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!