The Analysis of Sea Levels.

[K^2]

On 6/14/2024 at 6:44 AM, darthgently said:

I have a theory that the reason big oil is so prominently "green" is that they see future profits being much larger if the convert petroleum into plastics instead of fuel.

The important part is locking the carbon. We have ways of doing that with old plastics much better than vehicle exhaust. Also, with gasoline and natural gas demand down, these companies would have to build facilities to convert light fractions into plastics as well. That opens a door to eventually replacing crude with captured carbon, making plastics production carbon-negative. It's a long road to that, but non-fossil power production and electrification of our energy consumption is still a good first step.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Re-imagining Forests (Germany)

TLDR: decisions made after WWII resulted in monoculture forestry - which has become susceptible to drought and infestation.  Massive die-off of trees resulted.

Newer techniques, mixing up the forests is happening.

[farmerben]

Spruce is good for seaplanes

 

[kerbiloid]

On 6/17/2024 at 8:12 PM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

TLDR: decisions made after WWII resulted in monoculture forestry - which has become susceptible to drought and infestation.  Massive die-off of trees resulted.

The Siberian taiga (the largest biome on the Earth, and the main mechanism of the air decarbonization) mostly consists of larch.

It lacks the undergrowth, and its grass is uniform.

***

Looks like somebody's argumenting the wood cutting for windmill building.

The Europe needs its native pigwoods with acorns and plowing boars.

Edited June 21, 2024 by kerbiloid

[boriz]

5 hours ago, farmerben said:

Spruce is good for seaplanes

 

The Spruce Goose was made of Birch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_H-4_Hercules

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

7 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Siberian taiga (the largest biome on the Earth, and the main mechanism of the air decarbonization) mostly consists of larch.

Larch apparently protecting the ice and preventing incursion from other trees 

https://phys.org/news/2016-06-siberian-larch-forests-linked-ice.html#google_vignette

Or, if you read a different article, maybe not

https://phys.org/news/2011-03-russian-boreal-forests-vegetation.html

Or maybe it is 

https://phys.org/news/2007-09-peat-forests-permafrost.html

Panik? 

(btw - if you do lose the Larch, we'll have to rename the Taiga to "Dark Forest" as the undergrowth will be much denser) 

[farmerben]

Holistic grazing management could help save the permafrost.   Snow is an insulating layer that prevents permafrost from forming in the winter.  With trees removed and snow trampled more permafrost will grow.  Grassland can sequester carbon in soil much faster than forests.  Bring back the mammoth!

[DDE]

1 hour ago, farmerben said:

Bring back the mammoth!

Oh, look, another publicity run by the Pleistocene Park. Check the date on this one:

 

[kerbiloid]

14 hours ago, farmerben said:

Grassland can sequester carbon in soil much faster than forests.

To the depth of several centimeters, to return back next year.

While the cold swamp forests bury the carbon under several meters of cold water, preventing it from rotting and returning to the air as CH4 and CO2.

14 hours ago, farmerben said:

Bring back the mammoth!

And herd them at the mammoth milk farm.

[boriz]

Maybe giant waterlilly farms?

They grow ridiculously quickly, up to two meters in seven days, and grow up to three meters in diameter. That's efficient carbon capture. They could be harvested, say. every two or three weeks and processed into carbon neutral biofuel. And wherever they are farmed, the albedo will be higher, reflecting more of the sun's radiant energy back out to space.  The bigger the farm, the better the impact. Win-win.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Just can't stop imagining the mutant frog that might need a Lilly Pad that big... 

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

12 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

  Hide contents

 

That is just... 

Not right. 

 

... 

 

There was a Dinosaur show from about 10 years ago - one of the segments had these giant frogs That used to live back then - big enough to eat a small Dino in one bite. 

 

IIRC - one scene had a brontosaurus step on the frog 

If anyone remembers this - it's worth a look.  Kinda horrible - but worth it 

[kerbiloid]

(Offtopic)

The picture above is also a nice allusion to another sci-fi, the Emancipator  series by Ray Aldridge.

The creature is basically a modified axolotl,
and the main hero's power armor from the series was named (back-translating from Russian) Intertribal Light Axolotl Mk. IV.

So, for the Emancipator reader the scene from Fallout looks like axolotl meets axolotl.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Critical ocean current has not declined in the last 60 years, AMOC study finds

...

studies about the AMOC's long term future are uncertain. Instead of predicting the future, a team of scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) quantified the past to help inform where we could be going.

In a new paper published in Nature Communications, scientists found that the AMOC has not declined in the last 60 years.

...Their findings contrast with previous work, notably a paper from 2018 cited in their study, which reported that the AMOC has declined over the last 70 years. This past work relied on sea surface temperature measurements to understand how the AMOC has changed, but "we've learned that sea surface temperature doesn't work as well as initially thought," said Terhaar, who began leading this study at WHOI 

Critical ocean current has not declined in the last 60 years, AMOC study finds

[darthgently]

10 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Critical ocean current has not declined in the last 60 years, AMOC study finds

...

studies about the AMOC's long term future are uncertain. Instead of predicting the future, a team of scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) quantified the past to help inform where we could be going.

In a new paper published in Nature Communications, scientists found that the AMOC has not declined in the last 60 years.

...Their findings contrast with previous work, notably a paper from 2018 cited in their study, which reported that the AMOC has declined over the last 70 years. This past work relied on sea surface temperature measurements to understand how the AMOC has changed, but "we've learned that sea surface temperature doesn't work as well as initially thought," said Terhaar, who began leading this study at WHOI 

Critical ocean current has not declined in the last 60 years, AMOC study finds

As research funding depoliticized we’ll see more of this

[Codraroll]

14 hours ago, darthgently said:

As research funding depoliticized we’ll see more of this

Narrow minds expected science to begin conforming to their pre-selected conclusions on topics ranging from evolution to vaccines before. Wishing for bias never worked for them either.

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, Codraroll said:

Narrow minds expected science to begin conforming to their pre-selected conclusions on topics ranging from evolution to vaccines before. Wishing for bias never worked for them either.

Painting with a very broad brush is only useful for whitewashing

[DDE]

23 hours ago, darthgently said:

As research funding depoliticized we’ll see more of this

It will never get fully depoliticized; rather, the other side will start to hog the blanket, so to speak. Too much wiggle room and too much money at stake on both sides of the aisle.

[SunlitZelkova]

I’d argue all science can never be apolitical because it relies on organizations for funding.

Science is just too advanced for a single person alone to do on their own with no strings attached to a wider group of people, and thus a wider group of ideas.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

17 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Science is just too advanced for a single person alone to do on their own with no strings attached to a wider group of people, and thus a wider group of ideas

True. 

I'm steeped in a professional tradition that is highly adversarial.  We like to think that through earnest partisanship coupled with professional responsibility that the truth will win out and that Juries are capable of spotting the BS. 

My analogy for political partisanship in science makes me hope for a similar process.  Each side gets to make their claims as strenuously as possible within some bounds of professionalism... And somewhere in the middle lies the truth. 

The problem comes in with corporate interests or ideological orthodoxy requirements to be published. Lawyers have an affirmative duty of 'candor to the tribunal' - meaning we cannot knowingly lie to a court nor allow our client to. 

PR departments and partisans are under no such constraints. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

... 

 

 

 

 

 

Still... Somewhere in the middle lies the truth. 

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

True. 

I'm steeped in a professional tradition that is highly adversarial.  We like to think that through earnest partisanship coupled with professional responsibility that the truth will win out and that Juries are capable of spotting the BS. 

My analogy for political partisanship in science makes me hope for a similar process.  Each side gets to make their claims as strenuously as possible within some bounds of professionalism... And somewhere in the middle lies the truth. 

The problem comes in with corporate interests or ideological orthodoxy requirements to be published. Lawyers have an affirmative duty of 'candor to the tribunal' - meaning we cannot knowingly lie to a court nor allow our client to. 

PR departments and partisans are under no such constraints. Still... Somewhere in the middle lies the truth. 

This.   Opponent processes, whether through evolution or design, are the solution that keeps every living thing we see alive.  They’ve been tuned through timeless testing.  To build a political system or scientific truth maximizing process on anything else would be incredibly myopic

Edited January 20 by darthgently