Tag Archives: CO2

Can’t see a problem in the middle of a greenhouse? CO2 clouds the mind – from 1000+ ppm

Hypercapnia it turns out, develops much more gradually than previously assumed. Apparently long before we pass thresholds that mean real medical trouble, our bodies – and our minds – can be disturbed by elevated CO2 levels in the air around … Continue reading →

The Big Melting Record that did not shake the world

Do you recall the big Arctic melting records of 2005 and 2007? Probably you do. Scientists had noticed the Arctic ice was on a declining trend and predicted this would continue under expected climate change. But no one expected the … Continue reading →

´Fewer wildfires in North America during Little Ice Age – due to climate cooling, not population decline´

Because cooler climates also tend to have lower evaporation, they tend to be moister climates, with not only moist air, but also moister (dead) biomass – and we all know wet twigs don’t burn too well…

Trees starting to grow in the Arctic due to climate change could cause carbon dioxide release

Carbon stored in Arctic tundra could be released into the atmosphere by new trees growing in the warmer region, exacerbating climate change, scientists have revealed.

The Arctic is getting greener as plant growth increases in response to a warmer climate. This greater plant growth means more carbon is stored in the increasing biomass, so it was previously thought the greening would result in more carbon dioxide being taken up from the atmosphere, thus helping to reduce the rate of global warming.

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Albedo increase by geoengineering could disrupt global rainfall patterns

A geoengineering solution to climate change could lead to significant rainfall reduction in Europe and North America, a team of European scientists concludes. The researchers studied how models of the Earth in a warm, CO2‑rich world respond to an artificial reduction in the amount of sunlight reaching the planet’s surface. The study is published today in Earth System Dynamics, an Open Access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU).

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Zeolites can reduce carbon capture energy costs by 30 per cent

Zeolite structure

In this zeolite structure, the arrangement of oxygen atoms (red) and silicon atoms (tan) influences the regions in the pores (colored surface) where CO2 can be captured.

A detailed analysis of more than 4 million absorbent minerals has determined that new materials could help electricity producers slash as much as 30 percent of the “parasitic energy” costs associated with removing carbon dioxide from power plant emissions.

The research by scientists at Rice University, the University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) was published online this week in the journal Nature Materials (“In silico screening of carbon-capture materials”).

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