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Environmental News

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by tochatihu, Oct 22, 2015.

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  1. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Well here's a surprise:

    New study finds global forest area per capita | EurekAlert!

    Um, not. The cited article itself is worthwhile. It shows where forest areas have decreased and increased. The eurekalert headline is silly though. Forest area has decreased 60% per capita! Human population has increased a lot while global forest cover has decreased a little. So per capita goes down!

    Based on only that title I briefly hoped that Environmental Research Letters would publish my manuscript on "Huge global decrease in pirates per capita".
     
    #1801 tochatihu, Aug 1, 2022
    iplug likes this.
  2. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    #1802 tochatihu, Aug 14, 2022
  3. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    New article:

    The Tonga eruption may have spawned a tsunami as tall as the Statue of Liberty

    "As the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai undersea volcano erupted in the South Pacific in January, it displaced a large volume of water upward, ... The water in that colossal mound later “ran downhill,” as fluids tend to do, to generate the initial set of tsunamis. ...

    The team analyzed nine possibilities for the initial wave, each of which was shaped like a baseball pitcher’s mound and had a distinct height and diameter. The best fit to the real-world data came from a mound of water a whopping 90 meters tall and 12 kilometers in diameter, the researchers report.

    That initial wave would have contained an estimated 6.6 cubic kilometers of water. “This was a really large tsunami,” Heidarzadeh says."

    "Gravity-driven tsunami waves typically travel across the deepest parts of the ocean, far from continents, at speeds between 100 and 220 meters per second."

    That was just one of Tonga's tsunami waves. The atmospheric pressure wave, moving above 300 meter per second, drove another similarly sized tsumani wave ahead of the gravity wave. The 1883 Krakatau explosion produced the only other pressure wave–generated tsunamis from a volcanic explosion.
     
    #1803 fuzzy1, Sep 5, 2022
  4. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    So electronically we are able to spread the warning much faster than the physical waves. Yet the sound wave travels 80 m per second faster ... hummmm.

    Bob Wilson
     
    #1804 bwilson4web, Sep 5, 2022
  5. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    #1805 bisco, Sep 20, 2022
  6. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    to each his own
     
    #1806 ChapmanF, Sep 20, 2022
  7. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    The subject is notable whether or not media derivatives address it well. Flies (Diptera) get #1 ranking fairly for mosquitos transferring blood infections. Other flies move poop etc. around by way of 6 unwashed feet (they actually do wash, but miss some spots). Other other flies regurgitate a microbial melange. Flies in bulk provide a lot of mobility to sessile microbes :eek:

    Jeff Goldblum described this in SciFi but missed the epidemiology. Not that he'd know without being told, and it was an entertaining movie.
     
    #1807 tochatihu, Sep 21, 2022
  8. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    Again I say, to each his own.

    Though I haven't seen the 1958 one. I'd still give that one a chance.
     
    #1808 ChapmanF, Sep 21, 2022
  9. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    rethinking outdoor dining, can't dine indoors due to covid
     
    #1809 bisco, Sep 21, 2022
  10. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    Last winter, I made a wild-arsed guess:
    A new news item doesn't say how much total water was gassified, but does indicate that 0.055 cubic kilometer (55 million tons) of water was injected into the stratosphere as vapor, where it will have significant climate change and ozone depletion effects for several years:

    The Tonga volcano shook the world. It may also affect the climate | The Seattle Times
     
    #1810 fuzzy1, Sep 22, 2022
  11. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    A Van Gogh painting Sunflowers in a London museum was vandalized by anti-petroleum protestors. This and similar activities seem wacky to me, and provide ammo for pro-petroleum. So, wacky twice.

    The painting had a glass cover, and so was not damaged by tomato soup toss. Frame may have been damaged.

    The oil in oil-based paints is linseed oil, so we cannot correctly attribute animus to that. The protestors also glued their hands to the museum wall with cyanoacrylate adhesive, which is a petroleum-based product.

    Wackiness accumulates without even considering the diesel fuel that delivered this can of tomato soup. :rolleyes:
     
    #1811 tochatihu, Oct 14, 2022
    bwilson4web and Merkey like this.
  12. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Earth transformed from an abiotic to a biological planet. Yay! That transformation was not smooth and had ups and downs. A new publication suggests that big swings stimulated evolution:

    How fluctuating oxygen levels may have accele | EurekAlert!

    Some exposed marine sediments show 'banded iron formations' with red signifying higher oxygen precipitating iron, with lighter-colored layers during anoxia. One might meditate on this image while imagining how planets might transition:

    Banded_iron_formation_Dales_Gorge resize.jpg
     
    #1812 tochatihu, Oct 14, 2022
  13. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Roger Pielke Jr. is praised by Judith Curry etc. for downgrading climate-change risks. For others perceiving risks as larger, he is panned for (perhaps) minimizing obvious signals. Whatever positions we hold, a voice noticed by both extremes merits attention. So, see this:

    Researchers studying climate futures shouldn’ | EurekAlert!

    I agree that the fat middle of climate projections merit much attention. Although Judith Curry etc. might not, viewing all such model projections as fanciful. Trouble in denier paradise? :D

    But (of course) I've more to say. Along the right-side tail of climate projections, 'costs' would increase very much. Very hard to anticipate, yes I get that. But rational risk assessments would combine probability and costs by multiplication, as well as they can.

    I will (of course) suggest that to Pielke by email.
     
    #1813 tochatihu, Oct 14, 2022
  14. Merkey

    Merkey Active Member

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    Looks like those two didn't have the sense to come in from the rain.
     
    #1814 Merkey, Oct 14, 2022
  15. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    #1815 tochatihu, Oct 18, 2022
  16. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    Today I learned that the US still uses asbestos.

    The U.S. Never Banned Asbestos. These Workers Are Paying the Price. — ProPublica

    A hardship exception was given for chlorine plants on asbestos use. Until recently, the EPA was required to consider financial burden on the industry when it came to bans. The companies used that in the beginning, and continued to do so even after building new plants that didn't use asbestos to keep old plants running. A full ban may finally come to pass soon.

    On top off that, some of these plants may have gotten into an OSHA program that meant less inspections.

    A longer read, the article interviewed former workers of a plant that had shutdown recently. In past, they would have been worried about job loss, or settlements had NDAs.
     
    #1816 Trollbait, Oct 24, 2022
  17. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    #1817 tochatihu, Oct 24, 2022
  18. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    we were allowed to encapsulate it in our basement heating pipes, but we chose removal at a much higher cost.
    it was quite a production.
     
    #1818 bisco, Oct 24, 2022
  19. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    I had casual labor in concrete-spraying in late 1970's. Phoenix AZ - you can see 'my work' alongside airport runway :). I had the choice of shoveling asbestos into the mixer. or climbing the scaffolding and spraying the wet mix. I chose the latter, and my lungs have had long enough to 'meso' so I guess they won't. In retrospect I believe the whole project was illegal at that time.

    Anyway, if you do anything with asbestos, keep the darn stuff (and your face mask) wet. Hateful fibers cannot fly if wet. Not ducks...
     
    #1819 tochatihu, Oct 24, 2022
  20. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    #1820 tochatihu, Oct 25, 2022
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