Science stories of the week

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by wegs, Jan 31, 2021.

  1. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Again...

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    In the case of Covid19 causing months long lock-downs (in some countries), one single ''event'' has been able to underscore (not prove) that climate change is largely due to human "activities".

    Just curious sculptor, do you dispute that?
     
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  3. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    I may be missing something here but doesn't the article you quoted show something rather different, viz. that pollution (NOx, particulates etc) dropped when industry and traffic shut down.

    I don't believe I have ever seen anything showing any immediate effect from the - presumed - reduction in CO2 emission. I certainly would not expect there to be any measurable effect, since CO2 build-up is cumulative.
     
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  5. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, that is what we're discussing.
     
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  7. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    old story
    Gregory Bateson, tall fellow long strides. married to Margaret Meade, short woman short strides
    As they were walking across campus with Gregory deep in conversation with a student
    Gregory pauses, realizing that he was well over ten meters ahead of Maggie
    and he said---"really Maggie" as he waited for her to catch up

    One step gives variable results
     
  8. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    True enough. But checking back it seems to be the case you are in the details talking about multiple causes
    Equivalent to steps (1 cause) being added to ride motorbike (2 cause) train (3 cause) taking each of the distance traveled to obtain a total distance traveled, accumulative

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  9. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    You're talking around the point you want to make, rather than stating it directly.

    If you want to dispute the causes of global heating, just do that, rather than making vague allusions to your ignorance.
     
  10. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Ok
    define please
     
  11. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Another story that caught my eye this week:

    https://www.space.com/space-station-asim-1st-blue-jet-elves-detected

    Newly published observations from space are showing researchers more about the nature of Earth's lightning storms, including whimsically named phenomena such as "blue jets" and "elves."

    The International Space Station's Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) observatory caught a single blue "jet" (upward-shooting lightning) from a thunderstorm cell, along with four "elves," or optical and ultraviolet emissions from the bottom of the ionosphere, according to a Nature paper published Wednesday (Jan. 20).
     
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  12. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    You're going to start by pretending you're completely new to the basics of climate change? Not a good start.

    "Global heating" refers to the documented increase in the average temperature near the surface of the Earth over time.

    Over to you.
     
  13. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    In addition to the various tipping points we almost certainly passed years ago

    (involving glacial melting, sea level rise, convection zone migration, rainfall patterns altering globally, monsoon timing disruptions, range expansions and changes of weeds and pests and diseases, loss of Arctic ice cover, etc etc etc)

    a November 2020 issue of "Science" contains an article which concludes that we have just now reached or passed a theoretically predicted tipping point in the climate of northern China/Mongolia and the eastern steppes of Central Asia.
    https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6520/1095.full

    https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-11/uog-tpf113020.php
    If so, Mongolia will dry out within the next couple of decades and stay dry indefinitely, regardless of changes in human CO2 emissions begun now.

    That region is where the Deniers were going to put the people displaced by the heat and sea level changes of China's and East Asia's coasts.
     
  14. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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  15. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    and then we have
    "Climate extremes would trigger meteorological chaos -- raging hurricanes such as we have never seen, capable of killing millions of people; uncommonly long, record-breaking heat waves; and profound drought that could drive Africa and the entire Indian subcontinent over the edge into mass starvation. ... Even if we could stop all greenhouse gas emissions today, ..."
    by Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell

    invariably we run into subjective vs objective science
     
  16. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    That’s ^^ why science should be left to scientists and not politicians.
     
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  17. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    He's right.
     
  18. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Left actually.
    As are all democrats, except the neo-cons?
     
  19. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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  20. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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  21. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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  22. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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  23. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    There's not enough information in the article to even know what the method is, exactly. But all it seems to be is a new computational method. The key word seems to be "extended eigenvector", but I don't know what that entails and the article doesn't explain it.

    I can't see any obvious downside to being able to solve computable problems faster than before.
     

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