Oldie But Goodie

By Joel Pett, 2009:

From Wikipedia:

The cartoon, which first appeared in USA Today in December 2009,[3] around the time of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference,[4] depicts a conference presenter listing the many advantages of curbing climate change including "energy independence, preserving rainforests, sustainability, green jobs, livable cities, renewables, clean water/air, healthy children, etc., etc.," only to have a climate change denier interject that if it were all a hoax, we'd create a "better world for nothing".[5] Shortly after the conference was over, Pett got a request for a signed copy from then-EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson, who framed the comic and put it on her wall. Pett has repeatedly gotten requests from over 40 environmental groups, in the United States, Canada and Europe to use the cartoon in campaigns. The Australian Greens used it in a campaign which some have claimed was influential in the Australian parliament adopting a carbon pricing scheme under the Clean Energy Act 2011, said to be the most rigorous scheme in the world for the time it was active.[6]

"I've drawn 7,000 cartoons in my life, but really only one," Pett said. "It's an example of one of these ideas I had in my head for 10 years before I realized I hadn't cartooned it...I was thinking, you know, 'It doesn't matter if global warming were a hoax, if the scientists made it up, we still have to do all that shit.'"[7] Pett said in a 2012 editorial that in the 27 months since its first publication, not a week had gone by where he didn't have a request to use the image.[5]

The Dominator

Hockey season is coming up, so please pardon the occasional post on this greatest (IMHO) of sports. 

It's still two months until the NHL hockey season starts--three and a half weeks before the first preseason game--and most of the trades and acquisitions have been done by now. Most notably, my Pittsburgh Penguins hired Kyle Dubas, whose contract wasn't extended by the Toronto Maple Leafs after they failed to advance past the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. (Meanwhile, they just rewarded this guy, who didn't really do enough in the playoffs {5G 6A in 11 GP}, an astonishing $13.25 million a year for four years.) In Pittsburgh Dubas made a lot of strong moves very quickly, and there's some talk the Penguins might be real contenders again. Their three Hall of Fame players--Crosby, Malkin and Letang, all at least 36 years of age, and who already have three Stanley Cups, are getting old and want one more Cup, in a league that's getting faster every year.

Anyway, I found this clip of highlights of Dominik Hasic ("The Dominator"), who played in the NHL from 1990-91 to 2007-08. Wild, acrobatic, beautiful saves. At the end of his NHL career his save percentage an amazing .922, and average goals against 2.02, winning two Stanley Cups with the Detroit Red Wings. Some consider him the best goalie ever.

Biden's Carbon Capture Programs

They're expensive. From CNN:

The Biden administration on Friday announced its first major investment to kickstart the US carbon removal industry – something energy experts say is key to getting the country’s planet-warming emissions under control.

Direct air capture removal projects are akin to huge vacuum cleaners sucking carbon dioxide out of the air, using chemicals to remove the greenhouse gas. Once removed, CO2 gets stored underground, or is used in industrial materials like cement. On Friday, the US Department of Energy announced it is spending $1.2 billion to fund two new demonstration projects in Texas and Louisiana – the South Texas Direct Air Capture hub and Project Cypress in Louisiana

“These two projects are going to build these regional direct air capture hubs,” US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters. “That means they’re going to link everything from capture to processing to deep underground storage, all in one seamless process.”

Granholm said the projects are expected to remove more than 2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air annually once they are up and running – the equivalent of removing nearly 500,000 gas cars off the road.

So let's have a look at the numbers.

$535 per metric ton. Seems high.

I don't know the latest cost numbers for carbon capture, but I'll post this and come back with more information.

Sources:

CNN

individual car emissions (EPA)

US emissions (Energy Institute (formerly BP))

US GDP (FRED)

Checking On Antarctic Sea Ice

It's still pretty bad. Without doing the calculations, I'd say it looks more anomalously low than it was in July.

Via University of Maine's Climate Reanalyer.

Heatwave Projections

Interesting gif from Nature. 35°C=95°F.

 

The worse areas are well north of the equator.

I'd like to see that top chart but for 45°C (113°F).

Raven Teases Wolf

Here's the video, it's on Facebook. (Don't know how to embed it.) This sure looks like it was done just for fun.

Apparently ravens and wolves have a close relationship that has mutual benefits.

Here We Go Again

The normal high/low for this Monday is 84° | 55°.

I've been keeping track of daily Salem Oregon weather since I moved here on 9/1/2011. The temperature deviances are actually a pretty good Gaussian distribution. So I can estimate occurrences of high temperatures.

A high of 108°F (24°F above normal) is 3.99 standard deviations over the mean, which should occur 84 years.

Our high of 117°F on 6/28/21, the monster Pacific Northwest Heat Wave of 2021, was 39°F above normal, which should happen every 165 million years. (!)

I only have 10.9 years of data, so these numbers probably aren't very good. Just for fun.

Here's the distribution in Salem for the last 11 years, for the daily temperature, which is the average of the high and low.

The peak is a little wonky. Don't ask me why. Horizontal axis is degrees Fahrenheit above or below the daily average; vertical axis is the rate of occurrence.

I calculated the mean anomaly and standard deviation of the daily highs to be 1.29°F and 5.69°F respectively. 

Since I Was Born

Since I was born:

• The US Consumer Price Index has increased by a factor of 10.3 (=inflation)
• US population has increased by a factor of 1.87
• Households by a factor of 2.55
• Civilian employment has increased by 2.46 (women in the workplace.)
• Manufacturing employment is down 18%.
• US federal government spending by a factor of 62 
• US GDP by a factor of 49.6
• Real GDP by a factor of 6.2
• Hence real US GDP per capita has increased by a factor of 3.3 
• Average hourly earnings by a factor of about 12
• World Population by 2.64 times
• World per capita real GDP by 3.2 times.
• China's population by a factor of 2.12
• China's nominal GDP by a factor of 303 (not inflation-adjusted).

Seen in Portland, Oregon

World Oil Production per Capita Has Little Change

There is remarkably little change in world oil production per capita per year:

Note the vertical axis scale is fairly refined, so the annual fluctuations are only about ±5% at most. I would have guessed there'd be a fairly large positive trend. 

Sources:

Oil production  

World Population

I should look at consumption (oil, not tuberculosis).

PS: In US oil-speak, "Mb" means thousands of barrels and MMb means millions of barrels. (Boo.) Took me awhile to figure that out. 

Life's Pleasures

Finally getting to wash your hands when they're sticky¹ is one of life's small pleasures.

--

¹ I don't mean dirty, I mean sticky, although they can be both sticky and dirty. But primarily sticky.

Global Boiling and Other Stuff

Things I've encountered:

I am not at all in favor of this term "global boiling" that the UN is trying to introduce

The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived,” António Guterres declared in a news briefing, as scientists confirmed that July is set to become Earth’s hottest month on record.

“Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning,” he said at a briefing at U.N. headquarters in New York on Thursday, as he described “children swept away by monsoon rains, families running from the flames [and] workers collapsing in scorching heat.”

Sure, global warming is getting to be serious, and will get more serious. But calling it "boiling" is such a naked attempt to induce fright. And then, presumably, action. It's almost laughable, at least silly, and an easy target for deniers to mock. Besides, nothing is really boiling, and won't. Not even close. Seems like maybe it was dreamed up by PR types who are deep in a UN bubble.

I don't know what's going to get the world to take this problem seriously, but such extreme nomenclature isn't the answer, I believe. What do you think?

⁂

I don't see the world addressing global warming en mass via mitigation. I think we're well on the path to geoengineering via stratospheric aerosols. Then someday in decades carbon removal from the atmosphere. But it's going to get very hot before then, at least 2°C, and probably 2.5°C. I wouldn't bet against 3°C. IMO.

⁂

When water expands as it freezes, it exerts a pressure of 200 atmospheres. Watch it blow this steel container apart.

⁂

Sea level rise in Mayport, Florida is 1/3 inches a year over the last 20 years. It's located in the northeastern-most part of Florida, just outside Jacksonville--there's a big US naval station there, Naval Station Newport.

⁂

⁂ is my new favorite symbol. It's called an "asterism." A word from planetary astronomy.

⁂

Neat to see my comparison of record ocean temperatures to climate model projections in today's @nytimes. Its definitely approaching the upper end of what we'd expect to see based on climate models: https://t.co/mPb6IqsesZ pic.twitter.com/bW1IUcFy9a

— Zeke Hausfather (@hausfath) August 4, 2023

⁂

Deforestation in the Amazon

A Russian Soldier in Ukraine

via the New York Times.