Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy
Category Archives: NASA
“Space, climate change, and the real meaning of theory”
(From The New Yorker, 17th August 2016, by the late former astronaut Dr Piers Sellers) Excerpt from “Space, climate change, and the real meaning of theory”: . . . The facts of climate change are straightforward: there’s been a warming … Continue reading
On the responsibilities of engineers
A recent tour of Titanic Belfast with my son, Dave, and pondering the responsibilities of engineers with respect to Big Constructs, like defending a city against floods, or advising on the ramifications of deploying geoengineering, and worrying about the tendency … Continue reading
Posted in aeroautics, engineering, NASA
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The Azimuth Climate Data Backup Project, in association with ClimateMirror
(Updated the afternoon of 31st May 2017.) The Azimuth Climate Data Backup Project, operating in association with ClimateMirror, is being funded via the Kickstarter available at this link. Give what you can. Thanks! See our goal statement. This is all … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, citizen science, civilization, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate education, climate justice, Climate Lab Book, cynicism, denial, Donald Trump, education, EIA, ethics, evidence, fear uncertainty and doubt, forecasting, fossil fuels, Global Carbon Project, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, NASA, NOAA, open data, open source scientific software, rationality, reason, reasonableness, risk, science, science denier, science education, smart data, statistics, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, UU, ``The tide is risin'/And so are we''
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`Moving forward on climate change and sustainability`
From WGBH, and hat tip to Environmental Justice TV, includes Dr Gavin Schmidt speaking, who I was especially interested in, and whose talk begins here: Interesting that Dr Schmidt has some gentle criticism of the PBS program NOVA. Whole talk … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, Buckminster Fuller, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, Ecology Action, environment, Equiterre, fossil fuel divestment, Gavin Schmidt, geophysics, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, Kevin Anderson, moral leadership, NASA, physics, science, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, zero carbon
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Global Carbon Dioxide in 3D
Your CO2, my CO2 doesn’t remain with you or me, but mixes broadly and thoroughly over the planet at large. So, we all share responsibility for the damage. Credit: NASA And brought to you by OCO-2.
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, atmosphere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, civilization, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, diffusion, diffusion processes, Donald Trump, dynamical systems, ecology, environment, fluid eddies, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, NASA, NCAR
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Our uncontrolled experiment with Earth as an Astrophysics problem set
Hat tip to And then there’s Physics …: On climate change and Astrobiology , by Adam Frank.
Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, astrophysics, bacteria, bollocks, Carl Sagan, civilization, climate, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, cynicism, Daniel Kahneman, David Archer, David Suzuki, denial, destructive economic development, Eaarth, ecology, environment, environmental law, Equiterre, fossil fuels, games of chance, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, James Hansen, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, mass extinctions, meteorology, NASA, Neill deGrasse Tyson, oceanography, Our Children's Trust, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, quantitative ecology, random walks, Ray Pierrehumbert, risk, Robert Young, science, sustainability
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This Earth Day: The Data
(Amendments on 25the April 2016.) Sorry, folks, it’s It’s not just El Niño. El Niño’s have gotten bigger over the years. (Click on image for a larger picture. Use your browser Back Button to return to blog.) (Click on image … Continue reading
Posted in American Petroleum Institute, Antarctica, Anthropocene, Arctic, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, BEST, Bill Nye, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, Chevron, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate justice, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, corruption, Dan Satterfield, ecology, El Nina, El Nino, ENSO, environment, evidence, Exxon, false advertising, fear uncertainty and doubt, fossil fuels, fracking, geophysics, glaciers, glaciology, global warming, greenhouse gases, Gulf Oil, Hyper Anthropocene, ice sheet dynamics, icesheets, ignorance, James Hansen, John Cook, La Nina, meteorology, NASA, NCAR, NOAA, oceanography, open data, organizational failures, physics, rationality, reasonableness, regulatory capture, science, science education, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, sea level rise, selfishness, Spaceship Earth, statistics, sustainability, Texaco, the problem of evil, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, UU Humanists, WAIS, WHOI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, zero carbon
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Sheila Widnall on the responsibilities of engineers: The COLUMBIA accident and its CAIB
Highly recommended. Always moving, at least for me. Engineering is a serious business: http://mit.tv/AjqL6n Engineers and their programs are embedded in organizational structures. These structures control the success or failures of the program. In dealing with high risk technologies the … Continue reading
Phytoplankton-delineated oceanic eddies near Antarctica
Excerpt, from NASA: Phytoplankton are the grass of the sea. They are floating, drifting, plant-like organisms that harness the energy of the Sun, mix it with carbon dioxide that they take from the atmosphere, and turn it into carbohydrates and … Continue reading
Posted in AMETSOC, Antarctica, Arctic, bacteria, Carbon Cycle, complex systems, differential equations, diffusion, diffusion processes, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, Emily Shuckburgh, environment, fluid dynamics, geophysics, GLMs, John Marshall, marine biology, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, NASA, numerical analysis, numerical software, oceanic eddies, oceanography, physics, phytoplankton, science, thermohaline circulation, WHOI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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“No – no words. No words to describe it.”
Some celestial event. No – no words. No words to describe it. Poetry! They should’ve sent a poet. So beautiful. So beautiful… I had no idea. (From Carl Sagan’s Contact, the movie version.) Hat tip to Climate Denial Crock of … Continue reading
Posted in AMETSOC, Anthropocene, astronomy, astrophysics, Bill Nye, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, Carl Sagan, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, COP21, Disney, ecology, education, energy, environment, ethics, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, James Hansen, meteorology, NASA, NCAR, NOAA, oceanography, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, science, science education, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, Walt Disney Company, zero carbon
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Pale Blue Dot
Compassion, yes. Love, no.
Posted in astronomy, astrophysics, atheism, Bill Maher, Bill Nye, bollocks, Boston Ethical Society, Carl Sagan, citizenship, civilization, compassion, ecology, geophysics, humanism, NASA, physical materialism, physics, population biology, Sankey diagram, Spaceship Earth, statistics, stochastics
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El Nino In A Can – Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal – AGU Blogosphere
Click the image above to see a video from the GFDL CM2.6 climate model. This is NOT this year’s El Nino. When you start a climate model in which the ocean and the land and atmosphere can inte… Source: El … Continue reading
Posted in AMETSOC, astrophysics, climate, climate change, climate models, computation, Dan Satterfield, differential equations, diffusion, diffusion processes, dynamical systems, ENSO, environment, forecasting, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, Kerry Emanuel, mathematics, maths, mesh models, meteorology, model comparison, NASA, NCAR, NOAA, numerical analysis, oceanography, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, science, Spaceship Earth, stochastics, supercomputers, the right to know, thermodynamics, time series
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New Study Projects That Melting of Antarctic Ice Shelves Will Intensify
New research published today projects a doubling of surface melting of Antarctic ice shelves by 2050 and by 2100 may surpass intensities associated with ice shelf collapse, if greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel consumption continues at the present rate. … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, capricious gods, carbon dioxide, civilization, climate, climate disruption, ecology, exponential growth, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, icesheets, James Hansen, meteorology, NASA, NOAA, oceanography, physics, prediction, risk, science, sea level rise, sustainability, temporal myopia, WAIS, WHOI
New Paper Shows Global Climate Model Errors are Significantly Less Than Thought (Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal)
New Paper Shows Global Climate Model Errors are Significantly Less Than Thought – Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal – AGU Blogosphere. The paper is here, unfortunately behind a paywall. I wonder if they looked at the temperature distributions’ second moments? … Continue reading
Posted in Arctic, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate models, differential equations, diffusion processes, ensembles, environment, forecasting, geophysics, global warming, HadCRUT4, meteorology, model comparison, NASA, NCAR, NOAA, oceanography, open data, physics, prediction, rationality, reasonableness, science, statistics, Tamino, time series
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Professor James Hansen responds and explains:
The recent paper by Hansen, Soto, and others has caused a stir, as I suspect it was intended to do so. I posted about this paper earlier. Now Professor Hansen has responded to the critics of his team’s work and … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, arXiv, astrophysics, bifurcations, biology, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate models, COP21, denial, disingenuity, dynamical systems, ecology, education, environment, ethics, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, James Hansen, maths, meteorology, NASA, NCAR, new forms of scientific peer review, NOAA, oceanography, open source scientific software, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, probability, rationality, reasonableness, science, science education, sea level rise, temporal myopia, the right to know, time series, WAIS, zero carbon
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Sea Surface Anomalies
(Hat tip to Susan Stone.) The graphic below shows sea surface temperature anomalies relative to the 1971-2000 baseline First data are courtesy of the Climate Reanalyzer, a joint project of the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine, and … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, differential equations, diffusion processes, dynamical systems, ecology, ENSO, environment, forecasting, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, IPCC, mathematics, MCMC, NASA, NCAR, NOAA, oceanography, open data, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, sea level rise, statistics, sustainability, the right to know, time series, transparency
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New “NASA and NOAA” global temperature series
Love the “But I digress” in Tamino‘s post “NASA and NOAA” about new global temperature series from both agencies. Tamino references this lecture by the middle-of-the-road climate scientist and hurricanes expert Professor Kerry Emanuel:
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, carbon dioxide, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate education, denial, ecology, environment, forecasting, geophysics, global warming, hiatus, hurricanes, IPCC, meteorology, NASA, NOAA, nor'easters, oceanography, open data, physics, politics, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, statistics, Tamino, WHOI, Wordpress
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“NOAA temperature record updates and the ‘hiatus’” (Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate)
NOAA temperature record updates and the ‘hiatus’.
Links explaining climate change Kevin Jones liked
Kevin Jones asked me if I could put the links in a Comment on a post I made at Google+ in a collection or something for reference. I am therefore repeating the Comment with these details below. No one simple … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, astrophysics, bifurcations, biology, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, chance, citizen science, citizenship, civilization, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate models, climate zombies, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, dynamical systems, ecology, economics, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, environment, exponential growth, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, history, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, living shorelines, mass extinctions, mass transit, mathematics, maths, meteorology, methane, microgrids, model comparison, NASA, natural gas, NCAR, NOAA, oceanography, physics, politics, population biology, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, science, science education, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, sea level rise, sociology, solar power, statistics, temporal myopia, the right to know, Tony Seba, WHOI, wind power, zero carbon
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China, solar power, the Gobi Desert, and 3 years
NASA’s Earth Observing Satellite 1 has been imaging Earth’s surface for a while. That permits long term comparisons. One is dramatic evidence of China’s commitment to zero Carbon energy, in the Gobi Desert. Here are two images from that platform, … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, citizenship, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, conservation, decentralized electric power generation, efficiency, energy, environment, ethics, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, investment in wind and solar energy, NASA, physics, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, solar power, temporal myopia, wind power, zero carbon
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“NOAA temperature record updates and the ‘hiatus’” (from Gavin at REALCLIMATE)
NOAA temperature record updates and the ‘hiatus’. No doubt there’ll be, as Dr Schmidt says, a howl of protests that the data are “being manipulated”. There’s more discussion by Professor Mann. But, more to the point, it looks like we’re … Continue reading
Posted in chance, citizen science, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, climate models, diffusion processes, dynamical systems, energy, ensembles, forecasting, geophysics, global warming, hiatus, maths, meteorology, model comparison, NASA, NCAR, NOAA, oceanography, physics, rationality, spatial statistics, statistics, stochastics, temporal myopia, time series
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On the Climate Club
But if the other advanced nations had a stick — a tariff of 4 percent on the imports from countries not in the “climate club” — the cost-benefit calculation for the United States would flip. Not participating in the club … Continue reading
We are trying. And the bitterest result is to have so-called colleagues align themselves with the Koch brothers
I attended a 350.org meeting tonight. One group A group presenting there called “Fighting Against Natural Gas” applauded themselves for assailing Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island for his supportive position on natural gas pipelines. Now, I am no friend of … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, astrophysics, Boston Ethical Society, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Tax, chemistry, citizenship, climate, climate change, climate education, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, demand-side solutions, ecology, economics, energy reduction, engineering, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, JAGS, meteorology, methane, model comparison, NASA, natural gas, NCAR, Neill deGrasse Tyson, oceanography, open data, physics, politics, population biology, Principles of Planetary Climate, Python 3, R, rationality, reasonableness, reproducible research, risk, science, science education, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
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Richard Muller: “I Was Wrong On Global Warming, But It Didn’t Convince The ‘Sceptics'”
Update. 26th February 2015 This is not directly related to the BEST project described in the YouTube video above, but the Berkeley National Laboratory has experimentally linked increases in radiative forcing with increases in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 due to … Continue reading
Posted in astrophysics, Bayes, carbon dioxide, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate education, differential equations, ecology, environment, geoengineering, geophysics, IPCC, mathematics, maths, meteorology, model comparison, NASA, NCAR, NOAA, oceanography, physics, population biology, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, reproducible research, risk, science, science education, sea level rise, the right to know
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Models don’t over-estimate warming?
Originally posted on …and Then There's Physics:
I thought I might write about the new paper by Jochem Marotzke and Piers Forster called Forcing, feedback and internal variability in global temperature trends. It’s already been discussed in a Carbon…
Posted in astrophysics, carbon dioxide, chemistry, citizen science, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate education, differential equations, diffusion processes, ecology, education, energy, forecasting, geophysics, IPCC, mathematics, meteorology, model comparison, NASA, NCAR, NOAA, oceanography, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, science, statistics, the right to know
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The designers of our climate
Originally posted on …and Then There's Physics:
Okay, I finally succumbed and actually waded through some of the new paper by Monckton, Soon, Legates & Briggs called Why models run hot: results from an irreducibly simple climate model. I…
Posted in astrophysics, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Tax, Carl Sagan, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate education, differential equations, ecology, economics, engineering, environment, ethics, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, geoengineering, geophysics, humanism, IPCC, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, meteorology, methane, NASA, NCAR, Neill deGrasse Tyson, NOAA, oceanography, open data, open source scientific software, physics, politics, population biology, Principles of Planetary Climate, probabilistic programming, R, rationality, reasonableness, reproducible research, risk, science, science education, scientific publishing, sociology, solar power, statistics, testing, the right to know
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Codium fragile, for Saturday, 17th January 2015
With today’s post, I’m beginning a new tradition at 667 per cm, posting a potpourri of short observations collected during the week, not necessarily having dense citations to work which inspired them. (Although if interested, please do ask and I’ll … Continue reading
Posted in art, arXiv, astronomy, astrophysics, atheism, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, Carbon Tax, Carl Sagan, chemistry, citizen science, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate education, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, demand-side solutions, ecology, economics, energy, engineering, environment, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, geoengineering, history, humanism, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, meteorology, methane, microgrids, NASA, Neill deGrasse Tyson, new forms of scientific peer review, NOAA, notes, nuclear power, oceanography, open data, open source scientific software, physics, politics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, reproducible research, science, science education, scientific publishing, sociology, the right to know
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AIP’s surprisingly good summary of climate change, in detail
The American Institute of Physics has a surprisingly good summary of climate change science and its history, including current issues and how we understand what we do about it. This is something an organization like the American Meteorological Society should … Continue reading
Posted in astronomy, astrophysics, bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carl Sagan, civilization, climate, climate change, climate education, environment, forecasting, geophysics, IPCC, meteorology, NASA, NOAA, oceanography, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, science education
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El Nino, the scientific story (by Daniel Gross)
A scientific detective story. El Niño. How in the world did they figure that out? “Fishing in pink waters: How scientists unraveled the El Niño mystery“. By Daniel Gross. Hat tip to Greg Laden.
