- Back to Main Climate Change Page and Index

The huge huge Dustcloud

- 13/12/08 In Kathmandu the solar panels always get covered in dust, yet here in relatively vehicle free Pokhara it's the same. When I think about even when I go to the villages the path and everything is super dusty. I guess it's a function of the climate having monsoon then a long dry season. So I guess most of the country is the same, mabye they could be a contribution of dust being blown in from the Chinese deserts. But hang a moment most of Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia is covered by a dust cloud for a couple of months a year. Which is incidentally banned from Malaysian films. Could it be that the a huge area of South Asia gets covered by dry season dust clouds ? Is it banned from thoughts and therefore from climate calculations. - One would expect it to have a huge cooling effect although nothing is ever that simple. Anyway surely it's always existed, but has man altered it dramatically ? through vehicles churning up dusty verges and human activity stirring up dust ? - UPDATE - - BBC Science in Action just reported that scientists have proved that "the biggest cause of winter global warming in South Asia is caused by people buring wood for cooking." The carbon 14 analysis of the South Asia Dust .. See above

Melting Antarctic Iceberg give massive seeding to CO2 absorbing bacteria

- 13/12/08 BBC Science In Action - British scientist report into his dramatic study - It had been thought that the iron released by melting iceberg of a form too big to be useful to plankton. But he found it is in the form of nano sized flakes. His theory was that lack of iron is the limiting factor on plankton growth in the Antarctic region and that the extra CO2 absorbed will be 10% of the worlds excess (whatever that means, and it's a long chain of assumptions to stand up) - Meanwhile Adelaide Geologist Ian Plimer was on ABC Counterpoint totally pooh poohing Climate Change Panic people

Which Magazine - Home turbine uses more eletricity than it generates

Which Magazine October 2008 - In their year long test the inverter part of a Windsave turbine took more electricity from the grid just to keep itself going than the turbine generates on average even when a householder is not using any electricity .. so it's a net user of electricity rather than a generator and that's not even including the construction energy.

Sea Levels are Rising and ..er falling - Oct 2008

- "Oh my God sea levels are rising 15mm a year !", but tests in another place show it falling 5mm a year. Well ABC Science prog revealed that apparently the sea is not flat ! For various reasons it varies from place to place so yes in some places the average annual level is rising whilst in others it's falling and this is perfectly normal. - He didn't go into details, but I would guess that in many places land is sinking - it's often mentioned that the Island of GB is tilting so the south coast is falling whilst in Scotland it's rising. - They said something about a pattern in Tuvalu about the island going through cycles of being volcanically raised and then falling back down under it's own weight. - It's a bit surprising no-one has mentioned this before. - Ben Goldacre has come up with new T-shirt slogan "I think you'll find it's not quite as simple as that"

18 years of No summers will happen - September 2008

- "The Climate has been basically the same for the recent past except now suddenly there are dramatic climate events", that's been the story ..then suddenly on the TV Archaeology prog on Channel 4 they talk about a well known fact from Tree-ring dating - the 1159BC event apparently comet dust kept tree growth low for 18 years so probably there were no summers. Now if it already happened in the past .. then it's highly likely to happen again.

In it's day the car was an environmental saviour ? August 2008

- The expert argued in the 1920s London was completely grid-locked through too many horses, which created vast amounts of horse of unhealthy smelly manure, which meant hundreds of tonnes of manure had to be carted to the countryside every day. Once the model-T came in many slow horses were taken off the streets so the traffic now flowed faster and there was no big smelly pollution problem to deal with. ... yes maybe

Krakatoa effect 0.5C fall in temperature

- In 1883 when the volcano Krakatoa, Indonesia erupted it's force being 1000s of times bigger than atomic bomb it sent so much dust into the atmosphere it altered the entire world climate that year giving bright red sunsets around the world and reduced the global climate by 0.5C for that year. Was it that year only ?

- 50% Error in standard Model July 2008

- "The Science is in it is all finished", is the message we have heard over the years yet still in 2008 BBC SCIA revealed according to new research at Cape Verde natural breakdown of low altitude Ozone and Methane is happening at a rate 50% higher than accepted models. So this shows figures are not as reliable as we assume. It doesn't mean that all is OK, levels of low level Ozone and Methane may have risen over the years the actual levels are the same but the turnover is much higher than accepted before.

- Scared or logical

- It seems there are 2 human reactions to things - "scared" and "let's deal with it". When you have a scared response logic goes out of the window.

- Crichton has a history of flawed logic June 2008

- I think it's a pity and a real blow to climate rationalism that Michael Crichton who has spoken so eloquently actually believes in the paranormal and doesn't appear to understand how scientific testing works, and makes comments against scientists in general i.e. if something appears to work yet doesn't work under extensive scientific tests then that proves it almost certainly doesn't work .... his arguments should stand on their merits, but overall he has lost his credibility to me. ... (his 1988 book : Travels) - so we can't trust Gore cos he lies and Crichton cos of his history of flawed logic. All you can do is let the arguments stabd on their merits.

- Dr Karl's solar array 250 year payback he says

- He's often banged on about his huge solar parray, but tonight he gave numbers - in summer has generated 3000 KWh, he used 1800 KWh - He says he can get about 4.5Kw from 27 cells = 165w each - He says his cells cost $A1800 each and he has 27 so that's = $A48,600 - and I estimate these extra costs + inverter 7000 + planning permission 2000 + labour 2000 - so total cost $A59, 600 =30,000quid - he says his solar array cost an years average salary I call it I call it 33 years electric bills for a large family who have a bill of $950/year - He actually said it's a 250 year payback, I guess he's saying he generates $230 of excess electricity/year - I say he's made a mistake as he counts the electricity he uses as no cost, instead of taking into account the money he would have spent on electricity so I think my payback figure of 33 years is the actual number. - So the point is his solar panel array in practice is not the green green energy saving measure he makes it out to be. - I say if he cut his consumption to $500/year and bought his electricity from a gas power plant he'd be more ecological - he now admits instant gas hot water is more ecological way to go - but doesn't admit that he should have spent the money on energy saving measures like lagging instead of trendy less effective measures like panels.

Original Writing by StewGreen