Month: May 2014

https://vimeo.com/94070058

From James Cameron’s Years of Living Dangerously on Showtime. The series continues with an examination of how the Koch Brothers fossil fuel industry tentacles reach deep into the political process.  Enjoy a brief conversation with an irrational denier from Americans for Prosperity.

To create the most recent Yale Forum video, I interviewed Dr. Kevin Trenberth, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, at length.
Part one is below on this page. Here is the rest, above.

Dr. Kevin Trenberth illuminates the mechanics of ocean heat, and the coming El Nino event, and makes a bold prediction.

Reporting Climate Science:

Leading climate scientist Kevin Trenberth has told reportingclimatescience.com that he believes the pause in global warming may be caused by long term changes in the Pacific Ocean.

Trenberth and colleague John Fasullo argue in a new scientific paper that the massive El Nino Pacific Ocean warming event that occurred in 1997 and 1998 triggered the pause. They say that the El Nino caused a large loss of heat from the deep ocean to the sea surface that resulted in a cooling of the oceans. Since then the deep ocean has been absorbing heat back from the upper ocean and so cooling the atmosphere.

The implication is that the heat being absorbed from the atmosphere by the oceans has offset the underlying and ongoing warming of the atmosphere due to green house gases. As the deep ocean waters have slowly warmed they have taken heat from the upper ocean which has then cooled the atmosphere. This is the cause of the apparent hiatus in global warming that has manifested itself as a halt in the rise in global mean atmospheric temperatures seen in the second half of the 20th century.

Trenberth and Fasullo, from the US National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder Colorado, suggest that long term oscillations in the Pacific Ocean, known as Pacific Decadal Oscillations (or PDOs) drive alternate 20-plus year cycles of upper ocean warming and cooling which also involve heat being exchanged with the atmosphere. The implication of this is that when the Pacific is in a negative phase the upper ocean loses heat and so cools the atmosphere, and that when it is in a positive phase the upper ocean warms and so heats the atmosphere.

“It is not so much that the atmosphere warms up rather that the upper levels of sea get warmer and these interact more directly with the atmosphere,” Trenberth said. So a warmer sea surface leads to a warmer atmosphere. “More heat penetrates to the deep ocean in the negative phase and that is not the case in the positive phase,” he explained.

Continue reading “Kevin Trenberth on El Nino: Part 2”

John Oliver is proving to be more than just another current events comic. He’s his own thing.

In an apparently brief nod to reality, last week, Senator Marco Rubio told CNN he “understands there is a vast consensus”  among mainstream scientists on climate change, not that he was going to do anything about it.  Apparently that was dangerously close to acknowledging reality for the Senator’s base.
Days later, in New Hampshire, and no doubt having been re-oriented to the need for absolute climate denial in facing the Tea Party heavy audience of primary voters, Rubio was clearly back on the anti-science reservation.  The intimidating power of the no-nothing GOP base was on display.

In putting together this month’s video on the impending El Nino, I interviewed Dr. Kevin Trenberth at length.

I wasn’t able to fit everything in the short vid, but there is so much good stuff here, I thought it would be a shame not to share.

Part 2, and a bold prediction, tomorrow.

A few years ago I posted the above video made by plucky inventors working on a scheme to convert roadways to solar collectors.
They’ve kept at it.

Now there is a crowd sourcing page aimed at helping them take the next step, and a new video, below.

Solar Roadways Indiegogo:

Solar Roadways is a modular paving system of solar panels that can withstand the heaviest of trucks (250,000 pounds). These Solar Road Panels can be installed on roads, parking lots, driveways, sidewalks, bike paths, playgrounds… literally any surface under the sun. They pay for themselves primarily through the generation of electricity, which can power homes and businesses connected via driveways and parking lots. A nationwide system could produce more clean renewable energy than a country uses as a whole (http://solarroadways.com/numbers.shtml). They have many other features as well, including: heating elements to stay snow/ice free, LEDs to make road lines and signage, and attached Cable Corridor to store and treat stormwater and provide a “home” for power and data cables. EVs will be able to charge with energy from the sun (instead of fossil fuels) from parking lots and driveways and after a roadway system is in place, mutual induction technology will allow for charging while driving. 

Continue reading “Solar Roadway Inventors Look to Take the Next Step”

No word on their answer to the question “Did Jesus ride a dinosaur?”.

Above, trailer for “A Road not Taken”, the story of the first White House solar panels, removed by the Reagan administration at the direction of fossil fuel interests.

Below, the installation of new panels on the White House, 30 years later.