Αλέξανδρος Γ. Σφακιανάκης: 02/01/19

Friday, February 1, 2019

What’s Really Behind The Plant-Based Diet Agenda?

Reposted from Sustainable Agricultural Systems Ltd. (SAS) (Don't mind giving them the link and credit This article is not an advertisement. ~ctm) January 23, 2019 I have previously covered the anti-animal agriculture narrative here and the plant-based and/or alternative protein agenda here. But as the plant-based diet agenda is currently enjoying an uninterrupted public relations campaign…

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Metal organic framework derived Nb2O5@C nanoparticles grown on reduced graphene oxide for high-energy lithium ion capacitors

Chem. Commun., 2019, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C9CC00387H, Communication

Xinyan Jiao, Qingli Hao, Xifeng Xia, Zongdeng Wu, Wu Lei
Nb2O5@carbon/reduced graphene oxide (M-Nb2O5@C/rGO) composites are fabricated by annealing the precursor of graphene oxide supported Nb-based metal organic frameworks (MOFs) for the first time. The lithium ion capacitor using M-Nb2O5@C/rGO...
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In-situ synthesis of silicon flake/nitrogen-doped graphene-like carbon composite from organoclay for high-performance lithium-ion battery anode

Chem. Commun., 2019, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C8CC10036E, Communication

Qingze Chen, Runliang Zhu, Qiuzhi He, Shaohong Liu, Dingcai Wu, Haoyang Fu, Jing Du, Jianxi Zhu, Hongping He
Silicon flake/nitrogen-doped graphene-like carbon composite was prepared from organoclay via an in-situ strategy, involving carbonization followed by low-temperature aluminothermic reduction. The pre-formed carbon sheets within the confined interlayer space of...
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“NOAA’s Brilliant Response To Trumps Climate Tweet” Was a Red Herring Fallacy

Guest logic by David Middleton Jan 30, 2019, 10:24am NOAA's Brilliant Response To Trumps Climate Tweet Trevor Nace Contributor Science […] […] The president tweeted on Monday "In the beautiful Midwest, windchill temperatures are reaching minus 60 degrees, the coldest ever recorded. In coming days, expected to get even colder. People can't last outside…

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Supramolecular nanochannels self-assembled by helical pyridine-pyridazine oligomers

Chem. Commun., 2019, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C8CC10098E, Communication

Tengfei Yan, Feihu Yang, Shuaiwei Qi, Xiaotong Fan, Shengda Liu, Ningning Ma, Quan Luo, Zeyuan Dong, Junqiu Liu
Herein, we demonstrate a supramolecular nanochannel formed by intermolecular π stacking of pyridine-pyridazine helical oligomers, wherein alkali ions could be easily recognized and transported. Importantly, this nanochannel also revealed reversible...
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A novel electrochemiluminescence resonance energy transfer system for simultaneous determination of two acute myocardial infarction markers using versatile gold nanorods as energy acceptors

Chem. Commun., 2019, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C9CC00563C, Communication

Juntao Cao, Fu-Rao Liu, Xiao-Long Fu, Jin-Xin Ma, Shu-Wei Ren, Yan-Ming Liu
A novel electrochemiluminescence resonance energy transfer (ECL-RET) system using versatile gold nanorods as energy acceptors were introduced into the ECL biochemical analysis. Spatial and potential-resolved platform coupled with the ECL-RET...
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Two polar bears onshore in coastal Labrador, one relocated for public safety

Just in (VOCM, 1 February 2019) from a community called Makkovik on the coast of Labrador: one of two bears sighted prowling the local dump has been relocated for public safety. The community is still on high alert until the other bear can be located.

Black Tickle polar-bear-7 March 2017 Kim Penney photo shared CBC

Polar bear spotted near Black Tickle Labrador on 7 March 2017.

Polar bears are extraordinarily dangerous at this time of year because they are usually at their leanest weight and can be desperate for food of any kind. See the most recent example here, others here and here (with references).

See below for a map showing the location of Makkovik, population about 360.

Makkovik Labrador Google maps

Sea ice off Labrador as of today (1 February 2019):

Labrador coast daily stage of development 2019 Feb 1

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[ASAP] Microscopic Electrochemical Control of Ag Nanoparticles into Mesoporous TiO2 Thin Films

TOC Graphic

The Journal of Physical Chemistry C

DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.8b11217

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[ASAP] Electron–Phonon Coupling Constant of 2H-MoS2(0001) from Helium-Atom Scattering

TOC Graphic

The Journal of Physical Chemistry C

DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.8b12029

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[ASAP] Electrochemical Redox Behavior of Li Ion Conducting Sulfide Solid Electrolytes

TOC Graphic

Chemistry of Materials

DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.8b03420

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[ASAP] Ribosomal Synthesis of Backbone-Cyclic Peptides Compatible with In Vitro Display

TOC Graphic

Journal of the American Chemical Society

DOI: 10.1021/jacs.8b05327

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[ASAP] Chiroptical Activity Enhancement via Structural Control: The Chiral Synthesis and Reversible Interconversion of Two Intrinsically Chiral Gold Nanoclusters

TOC Graphic

Journal of the American Chemical Society

DOI: 10.1021/jacs.8b11096

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The Green New Deal

H. Sterling Burnett

The much-hyped Green New Deal (GND) is being pushed by a rump group of progressive-socialists in the Democratic Party, including prominent members of the Senate with stated presidential aspirations. If enacted, GND would constitute a complete socialist makeover/takeover of the economic system of the United States.

With costs in its first 10 years estimated at nearly $50 trillion dollars, GND would be by far the most costly social and economic experiment in U.S. history. For comparison, the United States has accumulated $21 trillion in debt over its 241-year history.

While recognizing GND would destroy the economy if adopted, I think is it much less dangerous as a proposal than the much more modest and varied iterations of a carbon dioxide tax that have been floated by various members of the Democratic and Republican parties. Why? Simply because GND is so far-reaching and economically wrenching, so enormous in scope and intrusive into peoples' lives and livelihoods, it is far less likely to be enacted - at least in whole, in one massive piece of legislation- than a tax on fossil fuel use. The public is already used to paying gasoline taxes at the pump, along with surcharges on electric power bills and to airlines. Imposing a percent charge or dollar fee on fossil fuels, allowing its costs trickle down throughout the economy in the form of higher prices for goods and services, would allow politicians to escape the blame for the enormous damage the tax would do.

Most people complaining about the higher costs will mistakenly blame businesses for the raising prices, leaving the politicians and bureaucrats whose actions actually necessitated the higher costs scot-free. And if the past is any guide, the mainstream media will eagerly promote this false view of who is really to blame for higher prices.

GND, by contrast, is in your face. Voters will know whom to blame when it all goes wrong, costs skyrocket, unemployment rises, and electricity reliability declines. Given that the United States has regular, relatively free and fair elections, huge vested economic interests, and a history of periodic political whiplash in response to much more modest policy changes in the past, it would be virtually impossible to pass GND. That is why even the vast majority of the Democratic caucus is not yet supporting it.

In short, although taxing carbon dioxide emissions would cost billions of dollars, increase unemployment, hurt the economy, and limit personal freedom, it is entirely possible a carbon dioxide could pass. It's unlikely with the current split Congress and with Donald Trump as president, but some relatively near-future Congress and president could certainly take the plunge.

GND, by contrast, would impose dramatic, wrenching changes that are simply not politically possible. (For the purposes of this essay, I'm limiting my discussion to the energy and environmental transformation that would be necessary to end fossil fuel use by 2030, though GND is also chock-full of social-justice and engineering wish list items.)

Although it is possible to draw up a scenario in which GND could happen, with the stars aligning perfectly and every policy and economic change necessary to meet the goal of eliminating fossil fuels accomplished successfully, the real world is messy. People, politicians, and countries have differing, often competing, aspirations and visions of what the good life entails, and they make mistakes, fail to find expected and desperately needed resources, and miss deadlines. Those factors and the simple physical requirements of eliminating fossil fuels in 11 years mean GND is impossible, for all practical purposes.

Consider, for example, the massive change to the electric power grid and the U.S. transportation system necessary to replace fossil fuels with renewable power plants and electric vehicles in just 11 years. The electric grid and the transportation system were built up over 80 years or more. GND calls for replacing all of this in just a decade.

To meet current electric power needs, estimates are millions of wind turbines would have to be erected, millions of solar panels installed, and billions of battery packs stored in millions of homes or at tens of thousands of centralized battery farms that would have to be built. Wind turbines would have to cover one-third of the continental United States, or solar panels would probably have to cover more than 20 percent of the countryside, just to meet current demand. We would also have to erect thousands of additional electric towers and string thousands of additional miles of transmission lines to get the power from the locations where the wind blows and sun shines regularly - which is where the wind and solar farms will have to be built, of course - to the cities and towns where the power is needed. Talk about a devastating impact on wildlife and wilderness!

Of course, that's just to meet the current demand for electric power. If domestic demand grows, we will need even more turbines, panels, and transmission lines than estimated. More likely, the havoc GND is almost certain to cause in the economy would result in the largest sustained depression and economic decline in the history of the United States, causing energy demand to fall as it has consistently done during previous recessions and depressions. For GND proponents, that might be a feature and not a bug, though they certainly aren't going to tell you that.

Consider also the billions of dollars cities and investors would lose when the coal and natural gas powered municipal power plants and those operated by investor-owned utilities were idled prematurely by force of law. Stock portfolios would plunge, blowing a gigantic hole in retirees' pension payouts. Taxpayers would likely be on the hook for billions of dollars to companies and investors when they are forced to close fossil fuel power plants before they are paid off and before the end of their productive lives - facilities which various state public utility authorities licensed and approved. The cost to taxpayers to pay off these stranded assets would be astronomical. Residents of cities with municipal power systems would still be paying off the debt for the bonds used to build their publicly owned power plants idled by GND long after the federal government stopped them from generating power.

And that's just the effect on electric power. All gasoline, diesel, biodiesel, ethanol, and natural gas powered vehicles would have to be replaced with electric vehicles. A lot of people would surely object to being forced to mothball their vehicles, especially because the electric vehicles they would be forced into would be smaller, less powerful, less comfortable, more expensive, and unable go long distances without frequent recharging. People care about these factors more than fuel economy, which is why electric vehicle sales still make up less than 2 percent of the car and truck market despite more than a decade of generous government subsidies.

Transforming the automobile market would require a total revamping of the supply chain from factories to subcontractors. Foreign cars manufacturers would have to buy into GND also, if they wanted to keep selling cars in the United States. Because other countries wouldn't be bound by GND strictures, foreign auto manufacturers might decide to abandon the U.S. market for China, India, and elsewhere rather than going through the expensive restructuring and supply chain changes necessary to build only or primarily electric vehicles.

Proponents of GND admit the technological transformation required to hit the zero fossil fuel target by 2030 would be akin to a wartime effort. As in World War II but on an even larger scale, all manufacturing would have to be directed away from whatever products we build now - blenders, pump jacks, computers, etc.- to the production of millions of wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries, transmission towers and power lines, rail tracks, cars, engines, and associated technologies for our new green economy. The government would be conscripting all factories, and by extension their workers, into GND's warlike crusade against chimeric climate change. And it would all be for naught, because global greenhouse gas emissions would continue to rise as a result of economic growth in developing countries that are not foolish enough to impose GND on themselves.

Meeting GND's goals for home energy efficiency and resource use would require an unprecedented intrusion of government agents into our homes. They would have to come into almost every home to ensure each is fitted with the latest in energy efficient appliances, insulation, home heating and cooling systems, and windows. Say good-bye to your gas-powered stove, dryer, water heater, or fireplace, and toss out that propane grill. Those luxuries would have to be sacrificed under GND.

Under GND, the government would have to get up close and personal in everyone's life, requiring, for example, people to purchase government-approved TVs, phones, refrigerators, and other home goods that use less energy. The government would regulate what kinds of houses and neighborhoods people live in, with energy use being the prime factor federal agents will consider in assessing each home or business. Factors such as picture or sound quality, load capacity, the ability to clean clothes or plates quickly, square footage, styles of windows and doors, drivability of neighborhoods, or any other personal considerations - criteria that are often more important to people than how much energy an appliance or home uses when they buy homes and products-would have to take a back seat to the government's energy-use mandates.

Then there are the labor and foreign relations impacts of GND.

Even if all the millions of truck drivers, gas station and convenience store employees, oil and gas field workers, coal miners, workers at chemical refineries and power stations, and others put out of work by the Democrats's GND could seamlessly transition to jobs building, installing, and maintaining renewable energy technologies, the United States would have to open its borders to millions of additional migrant laborers in order to get the job done in the truncated timeline required. Perhaps this is why many of the same people pushing GND also favor an open-border policy and amnesty for illegal immigrants. We simply could not build, manage, and maintain the equipment, tools, vehicles, and appliances needed with the labor force currently residing in the United States. The United States did something similar in the nineteenth century when we imported Chinese laborers to help build the transcontinental railway. In immigration terms, GND would be the transcontinental railway on steroids.

Of course, the United States would not have to manufacture all the renewable energy equipment and new technologies required domestically. We could import much of it, as we already do, and likely would be forced to do so because of resource constraints and labor limitations. Importing more batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, and appliances, however, would make our trade deficit vastly bigger than it already is. In doing so, moreover, the United States would simply be offshoring its carbon dioxide emissions instead of reducing them. In fact, that would very likely increase global carbon dioxide emissions and production of various air and water pollutants as countries with lower environmental standards than our own ramp up production to meet the large increase in U.S. demand for renewable power technologies.

The GND would also undermine U.S. national security.

The technologies required to implement GND require tons of minerals and rare earth elements currently unavailable in the quantities required for this transition. Although the United States has many of these critical metals and rare earth elements, federal regulations make mining them virtually impossible. Proponents of GND show little recognition of the limited ability to access these minerals, or indeed, even that they are necessary components of the green technologies the proposal mandates the United States switch to. Under GND, mining is likely to become more difficult, and this is a serious problem from a national security perspective.

Currently, the United States is 100 percent import-dependent on China, Russia, and other nations for more than half of the critical minerals that are the foundation of green technologies. There are competing uses for these minerals. They are not just necessary for the powerful magnets used in wind turbines and to create thin films for solar panels. They are also used in our country's advanced defense systems, such as jets, missiles, and radar and guidance systems, as well as more mundane consumer items such as televisions, cell phones, computers, and gaming systems.

China and Russia, among the United States' top geopolitical rivals, have in the past used their control of critical minerals to extort economic concessions from businesses and countries and political concessions from governments. The United States fought hard to reduce its dependence on foreign oil, seeing such dependence as an economic and national security threat. Thanks to fracking, the United States has become virtually energy-independent, yet GND would once again subjugate Americans to the whims of often-hostile foreign regimes for our energy supply. This would have catastrophic effects on America's economic health and domestic security.

For all of these reasons, even if GND were logistically possible, it would be a hard sell politically. Homeowners, drivers, businesses, workers, national security hawks, and those few politicians still truly concerned about government deficits would likely work together to defeat it. Politically and practically, GND is effectively DOA.

Most politicians probably aren't abjectly stupid, and thus they must know GND is impossible. Therefore, one must assume those pushing it have an ulterior motive for doing so. To wit, they are proposing the radical GND to make costly carbon dioxide taxes, increased subsidies for green energy technologies, stricter fuel mandates for cars and trucks, stricter energy requirements for appliances, and more stringent emission restrictions on power plants look moderate by comparison. Any gains they make on these fronts show they are willing to compromise to get things done, they'll say. They'll take credit for imposing purportedly environmentally beneficial policies, blame businesses for the price increases and increased unemployment the policies cause, all the while shedding crocodile tears over the fact recalcitrant, environmental blackguards in Congress kept them from enacting the true reform needed, the Holy Grail: the Green New Deal.

H. Sterling Burnett

Then there are the labor and foreign relations impacts of GND.

The GND would also undermine U.S. national security.

from Climate Change Skeptic Blogs via hj on Inoreader http://www.icecap.us/

A Concise Synthesis and Biological Study of Evodiamine and Its Analogues

Chem. Commun., 2019, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C9CC00434C, Communication

Jie-dan Deng, Shuai Lei, Yi Jiang, Hong-Hua Zhang, Xiao-ling Hu, Huai-Xiu Wen, Wen Tan, Zhen Wang
An efficient access to Evodiamine and its analogues is presented via Lewis acid catalysis, in this reaction, three chemical bonds and two heterocyclic-fused rings are constructed in one step. The...
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John Christy Named EPA Science Advisor, Eco-Freak Out Ensues

The flavor of the activist/alarmist reaction is suggested by headlines from the usual suspects.

Scientist Who Rejects Warming Is Named to EPA Advisory Board Scientific American

Wheeler Appoints Climate Denier to EPA Science Board EcoWatch

Former coal lobbyist and acting U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler has named a climate denier to serve on the …

A climate science skeptic with a history of botched research is the latest controversial addition to the Environmental Protection Agency's Scientific Advisory Board …

John Christy Was Just Named An EPA Science Adviser. His Climate Studies Have Been Repeatedly Corrected. Buzzfeed

A climate science skeptic with a history of botched research is the latest controversial addition to the Environmental Protection Agency's Scientific Advisory Board …

Controversial climatologist John Christy, who once said scientists believed Earth was flat, to join advisory board at environment agency The Guardian

A more restrained report comes from AL.com Alabama climate change skeptic named to Trump's EPA advisory board Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

The Trump administration continued its reshaping of how science is evaluated at the Environmental Protection Agency with the appointment Thursday of a slew of new members to a key advisory panel.

Among the eight additions to the agency's Science Advisory Board are a number of members whose ideas run against mainstream scientific thinking on issues that include the health effects of radiation and the modeling of Earth's climate.

Andrew Wheeler, the acting EPA chief, added the eight new members while reinstalling eight others selected during the Obama administration. He cast the appointments as a reaffirmation of the Trump administration's commitment to hearing scientific opinions from a diverse set of voices.

"In a fair, open, and transparent fashion, EPA reviewed hundreds of qualified applicants nominated for this committee," Wheeler said in a statement. "Members who will be appointed or reappointed include experts from a wide variety of scientific disciplines who reflect the geographic diversity needed to represent all ten EPA regions."

But critics of the administration see this and other moves under Wheeler and former EPA chief Scott Pruitt as part of a larger push to make the agency's decisions more friendly to industry.

"The general makeup of the Science Advisory Board has changed significantly in the past two years," said Genna Reed, a science and policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "What we're seeing is a decrease in the number of academics and a surge in the number of industry and consulting-firm members."

With the announcement Thursday, 26 of the board's 45 members have been appointed by the Trump administration.

The best-known new member of the panel, though, actually does work at a university. John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, is perhaps the most prominent climate skeptic in all of academia.

Christy acknowledges that humans have altered Earth's climate. But he's a polarizing figure within the climate science community for his criticism of mainstream climate models produced by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and of scientific conclusions about the severity of global warming reached by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Pointing to his own analyses of satellite temperature data, which suggest that observed warming is on the lower side of projections, Christy has argued that atmospheric temperatures are less sensitive to the buildup of greenhouse gases than the majority of other climate scientists say they are.

Among the many scientific institutions that say global warming is dangerous is the EPA itself. In President Barack Obama's first year in office, the EPA determined greenhouse gases posed a risk to public health, giving the government the legal justification it needed to try to curb emissions from cars, coal plants and other sources.

Christy, Alabama's state climatologist, takes issue with EPA's "endangerment finding."

"I, as well as many others, am very skeptical of the basis of many of these findings, like the endangerment finding," Christy said in an interview Thursday.

He said he believes the EPA's reliance on what he regards as faulty climate models have led it to issue misguided rules for polluters. "If you use bad models," he said, "you're likely to come up with bad regulations."

Christy is often called on by Republicans leery of government climate regulations to testify before Congress. At a 2015 House Science Committee hearing, Christy described the study of climate change as a "murky" science. "We do not have laboratory methods of testing our hypotheses as many other sciences do," he said in his written remarks. "As a result, what passes for science includes opinion, arguments-from-authority, dramatic news releases, and fuzzy notions of consensus generated by preselected groups."

Michael Mann, a climatologist at Pennsylvania State University who has testified opposite Christy before lawmakers, has argued that Christy's findings have become "a central pillar in the case for climate change denial" despite the fact they have "been shown to be an artifact of faulty computations."

The advisory board will also now include Brant Ulsh, a health physicist at M.H. Chew & Associates whose work focuses on low-dose radiation.

In the past, the EPA has maintained there is some risk of cancer from any exposure to radiation. But Ulsh argues the way the government has modeled the health effects of small amounts of radiation exposure at places like nuclear power plants overplays that risk.

"Right now we spend an enormous effort trying to minimize low doses," Ulsh told the Associated Press last year. "Instead, let's spend the resources on minimizing the effect of a really big event."

Another new panelist is Richard Williams, an independent consultant and former Food and Drug Administration official who has praised the Trump administration for cutting regulations.

In the fall of 2017, Pruitt upended the agency's key advisory groups, announcing plans to jettison scientists who have received EPA grants.

The move set in motion a potentially fundamental shift, one that could change the scientific and technical advice that historically has guided the agency as it crafts environmental regulations.

"It is very, very important to ensure independence, to ensure that we're getting advice and counsel independent of the EPA," Pruitt told reporters at the time.

He estimated that the members of three different committees – the Scientific Advisory Board, the Clean Air Science Advisory Committee and the Board of Scientific Counselors – had collectively accepted $77 million in EPA grants over the past three years. He noted that researchers would have the option of ending their grant or continuing to advise EPA, "but they can't do both."

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Suspicion Confirmed: Climate Change is Racist

colonial-america-native.jpg?w968

The Hill has the story: European colonizers's mass slaughter of Native Americans caused first major change in climate Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

A new study found that European colonizers who arrived in the Americas killed so many indigenous people that it caused the first major change in the Earth's climate.

The new study, conducted by researchers at the University College London, found that by killing nearly 56 million indigenous people over the course of roughly 100 years, European settlers caused large areas of farmland to go abandoned and reforest.

The study said the new swath of vegetated land, which CNN reported was roughly the size of France at the time, caused a massive decrease of in carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere then.

Levels of carbon in the atmosphere had changed so much that it caused the planet to experience a global chill in 1610, that is now known as the Little Ice Age, researchers said.

"CO2 and climate had been relatively stable until this point," UCL Geography Professor Mark Maslin, one of the co-authors behind the study, told CNN on Friday. "So, this is the first major change we see in the Earth's greenhouse gases."

Maslin told CNN that he and the team of researchers conducted the study by examining archaeological evidence, historical data and analyzing Antarctic ice, which can trap atmospheric gas and reportedly reveal the quantity of carbon dioxide that was in the atmosphere long ago.

He said a combination of all of the above showed researchers how the reforestation that was brought on by the mass slaughter of indigenous people in the Americas led to the global chill.

"The ice cores showed that there was a larger dip in CO2 (than usual) in 1610, which was caused by the land and not the oceans," Alexander Koch, the lead author of the study, told CNN.

"For once, we've been able to balance all the boxes and realize that the only way the Little Ice Age was so intense is … because of the genocide of millions of people," Maslin added.

Summary

There you have, all wrapped up with a bow on top. The Little Ice Age was caused by too little CO2, from too many trees because white men killed too many natives. Talk about connecting the dots. Did those white guys think they could get away with it? Thankfully, wildfires are solving the excessive forests problem. Oh wait.

From the Encyclopedia Virginia: The Little Ice Age and Colonial Virginia

The Little Ice Age refers to a period beginning about AD 1300 and lasting until the middle of the eighteenth century in which the average worldwide temperature may have cooled by as much as 0.1 degrees Celsius. Despite its name, this period "was far from a deep freeze," the scholar Brian Fagan, writing in 2000, has argued. "Think instead of an irregular seesaw of rapid climatic shifts, driven by complex and still little understood interactions between the atmosphere and the ocean." Some climate scientists contend that the term "Little Ice Age" is an exaggeration; others dispute the beginning and ending dates. (Historians have suggested that severe weather during the American Civil War may have been an effect of the Little Ice Age.) But nearly all agree that the seventeenth century—when the English founded the Virginia colony at Jamestown—was one of the coldest in the last thousand years.

The cause or causes of this cooling is subject to vigorous debate. Scientists have pointed to the Maunder Minimum, a period between 1645 and 1715 when the number of observed sunspots decreased, indicating a reduced level of solar activity; however, opponents of this theory argue that the resulting decline in solar irradiation was not sufficient to cause the Little Ice Age. During this cooling period, the tilt of the earth's axis also changed. Such changes may profoundly affect ocean circulation, which, in turn, affects climate. Still other scientists have suggested that volcanic eruptions—such as one in the southern Philippines in 1642—may have had an impact on the cooling, causing chemical reactions in the atmosphere that blocked or redirected sunlight.

The extreme weather wreaked terrible consequences on both the Indians and Europeans in Virginia. As the Spanish Jesuit pointed out, Indian populations decreased during times of drought, likely because of the scarcity of food. Such scarcities also led to conflict—among Indian communities and between the Indians and Europeans. The English at Roanoke had neither the intention nor the ability to feed themselves off the land, and a cold winter and drought conditions led them to place pressure on the Algonquian-speaking Indians of Ossomocomuck to share their already depleted supplies. This, in turn, led to warfare. Indian towns were destroyed and a weroance, or chief, beheaded.

While the Little Ice Age affected the entire world, leaving significant numbers of people to subsist on little food, its impact on Virginia was particularly sharp. It raised the stakes for both Indians and Europeans, making survival more difficult and conflict more likely.

Footnote: It seems once again, climatists have got cause and effect reversed.

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PAGES2K (2017): Antarctic Proxies

A common opinion (e,g, Scott Adams) is that the "other proxies", not just Mann's stripbark bristlecone tree rings, establish Hockey Stick. In today's post, I'll look at PAGES2K Antarctic data – a very important example since Antarctic isotope data (Vostok) is used in the classic diagram used by Al Gore (and many others) to illustrate the link between CO2 and the isotopes used to estimate past temperature.

Antarctic d18O is one of the few proxies which can be accurately date in both very recent measurements and in Holocene and deep time. However, rather against message, Antarctic d18O over the past two millennia (as for example the PAGES2K 2013 compilation) has mostly gone the "wrong" way, somewhat diluting the IPCC message – to borrow a phrase.

PAGES2017 relaxed the PAGES2K ex ante quality control criteria to include 15 additional series (most of which are not new), but these, if anything, reinforce the earlier message of gradual decline over the past two millennia.

PAGES2K (2017) also added two borehole inversion series, which were given a sort of special exemption from PAGES2K quality control standards on resolution and dating. I suspect that readers already know why these series were given special exemption: one of them has a very pronounced blade. Long-time readers may vaguely recall that an (unpublished) Antarctic borehole inversion series also played an important role in conclusions of the NAS 2006 report. I tried at the time to get underlying measurement data, but was unsuccessful. A few years ago, when the PAGES2017 borehole inversion series was published, I managed (through an intermediary) to obtain much of the underlying data and even some source code for the borehole inversion. I've revisited the topic and I conclude today's post with a couple of teasers and what is an interesting analysis in works.

PAGES2K (2013)

Here is a plot of the PAGES2K Antarctic temperature reconstruction. It showed a long decline from mid-first millennium, with nearly all 19th and 20th century values and even early 21st century below the long-term mean.

This series was used in IPCC AR4 (see below). Though its most recent portion is rather muddy in the IPCC diagram, the lack of any 20th century blade is clear.

PAGES2K authors used 11 datasets in their temperature reconstruction. According to their statement of methods, they applied sensible ex ante quality control procedures by aiming at use of "longest, highest resolution and best synchronized" of available records.

Data for the Antarctic reconstruction were selected based on a restrictive approach aimed at using the longest, highest resolution and best synchronized of available records. All records were water isotope (d18O or dD) series from ice cores. The project aimed to maximize coherence by using records that could be synchronized through either high-resolution layer counting or alignment of volcanic sulfate records.

I very much endorse this sort of ex ante quality control. Which is the opposite of the far-too-common practice of ex post selection of a subset of proxies. The 11 isotope series used by PAGES2K (2013) are shown below in a gif together with the reconstruction. The series, examined individually, also show the non-HS decline illustrated in the reconstruction composite.

Several of the high-resolution PAGES2K series extending back to the MWP were first archived as part of PAGES2K, including Law Dome (DSS) and Plateau Remote, both of which I had long and unsuccessfully sought from Tas van Ommen and Ellen Mosely-Thompson.

Earlier versions of Law Dome had been used in Jones et al 1998 and Mann and Jones 2004, the latter including an illustration showing a high MWP. As an IPCC reviewer of AR4, I had asked that Law Dome d18O be included in their figure showing high-resolution Southern Hemisphere proxies. Climategate emails (see CA discussion) show that IPCC authors snickered at this request, knowing that I had asked that they show a proxy with high medieval values. There was no way that they were going to show the Law Dome series. Despite sneering at my request, they recognized that they had to cooper up their rationale for not showing such an important series and inserted the excuse that there was inconsistency between the isotope data and the reconstruction from inversion of subsurface temperatures.

Contrasting evidence of past temperature variations at Law Dome, Antarctica has been derived from ice core isotope measurements and from the inversion of a subsurface temperature profile (Dahl-Jensen et al., 1999; Goosse et al., 2004; Jones and Mann, 2004). The borehole analysis indicates colder intervals at around 1250 and 1850, followed by a gradual warming of 0.7°C to the present. The isotope record indicates a relatively cold 20th century and warmer conditions throughout the period 1000 to 1750.

I mention this incident and excuse because the inconsistency between isotope data and borehole inversions re-appears in PAGES2017.

Stenni 2017

Stenni et al 2017 (pdf; CA discussion) presented a much expanded database of high-resolution Antarctic isotope data in response to PAGES2K. They presented 112 records (94 d18O; 18 dD) , many of which were short (36 limited to last 50 years or less). 15 records went back to AD1000; 9 went back to AD0. However, 4 of the additional series did not come up to the present or even to AD1950. Four series (TALDICE; DML07; DML17 and Berkner Island) dated from the 1990s; the reason for their exclusion from PAGES2013 is unclear. It included a much lengthened version of WDC06A, a companion hole to WAIS WDC05A. If a site had both d18O and dD records, they used the d18O record and did not double up. There was only one new long series: Roosevelt Island. It showed the long gradual two-millennium decline evident in other records.

Stenni et al produced a reconstruction, which, as pointed out at CA previously, used ex post screening to select series that had positive correlation with upward trending instrumental temperature data:

Even with this bias, their temperature reconstruction had a pronounced downward trend over the past two millennium – entirely consistent with the Law Dome d18O that IPCC had refused to show in AR4 a decade ago.

stenni-2017-annotated.png?w=1024&h=853

PAGES2K (2017)

The PAGES2K (2017) dataset consisted of 27 series. They used 10 of 11 PAGES2K series (of which one series was updated), added 15 isotope series and two VERY unresolved borehole temperature reconstructions. 13 (of 15) new isotope series had been previously used in Stenni et al 2017; the other two series were dD series at sites where d18O series had already been used. The earlier compilations had avoided such duplication.

PAGES (2017) said that their standards for Antarctic ice core isotope series had been relaxed to include "shorter and decadal-scale-resolution" records:

for some proxy types, the standards in this version were broadened compared to the criteria used previously by PAGES2k regional groups. In most regions, records have been added that have become available since the publication of PAGES2k-2013, or that were not used in the continental-scale reconstructions because they are not annually resolved and therefore did not conform to the reconstruction method used by a particular regional group. In Antarctica, for example, PAGES2k-2013 included only the longest annually resolved ice cores, whereas the present version includes shorter and decadal-scale-resolution records.

Of the 15 new isotope series, 5 begin after the medieval period; 5 end before 1940; 4 have decadal resolution or less. None of the new isotope series begin prior to AD1000; end after AD1950 and have better than decadal resolution. Three series which begin at exactly AD1000 meet the other two criteria. Of these three series, two (DML07, DML17) are from the same campaign and author as the 2013 series DML05 and add little new information. I mentioned the other series, an isotope series from Berkner Island, five and seven years ago in connection with the SH network of Neukom, Gergis and Karoly(see here, here). The new isotope data show the same two-millennium decline as PAGES2K and Stenni et al 2017.

The two borehole series invert downhole thermometer temperatures to supposedly estimate past temperature. These inversions use extremely ill-conditioned matrices – an issue that doesn't seem to be clearly understood by proponents – with resolution far lower than PAGES2K standards. (PAGES2017 falsely asserts that one of the two series has annual resolution, and that the other has 100-year resolution.)

PAGES (2017) acknowledged that the resolution of borehole inversions was "less straightforward" than other proxies – an understatement, but nonetheless asserted, waving their arms wildly, that the records were "appropriate for examining decadal to multi-centennial variability":

PAGES2K scientific questions focus on centennial and finer time scales. Terrestrial and lacustrine records were included with average sample resolution of 50 years or finer. However, such records are rare from marine sediments, and thus a minimum average sample resolution of 200 years was accepted for this database. We also included 4 borehole records, although quantifying median resolution is less straightforward in boreholes than in other archives. The borehole records in the database are appropriate for examining decadal to multi-centennial scale variability, depending on the timeframe of interest [21- Orsi et al, Little Ice Age cold interval in West Antarctica: Evidence from borehole temperature at the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide. Geophysical Research Letters 39, L09710 (2012). pdf

There is, of course, a different and real reason for PAGES (2017) insertion of borehole records which didn't meet PAGES2K ex ante quality standards: the borehole inversions, especially at WAIS Divide (shown in the gif below) have a pronounced 20th century blade, which is absent in the Antarctic isotope data. Cynical readers might reasonably conclude that this had something to do with the PAGES2K decision to abandon its quality control standards for these records.

Discussion of Antarctic Borehole Data

I'm going to write a detailed analysis of the WAIS Divide borehole inversion in a separate post . Antarctic played a surprisingly prominent role in conclusions of the 2006 NAS paleoclimate report, but NAS provided no citations for their assertions about Antarctic. I challenged their assertions and, in a surprise appearance in Climate Audit comments, Eric Steig agreed with my criticisms (while slagging me either for making the criticisms or, more likely, for existing.) I was later able to determine from a NAS panelist that their assertions about Antarctic were based on unpublished borehole inversion data. I tried to get the underlying data (measured in 1994-95) from USGS but the data could not be provided to me because it lacked "official USGS approval" which had thus far not been obtained due to other pressing obligations. (Twelve years later, the data remains unarchived.) In 2009, I looked at inversion techniques for downhole temperatures in "boreholes" in rock. (These almost entirely come from mineral exploration.) I noted that the techniques required inversion of very ill-conditioned matrices and that some properties looked like Chladni-type artifacts.

When Orsi et al published their borehole inversion in 2012, I asked an associate to request for data and code (figuring that it would be pointless to request the data myself.) Orsi courteously sent both data and code to the associate, who sent it to me. Much of the code had been written in 1990 in an antique Fortran; the rest was in Matlab. I spent some time in 2012 trying to figure it out, but put it to one side after a while. I've re-visited the topic with some interesting results which I'll write up at length, but, for now, give two teasers.

First, the downhole temperature curve was both convex and smooth. (Convex means that there were no changes in the direction of curvature.) However, the reconstruction had three major changes in curvature direction and, in detail, many small changes. Mathematically, this is very unsettling: without some very peculiar conditions, the inverse of a convex and smooth curve ought to be convex (or concave) and smooth as well. So how do the changes in curvature in the reconstruction arise? Are they real or an artifact? (In some prior CA posts, I've discussed changes in curvature in connection with Chladni patterns arising from principal components on tree ring networks – so there are some interesting connections to a long-standing mathematical interest.) However, it's a little long and detailed for this post.

While I was trying to figure out the code, I noticed the authors had excluded the top 15 meters of their data "because of the influence of the weather on surface measurements". This raises an obvious question: what did the excluded data look like?

Fortunately, Orsi's unpublished data package included the six excluded measurements (all between 7 and 16 meters); no data from 0 to 7 meters was included. The excluded data is shown (in red) in figure below: it continued upward a little further, then declined, retracing about half the increase. Given that the overarching conclusion of the article was rapid recent increase in temperature, it's a little unsettling that they deleted the most recent data (which went down).

The WDC05A archive for isotope data includes both depth and date. Layers at 15-18 meters date back to the 1960s. It seems odd to me that they've purported to reconstruct temperature up to 2007 using data that is truncated back to layers dating from the 1960s.

Conclusion

I plan a separate post on the curvature issues, which are of mathematical interest (to me at least). I'm very dubious of these borehole inversions in general and am extra dubious of this borehole inversion in particular. Given all the teasing of climate scientists about blaming cold waves on "weather" and heat waves on "climate", it's ironic to see these authors exclude data back to the 1960s on "weather". Perhaps there's a good reason, but they didn't mention it in the article.

From the perspective of PAGES2K (2017 version), it seems transparent that they plan to include even questionable borehole inversions in their composite in an effort to goose the inconveniently declining isotope data into a Hockey Stick.

from Climate Change Skeptic Blogs via hj on Inoreader http://bit.ly/2UANZlq

Does information and communication technologies improve environmental quality in the era of globalization? An empirical analysis

Abstract

This study intends to examine the impact of ICTs (i.e., internet usage and mobile cellular subscriptions), globalization, electricity consumption, financial development, and economic growth on environmental quality by using 1994–2014 panel data of BRICS economies. This study employed a second-generation panel unit root test accounting for the presence of cross-sectional dependence and indicated that carbon dioxide emissions, electricity consumption, financial development, internet usage, mobile usage, globalization, and economic growth have integration of order one. The results from Westerlund panel co-integration test confirms that the variables are co-integrated and revealed that ICT-finance-globalization-electricity-GDP-CO₂ nexus has long-run equilibrium relationship. The results from dynamic seemingly unrelated regression (DSUR) indicate that internet usage and mobile cellular subscriptions (ICTs) have significant, adverse impact on carbon dioxide emissions. To put it simply, ICT positively contributes towards environmental quality. Similarly, economic growth also has an adverse effect on carbon dioxide emissions. On the other hand, electricity consumption, globalization, and financial development have a significant positive effect on carbon emissions. In addition, Granger causality test results show the presence of a bidirectional causal relationship between internet usage and environmental quality, financial development and electricity consumption, ICT and financial development, mobile cellular subscription and globalization, economic growth and environmental quality, and internet usage and economic growth. A unidirectional causal link is detected running from mobile cellular subscriptions towards environmental quality, ICT towards electricity consumption, financial development towards environmental quality, globalization towards environmental quality, and globalization towards economic growth. Moreover, time series analysis has also been done in this study to analyze the findings for each of BRICS countries which are directed towards important policy implications. For instance, ICT policy can play an integral part in improving environmental quality policy.

from Climate Change Skeptic Blogs via hj on Inoreader http://bit.ly/2S4g9Iv

Experimental investigation of diesel engine performance fuelled with the blends of Jatropha curcas , ethanol, and diesel

Abstract

Nonrenewable fossil fuels show increased demand and with fossil fuels at a rapid depleting stage, there seems to be an increase in requirement for alternative fuels too. Biofuels and blended fossil fuels are one of a kind. Nonedible jatropha (Jatropha curcas) oil-based methyl ester was produced and mixed with ethanol and blended with conventional diesel in various compositions. Jatropha biodiesel is used because of its great blending capacity with diesel. Sodium hydroxide is used as a catalyst which allows miscibility between ethanol and diesel. In present epoch, the paucity of fossil fuels and its adverse impact have driven researchers to focus on alternative fuels. Biodiesel is one of the most favorable and promising alternatives in the application of automobiles, boilers, gas turbines, etc. This study targets at finding the engine performance and emission characteristics under various load conditions on Kirloskar single-cylinder VCR research engine by blending both jatropha biodiesel and ethanol with base diesel at various compositions. Both jatropha biodiesel and ethanol have high calorific value which is a most important factor for engine power production. The performance analysis showed that the biodiesel blend of 98% diesel with 1.5% jatropha biodiesel and 0.5% (D98J1.5E0.5) of ethanol had a significant improvement in the engine performance than the conventional diesel.

from Climate Change Skeptic Blogs via hj on Inoreader http://bit.ly/2UBglMu

Week 106: The Shutdown’s Mark on Joshua Tree National Park Will Last for Centuries

trumpvearth_joshuatree_40188923981_739c0

from Climate Change Skeptic Blogs via hj on Inoreader https://on.nrdc.org/2t2lEZy

Study: Global Warming will Cause More Baby Heart Defects

Guest essay by Eric Worrall A new study claims exposure to heat stress increases the risk of congenital heart defects. Climate change may increase congenital heart defects Journal of the American Heart Association Report January 30, 2019 Categories: Heart News Study Highlights: The rise in temperatures stemming from climate change may increase the number of…

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Synthesis and characterization of magnetic Fe 3 O 4 @CaSiO 3 composites and evaluation of their adsorption characteristics for heavy metal ions

Abstract

A two-component material (Fe₃O₄@CaSiO₃) with an Fe₃O₄ magnetite core and layered porous CaSiO₃ shell from calcium nitrate and sodium silicate was synthesized by precipitation. The structure, morphology, magnetic properties, and composition of the Fe₃O₄@CaSiO₃ composite were characterized in detail, and its adsorption performance, adsorption kinetics, and recyclability for Cu²⁺, Ni²⁺, and Cr³⁺ adsorption were studied. The Fe₃O₄@CaSiO₃ composite has a 2D core–layer architecture with a cotton-like morphology, specific surface area of 41.56 m²/g, pore size of 16 nm, and pore volume of 0.25 cm³/g. The measured magnetization saturation values of the magnetic composite were 57.1 emu/g. Data of the adsorption of Cu²⁺, Ni²⁺, and Cr³⁺ by Fe₃O₄@CaSiO₃ fitted the Redlich–Peterson and pseudo-second-order models well, and all adsorption processes reached equilibrium within 150 min. The maximum adsorption capacities of Fe₃O₄@CaSiO₃ toward Cu²⁺, Ni²⁺, and Cr³⁺ were 427.10, 391.59, and 371.39 mg/g at an initial concentration of 225 mg/L and a temperature of 293 K according to the fitted curve with the Redlich–Peterson model, respectively. All adsorption were spontaneous endothermic processes featuring an entropy increase, including physisorption, chemisorption, and ion exchange; among these process, chemisorption was the primary mechanism. Fe₃O₄@CaSiO₃ exhibited excellent adsorption, regeneration, and magnetic separation performance, thereby demonstrating its potential applicability to removing heavy metal ions.

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Preparation of various thiol-functionalized carbon-based materials for enhanced removal of mercury from aqueous solution

Abstract

In this work, biochar (BC), activated carbon (AC), and graphene oxide (GO) were thiol-functionalized using 3-mercaptopropyltrimethoxysilane (3-MPTS) (named as BCS, ACS, and GOS, respectively). BCS, ACS, and GOS were synthesized mainly via the interaction between hydrolyzed 3-MPTS and surface oxygen-containing functional groups (e.g., –OH, O–C=O, and C=O) and π-π interaction. The materials before and after modification were characterized and tested for mercury removal, including sorption kinetics and isotherms, the effects of adsorbent dosage, initial pH, and ionic strength. Pseudo-second-order sorption kinetic model (R² = 0.992~1.000) and Langmuir sorption isotherm model (R² = 0.964~0.998) fitted well with the sorption data of mercury. GOS had the most –SH groups with the largest adsorption capacity for Hg²⁺ and CH₃Hg⁺ (449.6 and 127.5 mg/g), followed by ACS (235.7 and 86.7 mg/g) and BCS (175.6 and 30.3 mg/g), which were much larger than GO (96.7 and 4.9 mg/g), AC (81.1 and 24.6 mg/g), and BC (95.6 and 9.4 mg/g). GOS and ACS showed stable mercury adsorption properties at a wide pH range (2~9) and ionic strength (0.01~0.1 mol/L). Mercury maybe removed by ligand exchange, surface complexation, and electrostatic attraction.

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The application of forward osmosis for simulated surface water treatment by using trisodium citrate as draw solute

Abstract

In this study, trisodium citrate was used as draw solute in forward osmosis (FO) due to its biodegradability and easy reuse after FO dilution. The effect of operating conditions on FO performance was investigated. The study focused on the long-term flux performance and membrane fouling when surface water was used as feed solution. A water flux of 9.8 LMH was observed using 0.5 M trisodium citrate as draw solution in PRO mode. In the long-term FO process, trisodium citrate showed a slight decrease in total flux loss (13.06%) after 20 h of operation. The membrane fouling was significantly reduced after a two-step physical cleaning. A considerable flux recovery (> 95%) of the fouled membrane was finally obtained. Therefore, this study proves the superiority of trisodium citrate as draw solution and paves a new way in applying FO directly for surface water reclamation.

from Climate Change Skeptic Blogs via hj on Inoreader http://bit.ly/2MJDSba