What Do We Think About Climate Change

[Boston]

really
I hope that boat is in a safe place and stays dry this time
watch for sneaker waves if you go out to her



be safe
B

[Knut Sand]

Well, as said earlier; Some areas/ seas; warmer, more evaporation. colder areas will get more water/ snow... And the transport of air with high humidity from warmer areas to colder areas (my place..). will cause more weather/ winds. Happened earlier too, but we can probably try to adjust to the fact that we'll get more. Not always too comfortable.

About boats in a safe place...
We received 15-20 cm of (extremely) heavy snow right here.... Large areas nearby have received 60-100 cm... In the last 24 hours... Even here that can be considered pretty extreme.
Yesterday, I discovered that i now suddenly have a small sub....
Well, as long as the wind continues to come from the eastern direction, the boat's in a pretty safe place....

[Guillermo]

Thanks Mas & Boston. Good old "Marie" is safely moored at the Club Naval de Pontevedra, which is in the River Lerez at the tip end of the Ria de Pontevedra, so well protected.

Here you have a camera in real time where to watch her:
http://www.clubnavalpontevedra.com/ptz/camara.htm
She's the one with green covers for sails, top of roof and front of wheelhouse, as well as 4 orange liferings on top of it.

Cheers.

[Guillermo]

Originally Posted by Knut Sand

... And the transport of air with high humidity from warmer areas to colder areas ......as long as the wind continues to come from the eastern direction...

kNuts
I hope your small sub is as safe as Marie at least.

About weather: I don't see how eastern winds can bring warm and humid air to your place to then cold down and precipitate in snow form...

Cheers.

[Knut Sand]

Originally Posted by Guillermo

About weather: I don't see how eastern winds can bring warm and humid air to your place to then cold down and precipitate in snow form...

Oh well, A bit lack of info there: We had wind and rain and snow from SW at the beginning of the last week. Now its more from the east/ south, leaving the place where Ive "put" the boat in a sheltered area, little wind, almost no waves. If the wind turns and comes from SW, that alters the picture considerably, in that spot.... As the wind and waves can gather momentum over several nm.
Not a too pleasant job to raise (even) a small boat if that weather strikes...
(temperature from 0 to -10 deg C, a stormy kinda wind and snowflakes sized like wetted kittens flying in horizontal streaks through the air).

Tomorrow..... maybe....

[Boston]

its but cold here these last few days although the previous few were in the 70s
and with rain

[Knut Sand]

Originally Posted by Guillermo

kNuts
I hope your small sub is as safe as Marie at least.

Turns out, I was wrong, there have been a helluwalotofweather......it seems... Just a dinghy, GRP, double hull. Went very easy to fish/ fix the ropes to the pullerts(?). Get the boat to float with the gunwale just flush with the water, throw in a big pump, tilt the boat a little, watch the gunwale rise to "safe" position - Coffee.... time....

Then if floated "nicely" just to get the water out of the double hull, opened a small hole, just large enoug to squeeze in a hose. Let another (much) smaller pump run for 2 hours..

It did rise further, but very slowly... too slowly.... much too slowly....then it occured to me.... hey? can it be that I'm only circulating the Sea of Skagerak here...?

Boat was not stable, funny and interesting, but not stable.... When water is around freezing point, some people are a bit reluctant to go for a trip in a boat that tippy...

So, I pulled it out of the sea, not quite an easy task, little tools for that job, one man. Found an 2"x8" long and used that as a lever from the ropes in front of the boat. Turns out that there was a large crack in the keel in the front, well the boat went up with the front first, and high, so a lot of water/ weight was trapped inside the hull during some parts of this process.

I've seen it kinda happen earlier, when the weather gets real stormy in that place, the waves manages to get across a rather large concrete quay, hammering down on the boat, then I just stood and looked, thought this was....ehhh pretty bad... went back inside.... Coffe seemed as a good idea.....

Need warmer weather to fix this.... Shitty thing is; I'll probably need that crappy boat afloat in a month or two for some testing....

Don't need to go to the gym, this week..... One good thing....

[Boston]

sounds like fun Knuts
hope you get it fixed
B

[Knut Sand]

Well, its the fishing/ hunting boat, so a nice finish isnt needed (come to think of it a nice finish isnt needed on the other boat either...)... It still has the correct shape. It'll be a boat again, not a big problem. The temperature here in Norway, this time of the year, for a job like that, is however a tiny problem... Just have to wait, though, or some heaters. Wife always wants the boats to be out of the water in the wintertime, but its either at least one boat in the water, or a high security mental ward....

(Sooo Im on the edge now.... )

[Boston]

nothing a few beer's cant fix

[Guillermo]

Not that I agree with what they say on global warming and arctic ice, nor that I like their commercial style show up, but I admire the guts of the "Ice Team". They will swim through the broken package of ice when necessary!

http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/

Cheers

[Boston]

I think he's starting to see daylight there knuts
next thing you know old G will be sporting some new dew ( hair cut ) requires got to be glued ( worlds most serious moose ) to keep it on end
and holding a Green Peace banner

one can only hope

cheers
B

[Pericles]

YESTERDAY, a former chief at NASA, Dr John S. Theon, slammed the computer models used to determine future climate claiming they are not scientific in part because the modellers have “resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists”.

Today, a founder of the International Journal of Forecasting, Journal of Forecasting, International Institute of Forecasters, and International Symposium on Forecasting, and the author of Long-range Forecasting (1978, 1985), the Principles of Forecasting Handbook, and over 70 papers on forecasting, Dr J. Scott Armstrong, tabled a statement declaring that the forecasting process used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) lacks a scientific basis.

That prince of idiots algore is scheduled to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington on Wednesday morning. A "Winter storm watch" has been posted for the nation's capital, with three inches of snow forecast for Tuesday night. Legislators are now anxious to hear al-Gore's plans to combat this dangerous climate change … if they can get there through the ice and snow.

http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/...Select=WEATHER

http://wattsupwiththat.com/
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/200...lobal-warming/
http://www.icecap.us/

Let us hope that this nonsense about classifying CO2 as a pollutant is rapidly consigned to the "bin of really lousy ideas" and we start building clean burning coalfired power stations, but without the carbon capture apparatus being fitted.

Before anyone accuses me of talking on a subject I know nothing about, please be aware that I worked for some years in the British coal mining industry and gained City & Guilds qualifications in respect of production, distribution and utilisation of solid fuels. In other words, burning coal for steam generation.

Stop press. Sales of wood burning stoves have increased by 50% in UK this winter I wonder why?

Perry

[masalai]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...section=justin is a source, along with Professor RickyRood at U of Michigan who leads a course on climate change and how it interplays with business, and policy http://www.wunderground.com/blog/RickyRood/show.html , I would be inclined to trust before many other "quoted blogs"

[Boston]

ok if Guillermo can jump ship and swim on over to Green Peace island I suppose I will have to swim over to ye old Exxon Valdez and report the following from the BBC today
although I am vehemently apposed to dumping iron fillings on the Galapagos's Islands

A spectacular natural algal bloom in the Southern Ocean helped to "lock" carbon away into deep sea sediments, according to a study in Nature journal.

But the amount of carbon stored was not nearly as high as some artificial "geo-engineering" schemes had predicted.

Plans to "seed" plankton blooms by adding iron to oceans are strongly opposed by many green groups.


This is a significant result - it suggests that ocean iron fertilisation might work for reducing atmospheric CO2
Prof Peter Burkill,
SAHFOS
The international research team behind the Crozex study say their findings have "significant implications" for plans to mitigate climate change.

They come as scientists resume a controversial ocean fertilisation experiment in the Scotia Sea, east of Argentina.

The Lohafex study had been suspended by the German government after environmental groups protested that it violates the terms of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.

They fear that adding iron to oceans may damage ecosystems.

Ocean commotion

Using algae as a "biological carbon pump" has been touted as one of the more promising "geo-engineering" schemes for mitigating global warming.

Plankton act as a natural sponge for carbon dioxide - drawing the greenhouse gas down out of the atmosphere and into the sea.

When plankton die, they sink to the bottom of the ocean, locking away some of the carbon they have absorbed.

Experiments suggest that "seeding" oceans with iron can stimulate the growth of plankton - particularly waters which are rich in nutrients.
The drifting sediment trap PELAGRA
Researchers set up sediment traps to collect samples of sinking material

But exactly how much carbon sinks to the sea floor, and how long it remains locked away, is still unknown.

In the Crozex experiment, an international research team sailed to the Crozet Islands, in the Southern Ocean, about 2,200km (1,400 miles) southeast of South Africa.

These waters experience a spectacular annual plankton bloom the size of Ireland, 120,000 sq km (46,300 sq miles) fertilised by iron naturally supplied from the islands' volcanic rocks.

The researchers used sediment traps to follow the passage of carbon from the sea surface to the ocean floor.

They found that seawater and sediment samples taken directly beneath the bloom were two-to-three times richer in carbon, compared to samples from a nearby ocean region which was rich in nutrients, but not in iron.

"Our results have significant implications for proposals to mitigate the effects of climate change through purposeful addition of iron to the ocean," said lead author Professor Raymond Pollard, of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton.

"Our findings support the hypothesis that increased iron supply...may have directly enhanced carbon export to the deep ocean.

"[However] our estimate of carbon sequestration for a given iron supply still falls 15-50 times short of some geo-engineering estimates."

Next steps

"This is a significant result," said Professor Peter Burkill, director of the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science, Plymouth (SAHFOS).

"It suggests that ocean iron fertilisation might work for reducing atmospheric CO2 through export of carbon into the ocean's interior.

"But the next step from natural experiments to artificial ones is crucial.

"We now need to know what the ecological impacts of artificial fertilisation experiments are."
SeaSoar being towed behind a ship, profiling the ocean to measure properties down to 300 m.
The SeaSoar was used to measure ocean properties down to 300m

Many scientists doubt whether adding iron artificially will ever seed plankton blooms as successfully as natural iron.

To test the technique, the German government has just re-authorised one of the largest ocean fertilisation experiments to date.

The Lohafex expedition had been suspended, after concerns that it violated the terms of the Convention On Biological Diversity.

But researchers on board the vessel RV Polarstern have now begun seeding six tonnes of iron sulphate over 300 square kilometres of the Scotia Sea, east of Argentina.

"As this paper shows, much larger amounts of iron are being added daily by natural processes around the Crozet Island," said Professor Andrew Watson, University of East Anglia.

"And that doesn't seem to have done the Antarctic ecosystem any harm."

Crucial experiment

"Legitimate experiments like [Lohafex] are crucial to learning more about the effects of iron fertilisation," said Dr Gary Fones, University of Portsmouth, who was part of the Crozex team.

"They will help scientists evaluate the merits of such a scheme."

However, the environmental impact of Lohafex was questioned by Kristina Gjerde, high seas policy advisor, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

She said: "The fundamental question remains, should this activity be allowed to proceed unregulated?

"I am not against research in this area; however, it should follow internationally agreed rules and procedures.

"The Convention on Biological Diversity's call for a defacto moratorium on ocean fertilisation reflects the will of the international community that this activity should not proceed until certain basic requirements have been satisfied.

"The government ministries that authorised the Lohafex experiment did not comply with the rules for [environmental] impact assessments as they currently exist under the London Convention [on the Prevention of Marine Pollution]."