Real Global Temperature Trend, p18 – Now how high is climate sensitivity? Here’s the answer of the world’s 16 leading climate experts!

If you have any affinity with climate science, this should interest you – probably a lot: Piers Forster, James Hansen, Gavin Schmidt, Alan Robock, Michael Mann, Ken Caldeira, Stefan Rahmstorf, Chris Forest, Gabriele Hegerl, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Jonathan Gregory, Drew … Continue reading

Real Global Temperature Trend, p17 – Climate System Thermal Inertia is lower when you don’t assume CO2 flatline

Oceans, oceans, oceans. You thought the atmosphere was complex? Well, just take a look at the oceans. Oddly shaped features with disturbing cycles and conveyor belt currents. Home of the octopus, the blue whale and a Mariana Trench full of … Continue reading

Real Global Temperature Trend, p7 – ‘Volcanoes did not cool the Earth in the 1980s, so Climate Sensitivity at least 2.1 to 8.9 degrees Celsius’

Even if you assume a low value for the variables of SO2 cooling and the rate of heat uptake by the deep ocean. Yes, that caught our eyes too. “Studies of these [volcanic eruptions and El Niño] effects using climate models … Continue reading

Permian-Triassic climate lesson: Don’t even try to adapt to a mass extinction, mitigate – a single plague can kill a planet!

The second part of the new IPCC report, about the impacts of climate change, has been released on Monday. Across the globe dutiful journalists filled the headlines of their newspapers – and as they presume most of their readers are … Continue reading

First ever completely carbon solar cell captures infrared light

About 40 percent of the solar energy reaching Earth’s surface lies in the near-infrared region of the spectrum — energy that conventional silicon-based solar cells are unable to harness. But a new kind of all-carbon solar cell developed by MIT researchers could tap into that unused energy, opening up the possibility of combination solar cells — incorporating both traditional silicon-based cells and the new all-carbon cells — that could make use of almost the entire range of sunlight’s energy.

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Latin America and Asia at the forefront in planning for the effects of climate change

Quito, Ecuador, is not considered a global leader by most measures. But there is one way in which Quito is at the forefront of metropolises worldwide: in planning for climate change. For more than a decade, officials in Ecuador’s mountainous capital have been studying the effects of global warming on nearby melting glaciers, developing ways of dealing with potential water shortages and even organizing conferences on climate change for leaders of other Latin American cities.

Injecting various drugs without needles made possible by new device

Needleless hypodermic deviceGetting a shot at the doctor’s office may become less painful in the not-too-distant future.

MIT researchers have engineered a device that delivers a tiny, high-pressure jet of medicine through the skin without the use of a hypodermic needle. The device can be programmed to deliver a range of doses to various depths — an improvement over similar jet-injection systems that are now commercially available.

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13,000 Brits die yearly due to air pollution

In a study appearing this month in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, MIT researchers report that emissions from cars, trucks, planes and powerplants cause 13,000 premature deaths in the United Kingdom each year.

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Nano-copper and nano-gold combine to form effective CO2 converter

nanoparticles

Researchers have combined gold nanoparticles (in light red) with copper nanoparticles (in light green) to form hybrid nanoparticles (dark red), which they turned into powder (foreground) to catalyze carbon dioxide reduction (credit Zhichuan Xu)

Copper — the stuff of pennies and tea kettles — is also one of the few metals that can turn carbon dioxide into hydrocarbon fuels with relatively little energy. When fashioned into an electrode and stimulated with voltage, copper acts as a strong catalyst, setting off an electrochemical reaction with carbon dioxide that reduces the greenhouse gas to methane or methanol.

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MOC may have a power switch in Southern Ocean too

MOC stands for Meridional Overturning Circulation, and although it refers to the same global pattern of ocean currents (‘conveyor belt’) as the thermohaline circulation, this story shows why actually MOC is the more accurate name, as it is not just … Continue reading