i do so much want to see behind the leaf.
33
TIC?
03
The whole cold fusion thing sounds a bit sus, even now Rossi is not telling what is “inside the box” so it may be just like all the “other” cold fusion successes to date.
If so then this blog will not close anytime soon so i cannot see behind the leaf, or were you offering to drop the leaf in either case?
33
just in case you or anyone thought I was being serious, where I wrote this
I was referring to this
22
Ah just as i thought,
You knew Rossi was a crank, therefore you knew the site would never shut down. This was just an elaborate scheme to get my email address.
Shame on you GA for wiggling your leaf at me like that.
13
don’t worry I wont publish it
02
Do you want the real one with my name (the one that Jo has) or my other one? 🙂
23
GA
I’d tread carefully when dismissing Rossi on the basis of the example you gave. A little bit of digging reveals there was a lot of bureaucratic skullduggery involved in that first business failure.
There is now a respectable European company making squillions manufacturing set-ups that generate electricity from waste, using Rossi’s technology that you refer to, under license to him. They are one of the companies investing in his latest efforts.
All of which goes to prove nothing. And there is no doubt the man is something of an secretive eccentric.
But then, so were Da Vinci, Galileo, Tesla, Edison and Ford.
So let’s wait and see, shall we? His device has now apparently been independently tested. Besides which, it’s hardly groundbreaking technology. Generating heat from the conversion of nickel to copper via hydrogen has been proven for twenty years and replicated in labs all over the world.
All Rossi claims to have done is introduce a catalyst that makes the process economically viable for generating heat and electricity. And even he doesn’t claim to know just how it works.
(Ok, you guys are off topic.Please stop this line of commenting) CTS
02
Excellent post to fully demonstrate how little you understand about carbon dioxide emissions and carbon accounting in general. It’s a shame none of your readers have the wit to realise it.
The problem has never been about absolute CO2 emissions, but the change from the natural cycle of CO2 emission and recycling that comes about by burning fossil fuels. The natural cycle of the river has always been going and no one is advocating changing that or any of the other natural sources and sinks. The problem is digging up CO2 which was naturally sequestered a very long time ago and re-emitting it now. Simple enough for you to understand?
I won’t pretend that I think you care about this. The goal of this blog and many others remains to muddy the waters and create doubt. It must please you no end that you have cornered the easily lead portion of the science market.
120
Wow! Nice ad hom there Evcricket. Yes, we are just a bunch of easily lead [sic] morons.
So then, what exactly are you?
Ok smart ass. Enlighten us all and explain how this is a problem.
BTW – Humans are a natural part of the global environment, thus it logically follows that what they are doing is also perfectly natural. Deny that if you wish to remain a denier.
103
Oh I could point you to some even better one’s. The amount of stupid that has come from the individual associated with that name and avatar is well established, and the volume is fairly large.
This person is the same one who claims to work in “Energy Systems” and made a statement to the effect that “with renewables you just build them and forget them.” After a statement such as that there was really no point in taking anything he said seriously.
What he will never admit to is his goal is to muddy the discussion of anything by anyone that disagrees with his perception of reality. Thankfully the majority are showing themselves to be more intelligent than he has shown himself to be.
Don’t ask him for proof, he never provides any.
42
Oh wow you spotted a typo, I guess you win the argument then.
It’s a problem because increased CO2 raises global temperatures. But you don’t believe that so the point is moot. But going after natural sources of CO2 just demonstrates that you don’t understand the problem, which is not surprising.
113
Oh you mean that problem that unfortunately isn’t occurring. You know, the global temperatures that aren’t increasing even though the CO2 is? Plenty of data supporting that fact. Not much supporting your claim.
Please continue with your comments, it is so much fun to watch you claim we don’t understand when every comment you make provides everyone with evidence that it is you who has no clue.
52
Robert,
Same guy that loves windmills and doesn’t care when they chop the Tasmania Wedge Tailed Eagle to extinction. He even advocates that no charges be leveled against the wind mill operators even though their environmental impact studies virtually guarantee that the eagle will not be affected.
Absolutely full of it is Evcricket.
He hates CO2 and birds. Amazing the lack of care for the environment these Green Vandals display today, it’s all about their income from renewables and consultancy. In the pocket of Combet et al.
52
He has stated elsewhere he works in “Energy Systems.” I on the other hand work in power generation and the key difference is the products I work with don’t depend on the whole CO2 thing in order to make anyone want them. Our customers want them because they deliver their full rated capacity on demand 24/7 with no subsidies required. Big difference between our products and his subsidized junk.
63
Oh, and I thought that Evecricket’s opinions were impartial….NOT
I wonder if Evecricket has ever searched “China rare earth metals” to see just how environmentally friendly his “green” windmills are.
32
Really? And by how much does it raise global temperatures?
Don’t try to tell me what I do and do not believe…. you do not know these things, but that’s typical of a smart ass.
42
No, I did not spot a typo. Instead I noticed that you cannot spell very well. What is your level of education? Doesn’t your mommy tell you to get a haircut and to shave?
52
There are no muddy waters nor doubt.
Nature did it.
You are misinformed and have been mislead by people smarter than yourself. You should get used to it because it will continue to happen to you.
Personally I don’t see mind control as something that should be tolerated in 2013 but , it’s a free country.
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/05/major-30-reduction-in-modelers-estimates-of-climate-sensitivity-skeptics-were-right/#comment-1277093
The Global Warming scam is not a joke. This is a very serious and considered blog with the aim of exposing the scam and the money grabbing politics behind it.
KK 🙂
103
Not you also!!! That’s “misled” sonny.
43
OK Pa.
yes it definitely is led.
I was thinking of lunch.
KK 🙂
43
Now I get it.
We are both suffering from led poisoning.
Always look around you before replying!
32
Wonderful, provide the proof or evidence that this is a problem. Unless you know how things are supposed to work normally over the long term with regards to the environment you don’t know if it is a problem or not. You want to claim it is, call us names for disagreeing with you, yet when it gets right down to it you don’t have a clue.
Ball is in your court, show us how this is a problem. The first step is to provide evidence that it needed to remain sequestered. Based on what I have seen from you so far I don’t expect you will be able to manage that.
32
Sure thing Robert,
What sort of evidence would you like? Outline what would constitute evidence that meets your requirements, and I will find it.
18
Can i ask a question that any of you can answer. We seem to be fixated with lowering the CO2 levels in the ATM but i wonder if this is just a futile effort….indulge me for a moment.
We were trundling along happily at 275ppm, the plants breathed it in, grew, died, and it was then returned to the atm so it stayed pretty constant at 275.
Now we have added a 120 or so ppm, this increase has caused plant growth to expand, more plants more co2 breathed in, more plants to die, more co2 to be returned.
So even if we pull a Keanu Reeves in the day the earth stood still i dont see how the ppm would drop, there must be a reason why the ppm did not just keep dropping below 275 way back then.
Have i missed the obvious?
53
We are all still waiting for any proof that CO2 is a problem. It has never been established.
What we get is a hypothesis, such as your hypothesis that this CO2 needs to remain sequestered, said hypothesis is then treated as fact even though the only support for the hypothesis is conjecture.
You ignore the scientific method. You have a hypothesis, but until you have evidence to support it that is all you have. Conjecture is not evidence, neither is your playing dumb, though in your case I suspect you aren’t playing.
62
.
Well, a bit of global warming to support the original hypothesis that increased atmospheric CO2 causes atmospheric global warming, no ifs or buts (the science is settled), would be a nice start.
15, 17 or 18 years with zilch global warming (depending on which data set is used), while CO2 continues to rocket upwards, sort-of puts a bit of a moccha on the whole hypothesis, doesn’t it?
So, off you go – a nice bit of evidence of statistically significant global warming in the last decade or so, will get the ball rolling.
62
Thanks.
Here’s something for you to get started on:
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2012/04/lovelock-and-temperature-rise
The “globe” in global warming is obviously not just the atmosphere. Sure, the atmosphere is what causes the temperature increase, but the 1st law says that heat will find equilibrium with bodies in contact with it. Like the ocean. So the temperature increase of the globe is atmosphere+ocean+land.
As you know, atmospheric temps seem to have stalled recently. But the atmosphere’s heat capacity is tiny compared to the ocean and land. Add them all up and the temperature has increased.
Let me know if some of that doesn’t make sense to you.
16
24 Apr 2012… and just somebody’s blog no less.
Please try some science, not opinion.
42
He doesn’t understand science much less how to do it. What he does understand is that if CO2 is not the problem he tries to convince everyone it is then no one will want the substandard “Energy systems” he makes a living off of. I suspect he’s just trying to suck as much cash off the subsidies as he can before it all falls apart.
Notice how he still has not provided one whit of evidence that CO2 is responsible for any of this. That is the origin of the entire premise, evil humanity and their CO2 output is causing all this, woe is me, etc. etc. Then we will hear how blogs are not how science is done, etc. etc. but they are just fine to use for evidence if they support said nitwits claim.
Convection, gas laws, little things like warmer liquids or gases rising above cooler ones escape him. He will trundle on trying to b.s. his way through this because his income depends on it.
As Themm has shown, even a reasonably educated 10 year old understands this better than Ev does.
33
Look since you’re so keen on attacking me personally, maybe it would be better to just listen to what the Australian Coal Association has to say about Global Warming and their role in it
http://www.newgencoal.com.au/climate-change.html
07
I am going after you because you come here spouting stupid and claiming it is we who don’t understand. You have firmly established you don’t understand nor can you think for yourself regarding this matter. Now when you can provide some actual empirical evidence that supports your claims we might be inclined to listen. Instead all we get from you is rhetoric, opinions, and political b.s.
As Ceetee stated below, you come here acting like you are god with an ipad then want to whine because no one wants to hear your blathering.
You have stated elsewhere on the web:
You insult people’s intelligence with crap like that and expect not to get called out on it? You are living in a dream world aren’t you.
52
You started it buster. If you cannot take it, then don’t dish it out yourself.
32
Evcricket
Sooooo . . . Despicable Manbearpig is heating the ATMOSPHERE.
And this anthropogenic ATMOSPHERIC heat is “heating the oceans”.
Here is a LINK to some pretty pictures designed to teach ten year-olds about the Water Cycle.
Perhaps you’d be kind enough use one to explain just how this anthropogenic atmospheric heat finds its way OUT of the atmosphere, INTO the oceans, COUNTER to the Water Cycle.
.
Oh, in case you didn’t know, where you see the word “evaporation”, or a pretty coloured arrow rising up from the ocean, that indicates a transfer of energy FROM the oceans, TO the atmosphere. Funny, I can’t see one going the other way.
.
And pulleeze no convoluted John
CrookCook style explanations of how a warmer atmosphere might be causing oceans to retain more solar energy. That’s a given. The question is not how the oceans might be RETAINING extra solar energy, but rather how the “extra” man-made atmospheric energy went “missing” into the oceans.Your mission is to explain how the “extra” heat, generated by Manbearpig IN the ATMOSPHERE, is finding its way into the oceans.
53
So, are you claiming that when the atmosphere is at a higher temperature than the ocean, there is no heat transfer from the atmosphere into the ocean?
That’s a brave re-imagining of the laws of thermodynamics.
07
Enlighten us then and provide the theory, in detail in your own words, that establishes heat transfer from the atmosphere to the ocean through conduction. I think everyone here understand the energy transfer through radiation. Water warms during the day, cools at night, that sort of thing. But we would really love to here your explanation, again in your own words not some cut and paste job where someone else did the thinking for you, of your version of things.
Then establish how much heat is transferred and explain why the numbers don’t add up to what we should be seeing if that is where all the missing heat ran away to hide.
I have no doubt based on the comments I have seen Themm understand thermodynamics far better than you do. To you it is just a word to try and make yourself sound like you know what you are talking about when you have yet to show us that you do.
42
No, but we’ll return to that in a moment**.
What the water cycle (not me) clearly demonstrates is that, regardless any back-and-forth exchanges between the atmosphere and the oceans, the NET heat energy transfer is FROM the oceans, TO the atmosphere.
In SUM TOTAL, either the oceans LOSE heat to the atmosphere (what is observed with the water cycle), or the atmosphere LOSES heat to oceans (what is currently being claimed to account for the “missing” man-induced atmospheric heat).
It’s really simple, Evcricket:
1) – The CAGW claim is Manbearpig is heating the atmosphere with added CO2 and that this process is continuing.
2) – Unfortunately, the atmosphere is refusing to get any hotter despite increasing CO2.
3) – So the recent, corollary claim is that the extra “missing” man-made atmospheric heat is “finding its way” into the oceans.
4) – Unfortunately, this claim runs counter to the known, observed, and measured water cycle, where the oceans are heated by solar energy arriving from space, water LOSES heat to the atmosphere, and the atmosphere LOSES heat back out to space.
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to explain how the atmosphere is LOSING heat TO the oceans, in direct conflict with the known, observed and measured water cycle process, which ultimately cools the entire planet.
———————————
**As to your comment, it is actually quite rare for sea surface temperatures to be lower than the air immediately above it.
For instance, even in the polar regions, where SST salt water can still be a liquid at close to zero degrees C or even less, the air above it is 10 to 30 degrees colder.
Besides which, the energy transfer process of evaporation relies on more than just temperature differential.
32
Perhaps this will help you with your research: Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate
42
Can I have cream on mine?
Please?
KK 🙂
22
KK
No.
Cream comes from cows, and in the immortal words of our Infallible Leader:
Or something like that.
63
Unfortunately Themm that is all too true.
many cows left to rot in paddocks while the Govt appeases greenies.
Certainly animals should be treated humanely; but so should farmers whose very lives are put at risk by skittish govt actions.
Destroying someone’s life work should not be undertaken lightly and you just wonder what planet these often “high born” activists come from.
KK 🙂
32
You say “I will find it”, which means that you do not know. Why in the World would you bother coming here, amongst some very knowledgeable people, and parrot alarmist bunk regarding something that you do not even understand??
32
Evcricket, who are you, God.. with an iPad?. Do you really want to come here and imply with absolute fatuous certainty that you understand the Carbon Cycle on a planet 4.6 billion years in the making?. Fool. Your own body is approx 18% Carbon. Interesting innit?. What would be considered this planet’s optimum climate, and for whom or what, polar bears or scorpions, bananas or pine trees, your politics or mine?. Explain to me, without a hint of political bullshit how 250ppm to 400ppm is proof positive that we need to “break our fossil fuel dependance” (puke, like we’re drug dependent gangsters, next they’ll accuse us of denying the Holocaust). Go away junket monkey.
42
the fat lady has sung:
Deutsche Bank’s CO2 offset portfolio for sale: sources
LONDON, May 22 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Deutsche Bank is hunting for a buyer for its U.N. carbon offset portfolio, once worth hundreds of millions of dollars, two sources said on Wednesday, as the German bank seeks to sell one of the last pieces of its shuttered global carbon trading business…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2383981
42
23 May: Yahoo: AAP: David Beniuk: Carbon tax hit Ford: Abbott
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says the carbon tax is among the causes of Ford’s decision to cease manufacturing in Australia.
Mr Abbott says a range of factors are behind the blow, but the controversial tax is one of them.
“Obviously anything that adds to the cost of manufacturing in Australia is something that we don’t need at a time like this and the carbon tax is one of those things,” he told reporters in Devonport.
Mr Abbott said studies had shown the tax added about $400 to the price of a locally manufactured car.
“That’s something that an industry under pressure just doesn’t need,” he said.
Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey said costs had to be cut for Australian manufacturers.
“And number one is to get rid of the carbon tax,” he said…
http://au.news.yahoo.com/latest/a/-/latest/17297299/carbon-tax-hit-ford-abbott/
42
The idea that rainforests are the lungs of the planet is utter bollocks.
– plants release nearly as much CO2 at night via the process of respiration as they take in during the day.
– photosynthesis actually produces oxygen from water molecules (not CO2).
– far more oxygen is produced by cyanobacteria and plankton than land plants
– most planetary oxygen is produced by the splitting of water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen by radiation in the upper atmosphere.
– >99.9% of CO2 is eventually sequestered in carbonate rocks rather than being converted to biomass.
32
Nice one BB
03
The IPCC also completely ignores the estimated 200+ million tonnes of CO2 produced by termites each year.
33
Careful, BB.
In these two posts you’re trying to introduce “facts” into the CO2 debate.
Worse, you’re using “facts” and the IPCC in the same sentence.
.
As everyone knows, the CO2 debate, “facts” and the IPCC are mutually exclusive entities.
33
Just leave the river alone. CO2 is not a major problem.
13
The World Bank bankrolled highways into the Amazon to allow clear felling and farming some 20 years ago. (As in taking resources in repayment of debt as is their wont.)
This may just have released enough added cellulose detritus to have added to the monster levels of ‘pollution.’
23
Not strictly on topic but interesting. This is my Verizon home page. Take a look at the poll question, put in your vote and check the result. It seems the public is not buying into the nonsense pushed by the warmists.
Note: The question will eventually change, a matter of days, so this link will not stay valid for the tornado poll.
03
Roy, I’m happy to see those numbers trending over 2 to 1.
Anyone who knows how weather events like tornadoes happen, knows that it is set up by extreme contrasts in temperature. The northern half of the US is gripped with “extreme” and “unusual” cold. We had morning temperatures in the mid 30’s (F) and we are weeks away from the start of summer. It is this cold mass of air clashing with the warm moist Gulf fronts that is causing the tornadoes.
Tornadoes are a fact of life in the Midwest States this time of year anyway. The recent ones, much like un-super storm Sandy, are only more tragic because fate has placed them in populated areas.
13
Mark,
The other side of the coin is that places like Moore Oklahoma have been growing steadily so there’s a lot more human presence for a tornado to take aim at.
But this one was an unusual event, 2 miles wide and stayed on the ground for something like 20 minutes. 210 MPH winds will toss heavy trucks and cars around like they were matchsticks.
Nonetheless this isn’t unprecedented and can’t be attributed to global warming that isn’t even happening.
13
What we need is for a few of our political leaders to get up to speed on the real impact of CO2 on climate. Then we might have a chance of getting some resources to identify the real drivers of climate (change).
When we know the real drivers then we might be able to devise the necessary coping strategies.
How do we get Canberra to acknowledge Nicol,Svensmark et al?
13
What climate change?
23
Never mind that…have they got the Anna Conder yet?
23
[…] Teacher in the US on Obamacare. Jo Nova on The Amazon River as a Big Polluter. A great series of posts on Andrew Norton. Stephen Hicks on Joseph Stalin as a […]
13
Never mind. They can clearfell the Amazon and ship all the timber to England for wood chipping, to power the newly converted ‘Eco- friendly’ Drax power station.
Climate Change Madness: Do the Europeans know what they are doing?
23
human beings, definition, a living soul or entity with illusions of granduer and powers and understanding to be able to alter the living systems of a planet going 11 million miles a day through space with a medium star, that can predict with accuracy decades in advance, who have a perfect handle on physics and chemistry, able to over ride natures laws and controls over all systems to prevent what nature cannot prevent because they drive cars and heat their homes,, humm,sounds like a god to me, God defintion, having insight, powers, abilities that can control all the laws of nature and physics and alter them according to their own whims and ideas and solve any problem by destroying the enviroment in the name of saving the enviroment. This god has all the answers to questions no one else is asking except them, and who cannot protect mans nature but only animals and plants.
I recommend the following treatment, a heavy dose of reality by removing their money into a trust with a trustee controling it, that has mental stablity, a good amount of down time in their rooms and assignments with working at a pet shelter and nursing homes,mowing lawns for the elderly, planting gardens for homeless shelters, and a guardian with common sense, and a heavy dose of discipline to humble them, and teach them some manners to bring them back to reality, if that doesnt work I recommend ritalin for their lack of attention and daydreaming episodes. if treatment is still short, then I recommend they be insitutionalized in the hospital for dillusional and paranoia.
14