As someone who’s spent his entire life in love with and learning about our fantastic planet, it’s dynamics, it’s history, it’s wonders.
I’ve often talked about the Global Heat Distribution Engine and fear (based on various blogosphere responses I’ve received) that this concept flies right over the head of most. Well, the other day I saw a video that, to date, is the best presentation of our planet as the living organism it is that I’ve seen. It’s an hour and a half tour describing what scientists have observed and learned about our planet.
It rarely mentions our current AGW warming situation, instead focusing on describing how the various components of our climate work together to spawn weather. If you’re interested in learning about how our planet functions, this video is a must-see.
Earth From Space (HD)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgBWDPXF2gU&list=PLDF0C6F1C044E103F&index=3
Published on Aug 20, 2012
Playtime: 1:31:32
Earth Playlist- http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDF0C6F1C044E103F
Venture on an epic quest to discover the invisible forces and occurrences that sustain life on this planet and - for the first time - see these processes in action in EARTH FROM SPACE.
This sweeping two-hour {yippy 29 minutes of commercials we get to miss} special reveals the Earth's deepest mysteries, captured in breath-taking detail, and raises profound questions and challenges the old assumptions of how it all works.
Using the latest CGI technology, and joining NASA and the world's foremost Earth scientists, EARTH FROM SPACE transforms raw satellite data into a visible spectrum, offering viewers authentic, high-definition moving images that vividly illustrate these processes at work.
In consultation with more than 220 scientific experts from 18 international Earth sciences research agencies and academic institutions, highlights from EARTH FROM SPACE reveal:
A hurricane - observed from the inside - is an intricately-organized structure.
See how it bonds water to atmosphere, and releases heat into space, cooling parts of the Atlantic by 4C.
The Amazon produces 20% of the Earth's fresh water.
Where does all this water go and what is its effect on air circulating around the planet and life across the globe?
See how solar storms puncturing great holes in the magnetic field raise new questions about the disruptive effect they have on life on a microscopic level.
Data shows that the top three meters of the ocean stores more heat than the entire atmosphere - overturning the long-held assumptions about how the ocean controls weather and climate.
Thanks Pete, great video… and a small plug for something I’ve put together about the Australian fires and their connection to climate change: Video: Everything was on fire, everywhere: heat, bush-fires and climate change down under | Watching the Deniers
Thanks Pete, great video... and a small plug for something I've put together about the Australian fires and their connection to climate change: http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2013/01/23/video-everything-was-on-fire-everywhere-heat-bush-fires-and-climate-change-down-under/
Yea that was a spooky video, that sort of stuff is heading my way (USA Four Corners) too. But, so far so good... but just barely and if we don't get the late winter storm pattern, we could start seeing serious times.
How is it that people's denial seems to be getting nastier and more entrenched in the face of this steady beat of extreme weather events?
If your bored check out something I put up today. It includes 49 names of important 20ish scientist working on the Manhatten Project.
Donna Laframboise's Blind Spot... and the Manhattan Project
http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2013/01/donna-laframboises-blind-spot.html
It's in response to that book of her's. Hell, may as well share the intro...
Open note to Donna Laframboise,
I don't understand how your attacks on the IPCC and it's authors have received so much mileage. Besides dishonestly portraying the IPCC as something looked at like a "Bible" you ignore most of the IPCC process and misrepresent the rest.
Worst is your venomous attacks on young scientists.
Here's how you put it in your "The Delinquent Teenager":
"But rather than being written by a meticulous, upstanding professional in business attire (aka the world’s top scientists & best experts), the Climate Bible is produced by a slapdash, slovenly teenager who has trouble distinguishing right from wrong (aka, activists, 20-something graduate students, people appointed due to their gender or their country).
The world needs to confront the folly that is the IPCC."
Your shrill derision of young scientists totally ignores the fact that young men and women have been the backbone of science through the generations.
For example, the Atomic Bomb could never have been developed without those 20-something graduate students; scientists; mathematicians you show such dripping contempt for.
Here is a review and I ask you Donna to consider where the Manhattan Project would have been without those fine young minds?
{like I said the list is 49 names long}
Economist article on global warming and soot The new black | The Economist
CC
Here is a book review you might be interested in.
CC
Here is a book review you might be interested in.
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21571109-emerging-markets-are-big-part-problem-they-are-essential-any-solution-take
hmmm,
But an attractive quality of this book is that it goes beyond such fatalism. The West, the authors argue, has failed to mitigate global warming, so developing countries will have to take over. This is necessary, they say, because global warming will affect developing countries more than rich ones, partly because tropical and subtropical lands are more sensitive to warming than cold or temperate ones, and partly because rich people can afford better flood controls and drought-resistant seeds than poor ones. One estimate by William Cline, an economist, found that a rise of 2.5% in global temperatures would cut agricultural productivity by 6% in America but by 38% in India. In light of their disproportionate vulnerability, emerging giants will have to push rich countries to make more environmental compromises. To make these demands credible, they themselves will have to make some changes too.
{...}
The authors supply more reasonable solutions. They reckon that China and others could and should invest more in new technologies, such as carbon capture and storage, in order to boost improvements in clean energy. They also provide a detailed and convincing case for rich countries to put a price on carbon by introducing a modest border tax on imports from developing countries.
The book does not quite provide the promised “greenprint" for developing countries to reduce emissions. But that would be a tall order. As a first stab at analysing one of the world’s most intractable problems, it provides a wealth of analysis and fuel for thought.
Yea, we got our proverbial tits in the ringer don't we.
It's quite the weird feeling since the seventies I've watched the world around me.
How it has stumbled from one destructive "historic" incident to another,
and always trying to extract the maximum, with the minimum renumeration or responsibility for what's left behind.
... All the while ignoring the life sustaining planet... that is the biosphere under our collective arses.
Then there's that show of absolute contempt for folks who think we need to "nurture" our environment...
you know - demonizing those dreaded "Greenies" and all that.
So I've been the fool on my hill these decades, watching and thinking:
"Dudes, we can't keep acting like this.
We gotta start thinking about our planet as a real entity; then start acting rational; and start working towards some serious strategies that address the physical realities of greenhouse gases.
. . . Or, this is going to bit us hard."
But, no, we never got past the cat fights.
Special interest money made sure there was plenty of crazy-making to confuse and waste precious time.
~ ~ ~
And now we are seeing the cascading weather consequences of perhaps half a degree worth of warming on the surface of our global heat distribution engine (the other half got shoved into the ocean and it's on a conveyor ride before it will return to haunt the surface.).
One thing is physically guaranteed, we will experience more warming and increasingly wild weather.
But, folks can only understand that by learning what real experts have to explain.
Denialist pull every trick of self delusion to ignore the known climate/weather connections,
rather than start facing facts - the denialist have been ratcheting up to new levels of hysteria as a review of WUWT makes plain.
So sad, so there... guess i've run out of steam :-/
Well since ya got me up on my soap box, allow me to share the latest before I go away. ;-)
{#4} D.LaFramboise The Delinquent Author
This is chapter four from Donna LaFramboise's book
The Delinquent Teenager: "Twenty-Something Graduate Students"
http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2013/02/4-dlaframboise-delinquent-author.html
Your mostly preaching to the choir here. Most rational, scientifically trained individuals are already in agreement on this stuff. The challenge is convincing Joe Sixpack ( the average man and woman) that this problem is not only real but that the consequences are severe enough to warrant the economic upheaval required to address this, and that the critical point of no return is imminent so that they don’t feel like they can just kick the can down the road to their children and grandchildren. That is the challenge and while this is all interesting you wont solve it by making your points here.
Your mostly preaching to the choir here. Most rational, scientifically trained individuals are already in agreement on this stuff. The challenge is convincing Joe Sixpack ( the average man and woman) that this problem is not only real but that the consequences are severe enough to warrant the economic upheaval required to address this, and that the critical point of no return is imminent so that they don't feel like they can just kick the can down the road to their children and grandchildren. That is the challenge and while this is all interesting you wont solve it by making your points here.
I couldn't agree with you more.
The tragedy is those folks have been con'ed into holding their ears and eyes shut. :red:
As for the choir here, I'm showing mercy and restraint in my postings here ;-P
Unlike
some other places] I drop in on.
But, most of my stuff is right here... waiting for joe six pack's visit.
whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com]
a review of denialism
citizenschallenge.blogspot.com]
all sorts of interesting stuff though mainly global warming related
ciao