Science & Technology News

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by GordMay

International Polar Bear Day
For conservationists, Feb. 27 is a chance to highlight the decline of polar bears, and call for conservation actions through International Polar Bear Day.
➥ https://polarbearsinternational.org/...olar-bear-day/

One of the most frequent myths we hear about polar bears [Ursus maritimus, or nanuk] is that their numbers are increasing, and have, in fact, more than doubled over the past thirty years. Tales about how many polar bears there used to be (with claims as low as 5,000 in the 1960s) are undocumented, but cited over and over again. Yet, I’ve never seen a legitimate source for these numbers.

The sea ice across the Arctic has been decreasing at a rate of 14% per decade, and this rapid loss deprives polar bears of their natural habitat, used for building dens, and catching seals, their main source of nutrition.
Fundamentally, polar bears depend on sea ice, and its loss is a long-term threat to the species.


“Magic Number: a Sketchy "Fact" About Polar Bears Keeps Going...And Going... And Going” ~ by Peter Dykstra
➥ https://www.sej.org/publications/ala...ngand-going-an

What decline?

https://www.canada.ca/en/services/en...lar-bears.html

And thats just canadian will try to find reports from Alaska and Russia

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by jimbunyard

Yeah well, apparently some people have blinders on that prevent them from eiher reading or comprehending.


"Before taking anything this 'evolutionary biologist' says seriously, I would encourage anyone reading Susan Crockford's words to research her previous body of 'work'."


I have read many things she has written and have come to the conclusion that wading through her bs is not worth the effort. There are many on this forum who are afforded the same privilege...


"...is not a study, it is a propaganda 'report' published by one of the carbon-based energy consortium's biggest recipient of funding, the infamous Global Warming Policy Foundation, a group of of policy wonks and 'scientists' paid to spread disinformation about climate science."


I wasted about an hour with that 'report' and after finding enough assumptions and contradictions, concluded that there was nothing done different that would indicate I should waste any more.

It does turn out that I may be wrong and/or hyperbolic about "...one of the carbon-based energy consortium's biggest recipient of funding..." because, as a 'charitable' organization, GWPF doesn't have to and won't publish it's sources of funding. I was going from memory.

Regarding funding, Lord Lawson (a GWPF member) explains it thusly, when interviewed by BBC Radio 4, saying that he relied on his friends who “tend to be richer than the average person and much more intelligent than the average person.”

The truth is, much like the population of polar bears, we just don't know. But, also like the polar bears population, we can make educated guesses about the scope of their funding, both in and out, from what we do know and can extrapolate.

There is a referenced breakdown on what is known about GPWF's funding here

https://www.desmogblog.com/global-wa...icy-foundation


Furthur to GPWF's 'credentials' here is their director, Benny Peiser's Wiki synopsis.


"Benny Josef Peiser (born 1957) is a social anthropologist specialising in the environmental and socio-economic impact of physical activity on health. He was a senior lecturer in the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Liverpool John Moo"res University (LJMU) and is a visiting fellow at the University of Buckingham.

Peiser established the Cambridge Conference Network in 1997. Peiser acknowledges that he is "not a climate scientist" and has "never claimed to be one". His interest as a social anthropologist, is in "how climate change is portrayed as a potential disaster and how we respond to that".

As an outspoken climate change sceptic, Peiser became director of the newly established UK lobbying group Global Warming Policy Foundation in 2009. He serves as co-editor of the journal, Energy & Environment and is a regular contributor to Canada's National Post."


That you were "dumbfounded" when you received "excoriation" from "...a forum where she had been discussed (negatively) in the past, and asked them to help me understand what flaws there might be in her rationale..." says much more about your research practices than about the reponse of Crockford's critics.

Are you a shill for either her or the Heartland Institure?


And, by the way, the generally accepted global polar bear population is roughly between 20,000 to 30,000. For comparison, the brown bear, it's closest relative (they can hybridize) sharing very roughly the same size habitat range, has an estimated population of 200,000.

Though there are many, many other determining factors in either's population size...


And, finally, I'd reach a different conclusion than "...it was not only AGW "Deniers" that have blinders on, but AGW "Alarmist" can also act very dogmatic, tribalistic, and self-protective."

And that 'conclusion' is, 'Everyone knows' that people can (and do) act "dogmatic, tribalistic, and self-protective", that this is not necessarily always a bad thing, and that the difference is knowing when it is or is not.

Ok where did you get the 20 to 30k world population numbers from ?
They are in line with the Canadian governments estimates for the Canadian population not counting the rest of the arctic countries populations

[jimbunyard]

The "getting place"...

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

. . . But I do share the opinion that nuclear power can be more safe and less harmful overall than any fossil-fuel electricity generation. I have some reservations about whether most of today's societies are mature and stable enough to maintain the long-term government-private co-operation necessary for the safe and efficient management of nuclear power.

Yes, you have a point. Nuclear power is scientific and technological method of power generation, and requires significant discipline and organizational culture at different levels, especially what concerns dealing with waste. Currently only one country in Africa has operating nuclear power plants (South Africa), but many African countries are considering introducing nuclear power: https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news...nuclear-energy

Africa has nearly 1.4 billion people, and development is accelerating. At the moment, less than half of Africans even have access to electrical power at all. There will have to be a vast expansion of electrical power to support that development. Where will it come from? If they get it from coal, it will be a disaster.


The linked article will give you a flavor of what is happening in Africa. Kenya has gone from only 12% electrification of homes to 60% just in the last 10 years. The changes are explosive.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I have been living without a car (strange way to live for someone who grew up in the U.S.) for the last 5 years or so. Instead of own car, I get around by: (a) Uber (or taxi); (b) bicycle; (c) on foot; (d) trams and metro; (e) electric scooters rented by the minute; (f) car sharing; (g) rental cars. And (h) shopping online with delivery replacing 90% of going to shops.

I can say that it is dramatically cheaper, even using Uber pretty intensively. It saves a lot of hassle, especially -- parking. It does change the way you live -- no jumping in the car to spontaneously pick something up; dramatically narrows the geographic range of daily life. But not all the change is negative -- more bicycle and walking is healthy and pleasant. Maybe you don't range as far, but you see the area you live in much more closely than you do from the window of a car.


Shopping online saves a dramatic amount of time. No driving, parking, standing in line, shlepping. Whatever it is you need just appears.


No question owning a car is costly and a lot of trouble, especially if you buy new or newish cars and change them often, rather than driving old cars for a long time.

I am just waiting for self-driving, public cars -- that will be a real revolution.

Ae Uber orTaxis enviornmentally better.?
A lot more deadheading between journeys vs private car sitting parked until needed

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Ae Uber orTaxis enviornmentally better.?
A lot more deadheading between journeys vs private car sitting parked until needed

Yes. Taxis and other kinds of public cars are much better than private cars.

Not only Uber and Bolt but also normal taxis do very little deadheading now that they are directed by highly efficient computer programs. Less than a private car does driving around finding a parking space. Maintenance of vast quantities of parking spaces consumes urban land and resources for maintenance, and the vehicles themselves are used much less efficiently, mostly aging out rather than wearing out. Capacity utilization of taxis/Ubers vs private cars is different by an order of magnitude or more. About half of the cost of operating the average private car is depreciation -- so the car losing value as it sits unused in a parking space. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_car_use

"For the average car owner, depreciation constitutes about half the cost of running a car.[3] The typical motorist underestimates this fixed cost by big margin, or even ignores it altogether, according to a survey by the RAC"

The cost is accompanied by ecological damage -- the car is made and delivered but spends most of its life rotting away unused, and is scrapped just because its old, although major components still have 90% of their useful life left. So yes, taxis/Ubers are much better than private cars. The downside is they still require human drivers, which means a lot of low paid bad jobs and lives of humans wasted on such a banal activity. But that is changing too. Within 10-20 years I guess there will be no more human taxi/Uber drivers.

Note that the human drivers, even considering the terrible pay, are the main cost disadvantage of taxis/Ubers. Once we are rid of that, the value proposition vs. private cars in urban settings will be overwhelming.

In the countryside there might still be some need for private cars, but fewer and fewer people will live there, as cities become dramatically more attractive.

Up to now, mankind has had a choice between expensive and environmentally harmful private cars, or cheaper and more environmentally friendly mass transit.

But mass transit inefficiently uses hours of human life, because it doesn't take you (generally) right to your destination, requiring changes of mode and other inefficiencies.

Self-driving cars are truly revolutionary because they provide even better human-time efficiency than private cars, taking you directly from to directly to, with no parking involved, and at much higher speeds and without traffic jams.

Yet may be less costly and less environmentally harmful than mass transit. How can it be less costly to go by self-driving car, than by mass transit? You may be asking. Well, it can be. The average bus only has 5 or 6 passengers at a time -- that's lower percentage of capacity than one person riding in a self-driving car. And that bus doesn't go point to point so more of the miles are wasted. It's hardly better with trams, and even much worse with metro. And as long as these vehicles have human drivers, that is yet another disadvantage (but temporary, as all of these can be made driverless, and eventually will be).

Self-driving cars will instantly eliminate city buses (and city planners know this) -- they will be completely obsolete, extinct. But trams and metro might also disappear with time.

Self-driving cars are the biggest revolution in transport since -- well, even bigger than the car. Since the Indo-Europeans domesticated horses.

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by jimbunyard

....That you were "dumbfounded" when you received "excoriation" from "...a forum where she had been discussed (negatively) in the past, and asked them to help me understand what flaws there might be in her rationale..." says much more about your research practices than about the reponse of Crockford's critics.

Are you a shill for either her or the Heartland Institure?....

It doesn't matter how I answer that question; I may not be telling the truth either way. However, I think I've made enough posts on CF for you to come to a reasonable conclusion on your own.

[SailOar]

Here's an article from a few years back advocating an intercontinental power grid to help solve the problems of intermittent production from many types of renewable power sources.

Let’s Build a Global Power Grid

• A global supergrid would allow power to be generated far from population centers.
• A supergrid would ensure that all or nearly all the electricity that’s generated would get consumed, thus avoiding such wasteful practices as paying wind-farm operators to curtail production or dumping energy that’s not immediately needed.
• A DC system operating at high voltage is superior to AC for transmission of large amounts of power long distances.
• HVDC also allows for the easy transfer of power between grids that are operating at different frequencies.
• At present, though, HVDC is considerably more expensive than conventional cable, and DC control devices are more expensive than AC control devices.

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

.... In the countryside there might still be some need for private cars, but fewer and fewer people will live there, as cities become dramatically more attractive.....

The cities certainly are not attractive for everyone!!! Internet connectivity has brought a lot of city advantages to rural areas. The COVID scare pushed a lot of (well-off?) people out of the cities. It will be interesting to see if they move back to the cities now that vaccines are being rolled out.

[GordMay]

“Gulf Stream System at its weakest in over a millennium” ~ Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
“Never before in over 1000 years the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), also known as Gulf Stream System, has been as weak as in the last decades. This is the result of a new study by scientists from Ireland, Britain and Germany. The researchers compiled so-called proxy data – taken mainly from natural archives like ocean sediments or ice cores – reaching back many hundreds of years to reconstruct the flow history of the AMOC. They found consistent evidence that its slowdown in the 20th century is unprecedented in the past millennium – it is likely linked to human-caused climate change. The giant ocean circulation is relevant for weather patterns in Europe and regional sea-levels in the US; its slowdown is also associated with an observed ‘cold blob’ in the northern Atlantic ...”
More ➥ https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/l...r-a-millennium

The study:
“Current Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation weakest in last millennium” ~ by L. Caesar et al
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00699-z

***

34 million years ago the warm 'greenhouse climate' of the dinosaur age ended and the colder 'icehouse climate' of today commenced. Antarctica glaciated first and geological data imply that the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, the global ocean conveyor belt of heat and nutrients that today helps keep Europe warm, also started at this time. Why exactly, has remained a mystery.
"We have found a new trigger to explain the start-up of the Atlantic current system during the greenhouse-icehouse climate transition: During the warm climate, buoyant fresh water flooded out of the Arctic and prevented the ocean-sinking that helps power the conveyor. We found that the Arctic-Atlantic gateway closed due to tectonic forces, causing a dramatic increase in North Atlantic salinity. This caused warming of the North Atlantic and Europe, and kickstarted the modern circulation that keeps Europe warm today," says David Hutchinson, researcher at the Department of Geological Sciences, Stockholm University, and lead author of the article published in Nature Communications.
The climate at this time was very warm, with atmospheric CO2 levels two to three times the present day levels, and this contributed to extremely fresh Arctic waters. The study begs the question of whether in a future warm world, in which the Arctic may again be very fresh, the sinking in the Atlantic may cease again, which may dramatically alter the climate of Europe. Without the Atlantic conveyor belt, Europe can experience both colder winters and hotter and drier summers, making a more extreme and inhospitable climate.
“Arctic closure as a trigger for Atlantic overturning at the Eocene-Oligocene Transition” ~ by David K. Hutchinson et al
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11828-z

***

Data suggest that the recent, rapid slowdown of the Atlantic Ocean circulation is not a sign of imminent collapse, but a shift back toward a more sluggish phase. The slowdown implies that global air temperatures will increase more quickly in the coming decades.
“Global surface warming enhanced by weak Atlantic overturning circulation” ~ by Xianyao Chen & Ka-Kit Tung
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0320-y

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by SailOar

Here's an article from a few years back advocating an intercontinental power grid to help solve the problems of intermittent production from many types of renewable power sources.

Let’s Build a Global Power Grid

• A global supergrid would allow power to be generated far from population centers.
• A supergrid would ensure that all or nearly all the electricity that’s generated would get consumed, thus avoiding such wasteful practices as paying wind-farm operators to curtail production or dumping energy that’s not immediately needed.
• A DC system operating at high voltage is superior to AC for transmission of large amounts of power long distances.
• HVDC also allows for the easy transfer of power between grids that are operating at different frequencies.
• At present, though, HVDC is considerably more expensive than conventional cable, and DC control devices are more expensive than AC control devices.

Research does not so far show that a global supergrid brings any large advantages:


https://www.iaee.org/eeep/eeepexec/E...er_ExecSum.pdf


See commentary: https://www.pv-magazine-australia.co...al-supergrids/


Very long distance transmission of bulk power is expensive and lossy, whether or not you use DC.



The authors of this paper think that high density energy carriers may be a better way to do it. I have commented before that hydrogen fueled vehicles go together very well with wind power used the produce the hydrogen. The hydrogen electrolyzer doesn't care much about the variability of wind power, although of course the process is less efficient when capacity utilization of the electrolyzer is low. But excess wind power can be stored as hydrogen, so that's the only serious drawback from the variability of wind power, and the capital costs of wind power are so much lower than other forms of energy that you still come out ahead.



Hydrogen from nuclear is somewhat better because better capacity utilization of the electrolyzers. See: https://www.iaee.org/eeep/eeepexec/E...er_ExecSum.pdf. Hydrogen can also be produced directly by a nuclear reactor, without electrolysis. See: https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...28139752000041. But more efficient use of the electrolyzers doesn't make up for the higher capital cost of nuclear plants, so wind-plus-hydrogen is definitely a winning combination.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by SailOar

The cities certainly are not attractive for everyone!!! Internet connectivity has brought a lot of city advantages to rural areas. The COVID scare pushed a lot of (well-off?) people out of the cities. It will be interesting to see if they move back to the cities now that vaccines are being rolled out.

Sure, but globally there is a very large and very long term move of people out of the countryside and smaller cities into larger cities and especially capital cities. The pandemic is just a tiny blip compared to these bigger trends. In 1950, 2/3 of world population lived in the countryside and 1/3 in cities. By 2050, these proportions will be reversed. See: https://morphocode.com/global-trends-urbanisation/.

Cities become MUCH more attractive as progress eliminates the drawbacks of the city. The countryside has its own charms of course, but technology other than Internet doesn't improve life nearly so much as it does city life. I'm quite sure that the countryside will continue emptying out, and at an accelerating pace, pandemics or not.

[GordMay]

Electric Cars:

A 2020 report, from Consumer Reports, reports that the per-mile repair and maintenance costs over the lifetime of an EV is a little less than half that of traditional vehicles, with internal combustion engines. This is largely because electric motors have just one moving part, compared to traditional engines which often have dozens. This means fewer components need to be replaced in an EV, resulting in significant savings albeit not at the point of sale.
“Electric Vehicle Ownership Costs:Today’s Electric Vehicles Offer Big Savings for Consumers” ~ by Consumer Reports
➥ https://advocacy.consumerreports.org...l-Report-1.pdf


In a study, published this month in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, Colin Sheppard & collegues modeled a hypothetical future scenario in which all cars were electric. They wanted to understand what the energy, infrastructure and emissions implications might be if all passenger vehicles are electrified.
Their findings come out strongly in favor of an electric vehicle future.
For example, they calculated that if all privately owned vehicles in the U.S. were electric, it would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in the country by 46% annually (0.5 gigatons of carbon dioxide) compared with conventionally gas-powered cars. This reduction could be increased even further if those vehicles were subject to so-called "controlled charging," a technique also known as "smart charging," in which vehicles are recharged at strategically chosen times to minimize the financial cost of generating electricity. (For instance, charging at night is often less pricey than during the day; this strategy also favors more efficient energy-producing plants that produce cheaper electricity.) If all privately owned electric cars were charged in such a way, the emissions savings could rise to 49% annually.
Only when connected to the dirtiest, coal-heavy electric grids do gasoline internal combustion engines become comparable to EVs on a greenhouse gas basis.
As grids become greener during the lifetime of an electric vehicle, it's only going to get better.
“Private versus Shared, Automated Electric Vehicles for U.S. Personal Mobility: Energy Use, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Grid Integration, and Cost Impacts” ~ by Colin J. R. Sheppard et al
➥ https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.0c06655


A 2014 study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at the entire life cycle of an EV's emissions, from mining the metals required for the batteries to producing the electricity needed to power them, and then compared this with the average emissions of a gas-powered vehicle. Their assessment of the life cycle air quality impacts on human health of 10 alternatives to conventional gasoline vehicles found that electric vehicles (EVs), powered by electricity from natural gas or wind, water, or solar power are best for improving air quality, whereas vehicles powered by corn ethanol, and EVs powered by coal are the worst.
“Life cycle air quality impacts of conventional and alternative light-duty transportation in the United States” *~ by Christopher W. Tessum et al
➥ https://www.pnas.org/content/111/52/18490

* This article has generated [2] Letters. Please see:

“Electric vehicle footprint analysis is misleading” ~ by Assaf P. Oron
➥ https://www.pnas.org/content/112/30/E3973

“Reply to Oron: Electric vehicles provide an opportunity to reduce environmental health effects of transportation” ~ by Christopher W. Tessum et al
➥ https://www.pnas.org/content/112/30/E3974

[geoleo]

Originally Posted by Ded reckoner

Polar bear populations

Excerpts from a study indicate: “Results of three new polar bear surveys were published in 2020. All three populations were found to be either stable or increasing…At present, the official IUCN Red List global population estimate, completed in 2015, is 22,000–31,000 (average about 26,000) but surveys conducted since then, including those made public in 2020, would raise that average to almost 30,000…Primary productivity in the Arctic has increased since 2002 because of longer ice-free periods (especially in the Laptev, East Siberian, Kara, and Chukchi Seas, but also in the Barents Sea and Hudson Bay), but hit records highs in 2020; more fodder for the entire Arctic food chain explains why polar bears, ringed and bearded seals, and walrus are thriving despite profound sea ice loss…In 2020, contrary to expectations, freeze-up of sea ice on Western Hudson Bay came as early in the autumn as it did in the 1980s (for the fourth year in a row) and sea-ice breakup in spring was also like the 1980s; polar bears onshore were in excellent condition. These conditions came despite summer sea-ice extent across the entire Arctic being the second-lowest since 1979.”

Big Question?? Will Polar Bears be made to give up eating meat like the rest of us will??

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by GordMay

“Gulf Stream System at its weakest in over a millennium” ~ Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
“Never before in over 1000 years the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), also known as Gulf Stream System, has been as weak as in the last decades. This is the result of a new study by scientists from Ireland, Britain and Germany. The researchers compiled so-called proxy data – taken mainly from natural archives like ocean sediments or ice cores – reaching back many hundreds of years to reconstruct the flow history of the AMOC. They found consistent evidence that its slowdown in the 20th century is unprecedented in the past millennium – it is likely linked to human-caused climate change. The giant ocean circulation is relevant for weather patterns in Europe and regional sea-levels in the US; its slowdown is also associated with an observed ‘cold blob’ in the northern Atlantic ...”
More ➥ https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/l...r-a-millennium

The study:
“Current Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation weakest in last millennium” ~ by L. Caesar et al
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00699-z

***

34 million years ago the warm 'greenhouse climate' of the dinosaur age ended and the colder 'icehouse climate' of today commenced. Antarctica glaciated first and geological data imply that the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, the global ocean conveyor belt of heat and nutrients that today helps keep Europe warm, also started at this time. Why exactly, has remained a mystery.
"We have found a new trigger to explain the start-up of the Atlantic current system during the greenhouse-icehouse climate transition: During the warm climate, buoyant fresh water flooded out of the Arctic and prevented the ocean-sinking that helps power the conveyor. We found that the Arctic-Atlantic gateway closed due to tectonic forces, causing a dramatic increase in North Atlantic salinity. This caused warming of the North Atlantic and Europe, and kickstarted the modern circulation that keeps Europe warm today," says David Hutchinson, researcher at the Department of Geological Sciences, Stockholm University, and lead author of the article published in Nature Communications.
The climate at this time was very warm, with atmospheric CO2 levels two to three times the present day levels, and this contributed to extremely fresh Arctic waters. The study begs the question of whether in a future warm world, in which the Arctic may again be very fresh, the sinking in the Atlantic may cease again, which may dramatically alter the climate of Europe. Without the Atlantic conveyor belt, Europe can experience both colder winters and hotter and drier summers, making a more extreme and inhospitable climate.
“Arctic closure as a trigger for Atlantic overturning at the Eocene-Oligocene Transition” ~ by David K. Hutchinson et al
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11828-z

***

Data suggest that the recent, rapid slowdown of the Atlantic Ocean circulation is not a sign of imminent collapse, but a shift back toward a more sluggish phase. The slowdown implies that global air temperatures will increase more quickly in the coming decades.
“Global surface warming enhanced by weak Atlantic overturning circulation” ~ by Xianyao Chen & Ka-Kit Tung
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0320-y

Let's add this study to the pile

https://phys.org/news/2021-02-record...rador-sea.html