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Arctic Ice

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by bwilson4web, Jun 18, 2024.

  1. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    upload_2024-6-18_16-43-11.png

    Bob Wilson
     
  2. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    fairly consistent?
     
  3. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    There is about a 12 year gap between the previous low, 2012 and today's 2024.The solar maximum typically runs close to 11 years with some variability. Solar maximums are not a precise clock nor a consistent intensity.

    So this is what Goddard Space Flight Center reported:
    upload_2024-6-18_22-8-45.png

    So temperature and solar activity were closely matched until around the early 1960s when the temperature line climbed even as solar activity actually appears to have held somewhat constant and even declined. It was in early 1970s, some were predicting a 'new ice age' based on just solar activity. But something else, speculated, dominated the increase in earth temperature.

    I've long asserted that the oceans are the best thermometer for planet earth: ice cover, and; sea level. So we see this graph from the usual suspects, climate scientists:
    upload_2024-6-18_22-17-2.png


    As the earth warms, land ice melts and the sea level increases. But there are easily observed ice packs:
    upload_2024-6-18_22-21-54.png

    Kilimanjaro is the fourth most topographically prominent peak on Earth. It is part of Kilimanjaro National Park and is a major hiking and climbing destination. Because of its shrinking glaciers and ice fields, which are projected to disappear between 2025 and 2035, it has been the subject of many scientific studies.

    So I look forward to visiting:
    upload_2024-6-18_22-25-36.png
    As I race my age against ice in Glacier National Park.

    Bob Wilson

    ps. I never bought Prius, PHEVs, and BEV to be "green" but to keep the "Green Back Yankee Dollars" in my wallet. The false accusation motivated me to study and understand Climate science.
     
    #3 bwilson4web, Jun 18, 2024
    Last edited: Jun 18, 2024
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  4. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    interesting. i bought mine to be green, different and the intriguing tech. and i have no understanding of climate science, but prefer to err on the side of caution.
     
  5. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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  6. vvillovv

    vvillovv Senior Member

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    I'm a black sheep in the scientific community, still I hope they can get a decent algorithm to calculate waste heat emissions for all things that produce waste heat wherever they may be, so to speak. Looks like they've been working on a standardized set of formulas / formulae to get the numbers to work together nicely for about 10 years. But still don't have anything definitive to compare local and global, but are getting closer.

    I did post once here my idea that efficiency (related to natural gas home furnace) was more about particulate emissions than it is about fuel burn efficiency. As most would guess, that didn't go over to well with the crowd here at PC.

    I started thinking about waste heat during our local heat wave and how to keep the house cool. Since waste heat, much like inside a heat pump is related to how much energy gets wasted cooling a space off and producing more waste heat in the processes cycle.
     
    #6 vvillovv, Jun 21, 2024
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  7. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    I don't remember anything like that. Regardless, at my house:
    • Turning off A/C when outside temperature reaches low 70s and turn on fans to exhaust upper, hot air into attic space. Cooling the thermal mass of the house at night saves a lot of power.
    • Shades for all sun facing windows. Don't let the sunlight heat the house.
    • Cooling specific rooms, not the whole house. Just the rooms with people.
    • Optimize portable AC with straight instead of wire-laced plastic ducting.
    • Operate the portable when the outside temperature reaches 80 F.
    • Heat pump, hot water tank.
    • Heat pump, clothes dryer (no vent!)
    • EV and PHEV operate in BEV mode all the time.
    Bob Wilson
     
  8. vvillovv

    vvillovv Senior Member

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    I'm in a 100 yr old 2story / basement (dry),attic (half finished) and detached 20x20 garage (rebuilt). It's got it's own personality as do most of the other homes in this and many other local neighborhoods. We've got a lot of older appliances that always need looking after, along with a few of the newer ones added over the years like two window mount A/C units. I haven't used the A/C units in a few years to save electric and it's not actually hot enough for a long enough time here for me anyways. That may change when she is home all day in the future. We have ceiling fans in almost every room on the first and second floor. I have an old metal box fan with a slightly oversized replacement motor I have in the attic window I use as a whole house venting system. But I have to keep my eye on that too, switching it on and off and opening and closing the attic partition door as the temps change. I'm thinking of monitoring the attic and basement temps to see how long the basement stays cooler than the rest of the house and how to conserve more of that cool basement air through the spring and early summer

    I also do my best to reduce waste for weekly, along with recycle for biweekly pickup. I'm keeping an eye on the amount of water billed on a quarterly basis too. I only make small reductions at a time, but they tend to add up over the years I've been thinking about what most of us don't have either the time or the energy or both to process. It can be a lot of extra work trying new ways to cut back using what we've got and learning how to use what we've got here in this house to our best advantage.
     
    #8 vvillovv, Jun 21, 2024
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2024
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  9. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    I've been thinking about catching roof water runoff in mosquito net covered, large trash bins. A small motor and voila, low cost car washing, lawn, and garden water.

    Bob Wilson
     
  10. vvillovv

    vvillovv Senior Member

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    I'm also the property gardener and have started composting and saving rain water from one of the two downspouts. I't hard to keep the barrels clean and the mosquito eggs out. I just got a small wading pool and I put smaller bins in the pool as catchers. They are easier to keep clean and the water cleaner too.
     
  11. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    "still I hope they can get a decent algorithm to calculate waste heat emissions for all things that produce waste heat"

    I would not have thought of that as missing. Are thermal efficiency number missing for (home and water) heaters, heat pumps, compression fridges and air cons?

    I have a methane 'city gas' stovetop. Depending on who's cooking, effy can be high or low (it is traditional in Chinese cooking to have a wok surrounded by big flames, but it ain't efficient). So this appliance cannot readily yield a thermal efficiency number.

    But that would seem to be an exception, and for most others, we should know. Yes?

    "Optimize portable AC with straight instead of wire-laced plastic ducting" Interesting; I would have thought most air flow through '10 cm and larger' tubes is not near the boundary layer. Bob&I could scheme how to quantify energy effy in smooth vs. interesting tubes.

    He will be in charge of preparing colorful graphics :)
     
  12. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    we have whole house a/c, but i'm thinking of a couple minisplits for the two rooms we occupy most of the time.
     
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  13. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    Perhaps a table spoon of olive oil occasionally.

    Bob Wilson
     
  14. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    There is a technique of a ridge that generates a vortex to reattach laminar flow to a surface:
    [​IMG]

    But a typical, spiral wire, flexible duct has multiple, vortex generators. Also, the center of the flex duct is significantly larger than the wall vortices.
    upload_2024-6-21_20-58-54.png
    But now, I'm thinking about how to design a test to measure the back pressure.

    Bob Wilson
     
  15. vvillovv

    vvillovv Senior Member

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    I would not have thought of that as missing. Are thermal efficiency number missing for (home and water) heaters, heat pumps, compression fridges and air cons?

    It's a complete rethink of waste heat that includes everything known on the planet that produces waste heat, like industrial processes, running vehicle engines and motors, batteries, even out bodies although that might be held off the lists until it becomes obvious exactly how much waste heat several billion humans produce each year. But I have read offhand remarks (mostly in jest) about human waste heat production. Just goes to show at least one of the things we as humans don't consider about ourselves as part of a bigger picture. Or what makes up a heat island in major metro areas like LA freeways.

    One explanation describes our current measures of reducing particulate waste as not being a very effective means of changing human understanding of the big picture of global environment and or what is actually causing the planet to warm faster every year for the last couple of decades.

    As if most of us really care about sfuff $ like that enough to do even small things ourselves to slow it down.
     
    #15 vvillovv, Jun 21, 2024
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  16. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    i would like to redirect our refrigerator waste heat outside. it is too bad they don't have a vent like a gas dryer.
     
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  17. vvillovv

    vvillovv Senior Member

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    I hesitate to use the word thermodynamics, it's too scientific for most to keep an open mind about what it is supposed to mean in the context it's set in Waste heat. Or more simply waste. wasted.. whatever...

    Anyone ever think about what we waste in a day here in this country or any other country on the planet.
    I'll bet if anyone answers Yes I think about what I waste, there is still plenty more being wasted every day that never reaches the conscious level in our brains. out of sight out of mind. $

    tall building heating and cooling dynamics, nuclear plants, scientific research, data center cooling dynamics, building materials production, is that even the tip of an ice berg or even an ice cube?

    Luckily, there are some that are in the process of building a list and trying to "Do The Math" most of us don't want to or can't even begin to process.
     
    #17 vvillovv, Jun 22, 2024
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  18. vvillovv

    vvillovv Senior Member

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    Perhaps a table spoon of olive oil occasionally.

    I use a dot of it under my eyes, besides all the other ways I used it.
     
  19. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    i'm a big olive oil fan, it's very slippery.
     
  20. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    you know when i really get concerned about waste?
    when we're at our timeshare resort in florida, and the waste management truck goes from building to building emptying dumpsters.
    the things that get thrown away in resorts would float a third world country. then multiply that by all the commercial enterprises around the world and the waste of 8 billion people. it is hard to comprehend
     
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