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Watch this insanely cool simulation of deep Antarctic water

by maciao85 Posted on November 24, 2015

Watch this insanely cool simulation of deep Antarctic water

By on 24 Nov 2015commentsShare

We begin with Raijin, the Shinto god of thunder, lightning, and storms.

No, seriously — that’s what Australian researchers named the supercomputer that they used to make this incredibly detailed simulation of what’s going on at the bottom of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica. That cold, dark abyss — no, not that one — may seem remote and hard to understand, but it’s actually a key player in Earth’s response to climate change.

It should come as no surprise that the surface water around Antarctica is very cold. What might be more surprising is that it’s also very salty. That’s because, when sea ice forms, it rejects salt back into the surrounding water. The resulting cold, salty water is very dense and thus cascades down to the bottom of the ocean, where it spreads out. Here’s more from a press release about why this matters:

The movement of this dense water is vital. It is the most oxygenated water in the deep ocean and its extreme density and coldness drive many of the significant currents in the major ocean basins connected to the Southern Ocean.

The distinctly different densities of water that move around Antarctica also make it important in regards to climate change. Because the most dense water forms near the surface, close to Antarctica before descending to the ocean floor, any warming that occurs near the surface can be drawn down into the deep ocean.

Importantly, this drives more heat and more carbon into the deep ocean that would otherwise have returned to the atmosphere.

It took Raijin seven hours to process every one second of this nearly four-minute animation. According to Andy Hogg, a professor of earth sciences at Australia National University and lead researcher behind the simulation, it was well worth the computing power: “Being able to actually see how the bottom water moves in three dimensions rather than just looking at numerical, two-dimensional outputs has already opened new areas for scientific research,” he said in the press release.

Personally, my favorite part of the simulation comes at the 3:05 mark, where it looks like South Africa is blowing smoke rings. But really, the whole thing is pretty cool and will surely help scientists understand this largely mysterious part of the world. It seems only fitting that such a simulation would come from Raijin, a deity who in Japanese mythology is both feared and respected for his control over nature.

Japanese mythology also says that children should cover their belly buttons during thunderstorms, lest Raijin eat their tummies. Do with that what you will.

Source:

Big data reveals glorious animation of Antarctic bottom water

, ARC Center of Excellence for Climate System Science.

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Watch this insanely cool simulation of deep Antarctic water

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Hybrid or Electric Cars: Which Will Save You More?

by maciao85 Posted on December 10, 2013

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Hybrid or Electric Cars: Which Will Save You More?

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U.S. says poor countries’ calls for climate compensation could screw up climate treaty process

by maciao85 Posted on November 14, 2013

U.S. says poor countries’ calls for climate compensation could screw up climate treaty process

By

NASA

The U.N. climate treaty process, hatched in the ’90s, was intended to fight the looming threat of climate change. But as climate negotiators meet in Warsaw this month to develop a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, they are doing so not under the looming threat of climate change — they are doing so in a world currently being throttled by climate change.

That change in the weather is changing the tone of the negotiations. And it’s doing so in a way that some say is a distraction from the original purpose of the treaty process, which was to try to arrest climate change.

No longer are poor countries asking rich ones merely to shoulder the financial burden of reducing emissions. (In past talks, wealthy countries committed to pouring $100 billion a year by 2020 into the new Green Climate Fund to help the others reduce emissions and adapt to climate change.) Now developing countries are also demanding compensation for “loss and damage” caused by climate change, such as the typhoon that just ravaged the Philippines.

And the U.S. fears that bid is going to derail climate negotiations, particularly those now under way in Warsaw. The Guardian explains:

At last year’s climate talks in Doha, the US fought off calls from African nations, the Pacific Islands and less developed nations for a “loss and damage mechanism” to channel finance to help nations cope with losses resulting from climate change, such as reduced crop production due to higher temperatures.

The member nations of the G77+China, which includes most African and some Latin American countries, cannot leave Warsaw without agreement on a loss and damage mechanism, said G77 lead negotiator Juan Hoffmaister.

“We can’t only rely on ad-hoc humanitarian aid given the reality that major climate-related disasters are becoming the new normal,” Hoffmaister said.

This issue is also a priority for other nations including India, small island states and the least developed countries. …

Trigg Talley, the US senior negotiator at Warsaw, acknowledged this week that some developing countries are experiencing costly damages and losses but said the US has “technical and political issues” with any loss and damage mechanism.

The US briefing document indicates that the Obama administration believes a focus on loss and damage will be “counterproductive from the standpoint of public support” for the UN climate talks.

There are two prickly issues for negotiators to pick through here. (1.) Should developed countries that have been responsible for most of global warming so far help the poor ones patch up damages caused by carbon-juiced storms, droughts, and floods? (2.) If so, is the U.N. climate treaty process an appropriate mechanism for dealing with that compensation?

Those are tough questions, and how they play out during the next week, and then over the coming years, will dramatically shape the future of the world.


Source
US fears climate talks will focus on compensation for extreme weather, The Guardian

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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U.S. says poor countries’ calls for climate compensation could screw up climate treaty process

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Top Ten Winners of the Budget Showdown Debacle

by maciao85 Posted on October 17, 2013

Mother Jones

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Conventional wisdom has it that President Obama was a winner in the budget showdown, John Boehner was a loser, everyone hates Ted Cruz, blah blah blah. But that stuff will all blow over within days. Here’s a top ten list of the real winners:

Wall Street: They didn’t panic because they figured Congress would do the right thing at the last second, just like always. They were right.

Kathleen Sebelius: If not for the shutdown, the media would have focused its attention 24/7 on the disastrous rollout of Obamacare. By now, Sebelius would be in about the same mental shape as the House stenographer if Republicans hadn’t helpfully covered for her.

Pandas: For two weeks, anyway, they got to grow up without millions of prying eyes following their every move and cooing about how cute they are.

NetFlix: Furloughed federal workers had plenty of free time on their hands, and a lot of them turned to NetFlix to fill all those empty hours.

Robert Costa: He was everyone’s go-to reporter for the inside scoop on what Republicans were thinking at each step along the way. A new job and a big raise can’t be too far off.

Iran: Benjamin Netanyahu wants everyone to be outraged over Iran’s peace overtures, but no one is listening. For the moment, anyway, Obamacare is the only existential threat that American conservatives have time for.

China: They want to see a “de-Americanized world.” After watching the know-nothing takeover of the American government by the tea party, horrified leaders across the globe are inclined to think that’s not such a bad idea.

Random House: Following Ted Cruz’s epic filibuster, Green Eggs and Ham is all set to become the Christmas present of choice for millions of devoted tea partiers this holiday season.

The World War II Memorial: I’ve been there, and it’s really not a very good memorial. But now it’s the infamous site of the Barrycade! Attendance should skyrocket.

Democrats: They actually stuck together! Can you believe it? Republican overreach was so egregious that it accomplished in two weeks what no one in history had managed to accomplish in over two centuries. Will Rogers is spinning in his grave.

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Top Ten Winners of the Budget Showdown Debacle

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Deadly Cyclone Hits India

by maciao85 Posted on October 12, 2013

Mother Jones

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Cyclone Phailin NOAA

UPDATE 10:45 a.m. PT, Sunday, October 13, 2013: According to CNN, in India’s Odisha state, which was battered this weekend by Cyclone Phailin, “at least 13 people were killed after trees fell and walls collapsed when the storm hit, Police Chief Prakash Mishra said. Another death was confirmed in Andhra Pradesh state, India’s disaster management authority said. Many had feared the death toll would be higher. Massive evacuation efforts helped limit the number of casualties, officials said.”

UPDATE 7:30 p.m. PT, Saturday, October 12, 2013: Cyclone Phailin made landfall on Saturday night around 9 pm local time, according to the Times of India. “Broken glass pieces, wood shreds and asbestos sheets flew like killer projectiles in the adjoining cities of Gopalpur and Berhampur,” the Times reported. An estimated 12 million people were in the storm’s path by the time it made landfall, with wind speeds around the predicted 130 miles per hour. 18 fishermen were stuck at sea when the cyclone hit, according to the Times. As the sun rises in India Sunday morning, the country will begin assessing the damage.

By Saturday afternoon, a massive cyclone currently traveling across the Bay of Bengal is expected to hit the coast of India. The government has evacuated more than a quarter million people to prepare for the storm, named Cyclone Phailin (pronounced: phie-lin), which it expects to cause massive power outages, floods, and damage to homes in the region. Here are some facts on the storm, and what’s ahead:

How bad is this storm?

The India Meteorological Department describes Phailin as a “very severe” storm, and the National Center for Atmospheric research rates it as a Category 5. It’s expected to hit the coast with winds up to 137 miles per hour, 9.8 or more inches of rain, and storm surges up to 11.5 feet. For reference, the storm surge in the Battery in New York City during Superstorm Sandy peaked at 9.2 feet, and the surge in nearby Kings Point, NY was 12.7 feet according to the Weather Channel. The India Meteorological Department predicts “extensive damage” to houses made from hay and mud, which are common in the region, as well as flooding, power outages, traffic disruption, and “the flooding of escape routes” in areas affected by the cyclone.

Writing at Quartz, meteorologist Eric Holthaus thinks that Cyclone Phailin could be more damaging than current estimates (emphasis added):

At one point (2 am Friday, India time), one satellite-based measure of Phailin’s strength estimated the storm’s central pressure at 910.2 millibars, with sustained winds of 175 mph (280 kph). If those numbers were verified by official forecast agencies, they would place Phailin on par with 2005′s Hurricane Katrina, and break the record for the most intense cyclone in Indian Ocean recorded history.

To get a sense of the size of the storm, this satellite image from the University of Wisconsin shows the cyclone, which appears to be about half the size of India.

Where is it heading?

Cyclone Phailin will primarily hit two states on the eastern coast of India, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, and is expected to cause heavy rainfalls in a third, West Bengal. Low-lying areas near the coast, which is dotted with small fishing towns, are expected to be damaged by the storm surge. Reuters reports that the Indian government has made an effort to evacuate people, though not all of them are willing to leave:

Some 260,000 people were moved to safer ground and more were expected to be evacuated by the end of the day, authorities in the two states said. Not everybody was willing to leave their homes and belongings, and some villagers on the palm-fringed Andhra Pradesh coast said they had not been told to evacuate.

“Of course I’m scared, but where will I move with my family?” asked Kuramayya, 38, a fisherman from the village of Bandharuvanipeta, close to where the hurricane is expected to make to landfall, while 3.5-metre (12-foot waves) crashed behind him. “We can’t leave our boats behind.”

What’s the difference between a cyclone and a hurricane?

There isn’t one. Hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons are all the same weather phenomenon, but they have different names depending on where they occur. (This National Geographic article has a complete breakdown of storm names by region.)

Do cyclones hit India often?

Bangladesh and the eastern coast of India have a history of devastating cyclones. According to Weather Underground‘s history of cyclones in the region, “most of the deadliest tropical storms on earth have occurred in the Bay of Bengal when tremendous storm surges have swamped the low-lying coastal regions of Bangladesh, India, and Burma.” Of Weather Underground‘s list of the 35 deadliest storms on record, 26 of them occurred in the Bay of Bengal.

As cyclone Phailin heads towards land, the Hindu Times reports that many people are recalling the massive Cyclone 05B, often referred to as the Odisha cyclone, that hit the area in 1999 and killed nearly 10,000 people.

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Deadly Cyclone Hits India

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1 Percent of America’s Power Plants Emit 33 Percent of Energy Industry’s Carbon

by maciao85 Posted on September 11, 2013

Mother Jones

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Less than 1 percent of US power plants produce nearly a third of the energy industry’s carbon emissions, according to a new report released Tuesday. “If the 50 most-polluting U.S. power plants were an independent nation,” reads the report from Environment America Research & Policy Center, an independent nonprofit, “they would be the seventh-largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world, behind Germany and ahead of South Korea.” The vast majority of the top 100 offenders—98 of them in fact—are coal plants.

The report, which comes in advance of a Environmental Protection Agency proposal on emissions standards for new power plants expected later this month, claims that cleaning up the biggest polluters could have an outsized impact on reducing greenhouse gases. A March EPA proposal suggested capping carbon production at 1,000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour produced for new plants. That’s well below the 3,000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour the dirtiest existing plants produce. Standards for existing plants are in the works, too—the EPA’s proposal is supposed to be submitted by June 2014 and finalized the following year. Even if the standards are weakened in the approval process, the average coal plant still produces more than twice as much carbon than allowed by the cap. That means new coal plants are “highly unlikely” to meet the EPA’s target, according to the report.

Today, the 50 dirtiest plants in the United States—all coal-fired—account for 2 percent of the world’s energy-related carbon pollution each year. That’s equal to the annual emissions from half of America’s 240 million cars. The 100 dirtiest plants—a tiny fraction of the country’s 6,000 power plants—account for a fifth of all US carbon emissions. According to the report, curbing the emissions of the worst offenders in the United States “is one of the most effective ways to reduce U.S. global warming pollution…reducing the risk that emissions will reach a level that triggers dangerous, irreversible climate change impacts.”

The United States has been trending away from coal, and a recent spate of bankruptcies and closings have thrown the future of coal-fired plants, and their potential for profit, into question. If the new EPA standards don’t change the US energy landscape, it’s possible that glut of cheap natural gas and looming expensive upgrades for coal plants will.

Here are the top 10 dirtiest plants in the states, and their yearly emissions:

  1. Georgia Power Co.’s Scherer Coal plant, Georgia (21.3 million metric tons)
  2. Alabama Power Co.’s James H. Miller Jr. plant, Alabama (20.7 million metric tons)
  3. Luminant Generation Company’s Martin Lake plant, Texas (18.8 million metric tons)
  4. Union Electric Co.’s Labadie plant, Missouri (18.5 million metric tons)
  5. NRG Texas Power’s W.A. Parish plant (17.8 million metric tons)
  6. Duke Energy Indiana Inc.’s Gibson plant (16.9 million metric tons)
  7. Ohio Power Co.’s General James M. Gavin plant (16.6 million metric tons)
  8. FirstEnergy Generation Corp.’s FirstEnergy Bruce Mansfield plant (16.4 million metric tons)
  9. Detroit Edison Co.’s Monroe plant (16.4 million metric tons)
  10. Salt River Project’s Navajo plant (15.9 million metric tons)

â&#128;&#139;â&#128;&#139;You can see the full list here.

Source:  

1 Percent of America’s Power Plants Emit 33 Percent of Energy Industry’s Carbon

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Kerry Gaffes, But Maybe It’s the Good Kind of Gaffe

by maciao85 Posted on September 9, 2013

Mother Jones

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“I had honestly forgotten what a gaffe factory Kerry was,” writes a friend, “but it seems like he’s continuing on in his bold tradition of marching foot in mouth first.” The damning gaffe, it turns out, was an off-the-cuff response to a reporter who asked if there was anything Bashar al-Assad could do to avoid an American military strike. “Sure,” Kerry said dismissively, he could turn over his entire arsenal of chemical weapons this week. That would do it. “But he isn’t about to do it,” Kerry said, “and it can’t be done, obviously.”

As usual with these things, I don’t actually see quite as big a gaffe as some others, even accounting for the fact that secretaries of state are supposed to be especiallycircumspect. It was obviously a sarcastic comment. However, Russia is pretending to take it seriously:

In Moscow, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, who was meeting with Syria’s foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, said in response to Mr. Kerry’s remarks that Russia would join any effort to put Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons under international control and ultimately destroy them….Although Mr. Kerry appeared to treat the idea that Syria would give up its stockpile as improbable, Mr. Lavrov seized on it as a possible compromise that Russia was prepared to propose to the Syrians.

“We don’t know whether Syria will agree with this, but if the establishment of international control over chemical weapons in the country will prevent attacks, then we will immediately begin work with Damascus,” Mr. Lavrov said at the Foreign Ministry. “And we call on the Syrian leadership to not only agree to setting the chemical weapons storage sites under international control, but also to their subsequent destruction.”

So was Kerry’s statement a gaffe? In normal terms, sure. You don’t toss out stuff like this without thinking about it, and most likely all it does is give Russia and Syria a handy excuse to play games for a while longer. However, in any terms more sophisticated than those of a five-year-old, it wasn’t really much of a gaffe. Kerry’s meaning was perfectly plain.

Still, what if the Russians aren’t playing games, but are seizing an unanticipated opportunity? It’s possible that for all their bluster, the Russians would actually like a way out of this that saves some face. It’s also possible, if you believe the latest reports in Bild am Sonntag, that Assad never wanted last month’s chemical attack to go forward in the first place. His generals did it without his go-ahead. So maybe he’d just as soon be rid of the stuff.

I doubt it. But it’s at least an intriguing thought. If all of this ended up with some kind of UN inspection force taking control of Syria’s chemical arsenal, that would be a pretty good outcome for everyone. And it would make Kerry’s statement sort of the opposite of a Kinsley gaffe. Instead of a politician accidentally telling the truth, it would end up being a politician accidentally solving a real problem.

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Kerry Gaffes, But Maybe It’s the Good Kind of Gaffe

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