Environmental News

In remote Canary Islands, T is rising faster than seen in global climate models"

Temperature at Roque de los Muchachos Observa | EurekAlert!

I am not surprised that such examples exist. I'd expect then to be 'balanced' by other examples where T is rising 'too slowly' and that latter could be selectively highlighted to suggest that global climate models are not of value. Oh well.

But Canaries station is on a rooftop and so not well sited according to me. Find a spot far from structures, not at a topographic discontinuity, not in a vegetation-structure discontinuity, and make your measurements there. Convenience of data collection ought not be first priority for this.

 

It is not news that reforestation would sequester carbon. This study helps with geospatial explicitness and open access:

Global study reveals vast potential for natur | EurekAlert!

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To be boringly redundant, more forest offers more benefits than as carbon holders. They ameliorate climate. They are water-retaining capacitors, and limit soil erosion. They boost biodiversity especially when more than one dang tree species is planted. They provide human use products including fruits, nuts and mushrooms. And birds and little primates, if you want to eat those.

Lyrically they call back back to pre-agriculture times when global forests were twice as large. In The Garden of Eden, trees were not favorably described. One bad apple, etc. I think better of trees.

 

Some oceanic islands are volcanic, being over leaky spots in Earth crust. Some grew tall but not enough to break surface. Unterzee boats need to avoid those.

Some oceanic islands are of coral, being over shallow spots in places where corals grow well.

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Canary Islands have built some overly steep flanks that, if they break loose, could tsunami pretty hard. It is not a place with frequent earthquakes (to get things going) which is probably why break loose has not happened yet. Some Prof. at Univ Puerto Rico was on to this about 30 years ago while I was co located.

 

A love letter about Humboldt Redwoods State Park:

The rarest redwoods in the world can be found inside a Calif. park

Redwoods lacking chlorophyll are parasitic on roots of elders and it's weird that they are not more rare. I'd prefer not calling them albinos because that really has a different meaning. Anyway, yes visit and be amazed, but don't 'pluck' and certainly don't sever root connections.

Physiological details of these weird plants seem not to have been examined. Might be a good idea to do that before love letters draw more mindless (yet hand-equipped) tourists to this area.

 

Power grids supplied largely by renewable sources experience lower intensity blackouts:

Power grids supplied largely by renewable sou | EurekAlert!

 

May I expound on possible civilizations in our galaxy? Who would stop me?

We wish for ET contact, but are in a remote place. Unless REALLY FAST travel can be done, remoteness matters.

Not for the first time I draw your attention to galactic star clusters of which in Milky Way Galaxy number >20. In those, stars are densely packed, > 1 per cubic light year. Within those, developing civilizations COULD chat among themselves with relative ease.

Closest globular cluster known to me is M4 about 7000 light years away, with 100's thousands stars in a tight bunch. We don't know about Goldilocks planets there, having not looked.

In our galaxy, technological civilizations might arise anywhere. Communications among them are most likely first in globular clusters. Chatting with us might be low down any civilization's to-do list. And that's all I got. But I say that looking at night sky from within a galactic star cluster would be amazing.

 

South Carolina research firm loses 43 Rhesus Macaques.

One has been recaptured in a fruit-baited trap, but the gang saw that happen and might exercise more caution.

This is a young group that had not yet been exposed to any diseases (company says). So for now, it is mostly a lightweight news item to be interspersed in ongoing reporting of larger problems.

Food availability in oncoming winter may be a problem for the gang.

 

Expired produce in dumpsters would be more accessible.

 

Speaking of markets, Wife though prices of recent protein purchases in China were very high. She asked what prices are like in USA. For that I extracted data from 'weekly ads' website. Here are some results.

Pork meat is a bit less expensive in US. Possibly surprising because most of the world's farmed pigs live in China. If only briefly.

Chicken and their eggs are much more expensive in US. Bird flu is a problem Because migratory birds can deliver it anywhere, I'd be surprised if bird flu was less in China. But not everything shows up in our local news

I did not compare turkey prices because they are basically unavailable and rarely eaten here. But USA has remarkably low prices for them. Enjoy. And don't deep fry a frozen bird!

 

Fun photos

10 striking snapshots from the Weather Photographer of the Year awards | Popular Science

Special mention of circular rainbow. To see that one must be high enough so that 42 degree angle (away from sun) is all above the ground.