The Earth is a little over 4.5 billion years old, its oldest [known] materials being 4.3 billion-year-old zircon crystals. Its earliest times were geologically violent, and it suffered constant bombardment from meteorites. When this ended, the Earth cooled and its surface solidified to a crust - the first solid rocks. There were no continents as yet, just a global ocean peppered with small islands. Erosion, sedimentation and volcanic activity - possibly assisted by more meteor impacts - eventually created small proto-continents which grew until they reached roughly their current size 2.5 billion years ago. The continents have since repeatedly collided and been torn apart, so maps of Earth in the distant past are quite different to today's.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/history_of_the_earth

Below is a Gus recreation of a map of the Australian surface about 120 million years ago (early Cretaceous) when the sea levels were nearly 100 metres above present levels. The green area represent land surfaces the various blues represent the seas and shallow seas... The red dot represent the most likely place of the south pole then (speculative). Note that Antarctica, Australia and India are joined. India left the southern hemisphere about 95 million years ago and travelled northward till it hit the Eurasian plate (lifting the Hymalayas at the point of impact)... The Australian plate separated from Antarctica about 45 million years ago and since then has travelled northward at about 7 centimetres per year. The opening of the southern ocean has dramatically changed the climatic zones in this region...

See also http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/8789 

Climate scientists like Mehta are scrambling to figure out how the yearly monsoon is shifting and how that will shape the way people are able to live in the country. Earlier this year, scientists in the U.K. and India launched a three-year effort to study how climate change is impacting the monsoon in order to advise policymakers on how to deal with the changing weather in the coming years. Scientists in Norway are also collaborating with India’s Energy and Resources Institute to use a supercomputer in Delhi to fine-tune climate modeling for the monsoon. With a more intricate understanding of how the monsoon works, scientists would be able to better predict, for instance, a phenomena called monsoon breaks, or pauses in the rains that can lead to short, sudden droughts in farming areas. With better understanding about how and when to expect this kind of event, local officials could send out appropriate warnings to farmers about conserving water. “People at all levels are simply not aware of how to plan for monsoon variability,” says Mehta, whose center is working on creating a vertical program from scientist to farmer to improve both prediction and communication. “The challenges are vast, but that’s what people need.”

If he and his colleagues succeed, it could have a huge impact on millions of families — and India itself. “If it rains, the monetary policy works. Everything is all right. If it doesn’t rain, there is worry,” Reserve Bank of India Governor D. Subbarao was quoted in the Deccan Herald as saying during a lecture. “So I want you to realize that all of us are ‘chasing the monsoon.’”

So to sum up, we have three Russian scientists out of many thousands who seem to be "skeptics" as their American counterparts style themselves. Like their American counterparts, they all disagree about what is happening. Yury Izrael thinks warming is happening and will continue to happen, but will not be harmful. Habibullah Abdusamatov thinks warming is happening but is not caused by human activities and will shortly reverse itself (in 2012). Oleg Pokrovsky blames the urban heat island effect for measured warming and promised cooling last year (in 2010). Despite the fact that these scientists are repeating discredited denialist claptrap, despite the fact that they all disagree with one another, denialists stand ready to celebrate them not just as individuals, but as "pragmatic Rooskies" who "know cold" and have "embraced empirical scientific standards."
A more parsimonous explanation is that Russia, like America, has its deniers and its lukewarmers. As the members of the National Academy of Sciences have demonstrated, deniers there, like deniers here, are a tiny minority of scientists who do not espouse any single coherent critique and offer no evidence to support their "skepticism." Which is why, denialist fantasy to the contrary, most of those "practical Rooskies" are practical in their agreement with their colleagues all around the world in support of the theory of AGW.
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Meanwhile in China:

Glaciers are shrinking worldwide -- some of them rapidly. Now Chinese researchers have sounded the alarm in their country too, where they say warmer weather and increased precipitation are reducing the size of glaciers. Water shortages and floods could result.

Chinese scientists are not known for fearmongering, particularly when it comes to dangers that could affect large numbers of people. Officials frown upon news that could unsettle the masses -- which makes this week's publication by the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing all the more stunning.

According to the paper published this week in the British scientific journal Environmental Research Letters, climate change has had devastating affects on glaciers in the mountains of southwestern China. The region includes the Himalayas and other ranges that are part of the Tibetan highlands.

The research team led by Zongxing Li has observed "significant" annual and seasonal warming trends, along with the "drastic retreat" and "large mass loss" of glaciers, which has led to an increase in the size of glacial lakes in the area, the paper said.

Their data showed that between 1970 and 2001, the Pengqu basin's 999 glaciers lost a combined surface area of 131 square kilometers (51 square miles) and 12 cubic kilometers (3 cubic miles) of mass. The Gangrigabu Mountains also showed significant losses. There, some 102 glaciers disappeared between 1915 and 1980, equalling a loss of more than 41 square kilometres (16 square miles) in area and six cubic kilometers in mass (1.4 cubic miles). The Yalung glacier alone receded more than 1,500 meters (1 mile) between 1980 and 2001, resulting in a swelling of nearby glacial lakes.

THE WORST drought in the US for 50 years has caused a surge in corn and soya bean prices, prompting fears of a second global food crisis in five years.

America is the world's largest supplier of corn, soya beans and wheat, but corn production estimates have been slashed and the price has hit a record high of more than $8.16 a bushel.

Forecasters have also warned that there is no sign of a break in the weather and at least half of the US corn and soya bean belt will remain dry for the next fortnight.

The current turmoil has prompted comparisons with the 2007/08 crisis, when mounting food prices led to riots around the world.  

A senior trading executive told the Financial Times: "I've been in the business more than 30 years and this is by far and away the most serious weather issue and supply and demand problem that I have seen by a mile."

Justin Forsyth, chief executive of Save the Children, agreed: "Failed rains and high food prices have tipped lots of people over the edge from being able to cope to not being able to cope."

Read more: http://www.theweek.co.uk/world-business/48083/food-crisis-fears-us-drought-hits-corn-and-soya-bean-crops#ixzz21FafE1KW

Robyn Williams: So far what does the climate signal tell you?

Charitha Pattiaratchi: The climate signal in Western Australia, we know that the sea level is increasing, but in the last few years it is rising higher than before. In addition to that, if you look at the last 30 to 40 years, there is evidence that the Indian Ocean, especially in the south-west, the sea surface temperature is increasing. The other one is our wave climate. We've done Indian Ocean wave climate, and what we find is that the wave heights in the Indian Ocean, particularly in the southern Indian Ocean, has increased. That is coincident with the increase in the winds in the southern ocean. So some very clear signals where the wave heights and the extreme waves have increased. But there is also a shift in the band of those high waves further southwards. So we see the signal very clearly, that the waves are getting higher, but because they shifted further south, we see it in the open ocean but we don't actually see it in terms of affecting a beach.

Read the whole article at http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/the-indian-ocean-e28093-hotter2c-higher2c-with-bigger-wind/4144206

CUTTING greenhouse gas emissions is like buying an insurance policy: we incur a cost to reduce a risk. Every year Australians spend millions on insuring homes, cars and their health, not because they know that something will happen to them, but because of the risk that it might. Households make the decision that insurance premiums are worth paying. As a nation, what premium do we pay for insurance against catastrophic climate change?

Modelling by the Australian Treasury supported by the Centre of Policy Studies (CoPS), shows that to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 80% below 2000 levels in 2050, the Australian economy would be 2.8% smaller than it otherwise would have been. How do we interpret this?

Without the carbon tax, Australia’s GDP per head was set to grow at an average of 1.4% until 2050. With the tax in place, growth would average just over 1.3%. The implication is that the level of GDP we would have reached on 1 January 2050 will not be reached until 1 January 2052. In other words, the 2.8% reduction in GDP is equivalent to two years worth of economic growth. Phased-in over 40 years, this is less than 0.1 percentage point shaved off annual growth.

Is 2.8% a reasonable estimate? The main GHG emitting activities are fossil fuel-based electricity generation and the use of motor fuels. In Australia these activities account for around 5% of GDP. Advice from scientists and engineers suggests that the adoption of current alternatives to fossil-fuel-based technologies would approximately double the cost of electricity and motor fuels.

On this basis, if we were to replace 80% of our usage of fossil fuels with alternative energy, it would cost around 4% of GDP. But 4% is a pessimistic estimate for two reasons.

Firstly it is based on the comparison of current costs. If the world embraced the need for deep cuts in GHG emissions, we would expect rapid technical progress in low-emission technologies, reducing their cost.

The second reason is that we would not replace the whole 80% of GHG emitting activities with the more costly alternative energies; we would also reduce overall energy usage.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/environment/carbon-tax-wont-harm-economic-growth/

Abstract. Antarctic ice cores provide clear evidence of

http://www.clim-past.net/8/1213/2012/cp-8-1213-2012.pdf

"Just as the steady increase in CO2 helped to melt the ice caps and warm the earth out of the ice age, the rapid increase now in CO2 is also driving up temperatures, only at a much faster rate," he said.

"What we're doing now is over a hundred times faster."

http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/aussie-antarctic-scientist-in-climate-studies-breakthrough/story-fn5fsgyc-1226434145677

It looks like the Merde-och press is awakening to the reality of "climate change"...

In a world of recycled this, and an Inconvenient that, new research has top scientists recanting statements made regarding the Global Warming model and it’s forecasted effects. The new belief: we have no need to worry.

The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is largely responsible for producing information concerning the grand effects of global warming. But is it information we can trust? Fritz Vahrenholt, a leader on "green theory" [Gus' bold and quote marks], has concluded much of the IPCC’s reports contain incorrect data. Much of the knowledge circulating from the IPCC headquarters is pulled from previously published articles, not facts on new research performed to test global warming theories.

With no true scientific reports to support the IPCC’s claims that humans are to blame for global warming, where does that leave the public?

In no man’s land.

There is officially no scientific data that proves carbon emissions produced by the public are causing harm to the Earth’s climate.

Further, Vahrenholt claims that Global Warming models relating to the Earth’s past climate are deeply flawed.

With so much incorrect information remaining inconclusive about the past, it would be foolish to put stock in the IPCC’s model to forecast the future.

http://www.themeshreport.com/2012/06/global-warming-model-incorrect-leading-scientists-detracts-statements-that-humans-are-to-blame/

This article also appears on: http://theyellowbrickroadfreeblog.wordpress.com/2012/07/04/global-warming-model-incorrect-leading-scientist-detracts-statement-that-humans-are-to-blame/ 

The Yellow Brick Road is a pseudo scientific site that peppers reasonably sound science into total crap from time to time to make the crap more appealing... For example note this one:

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Meanwhile: if we do not read carefully:

Fritz Vahrenholt (born May 8, 1949 in Gelsenkirchen-Buer) is a German politician (SPD), industrialist and environmentalist.[1]

Varenholt had studied Chemistry in Münster and started his professional career at the federal Umweltbundesamt (environmental protection agency) in Berlin and the Ministry for Environment of Hesse. From 1984 till 1990 he was in a leading role in Hamburg, first as Staatsrat for environment, 1990 to 1991 for the administral Senatskanzlei, and the Umweltsenator (senator for the environment) in Hamburg from 1991 to 1997.

In 1998 he entered the energy industry and until 2001 was on the Board of Deutsche Shell AG, a Shell subsidiary. In 2001 he moved to post of CEO of the wind turbine company REpower Systems AG and remained there until 2007. From February 2008 he was CEO of electric power company RWE subsidiary RWE Innogy, a post he will step down from in mid-2012. Prof. Dr. Varenholt has a doctorate in Chemistry. In 1999 he was made an Honorary Professor of chemistry at the University of Hamburg.[2][1][3]

Global Warming Skepticism

Vahrenholt is skeptical of human-induced global warming. In 2012 Vahrenholt together with geologist Sebastian Lüning published Die kalte Sonne: warum die Klimakatastrophe nicht stattfindet[4] (The Cold Sun: Why the Climate Crisis Isn't Happening), a book asserting that climate change is driven by variations in solar activity. They predict the Earth is entering a cooling phase due to periodic solar cycles, and will cool by 0.2 to 0.3 degrees C by 2035.[3] Other contributors are Nir Shaviv, Werner Weber, Henrik Svensmark and Nicola Scafetta.

In an interview in May 2012, Vahrenholt said that "For years I believed the science of the IPCC was solid" and that he first became aware of potential problems in the science due to reading the book The Hockey Stick Illusion.[5] Vahrenholt's statements on the problems in climate science have been disputed.[6][7]

Vahrenholt has also lectured as a guest of the climate skeptic organization Europäisches Institut für Klima und Energie (EIKE)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Vahrenholt

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The "reporter" of the top article does not have a biography readily available, thus it would be impossible to gauge where she's coming from and if she is a legit reporter... but The Mesh Report is a website dedicated to  MAKE MONEY mostly via investments in the stock market .... Of course the Mesh Report would down play the threat of global warming as much as possible, using the usual suspects and new ones as mouth pieces...

And guess what? Allison Fox is a lobbyist. She heads a company that: manages private consulting firm focused on advising clients on federal policy, including legislation, the federal budget, and the federal appropriations process. 

Special emphasis on policy in the areas of energy, climate change, agriculture, innovation, immigration, life sciences, space and aeronautics, intellectual property, funding for scientific research and higher education.

Nothing wrong with that but you can see where she's coming from and adding to the list of "denialists" ton of dumb bricks...

---------------------------

Hence other articles in the Mesh such as this:

By JONATHAN FAHEY

NEW YORK – ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson says fears about climate change, drilling, and energy dependence are overblown.

In a speech Wednesday, Tillerson acknowledged that burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet, but said society will be able to adapt. The risks of oil and gas drilling are well understood and can be mitigated, he said. And dependence on other nations for oil is not a concern as long as access to supply is certain, he said.

Tillerson blamed a public that is “illiterate” in science and math, a “lazy” press, and advocacy groups that “manufacture fear” for energy misconceptions in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations.

He highlighted that huge discoveries of oil and gas in North America have reversed a 20-year decline in U.S. oil production in recent years. He also trumpeted the global oil industry’s ability to deliver fuels during a two-year period of dramatic uncertainty in the Middle East, the world’s most important oil and gas-producing region.

http://www.themeshreport.com/2012/06/exxons-ceo-climate-energy-fears-overblown/ 

I repeat: The Mesh Report is a website dedicated to  MAKE MONEY mostly via investments in the stock market .... Of course the Mesh Report will down play the threat of global warming as much as possible using the usual suspects and new ones as mouth pieces...

----------------------------

The United Nations IPCC's research IS CORRECT. Global warming is CO2 induced from anthropomorphic created CO2, plus anthropomorphic methane and other greenhouse gases. 

The Heartland Institute may have paid the price for its billboard campaign comparing acceptance of climate science to the Unabomber, but it didn’t stop Institute of Public Affairs science fellow Professor Bob Carter concluding the campaign was a good idea.

And so, with all this in mind, we come to the latest episode, where Queensland’s currently in-power Liberal-National Party has accepted a motion that climate science shouldn’t be taught in schools. The proposer of the motion, which was accepted unanimously (but may not be taken up by the parliamentary wing of the party), is a Dr Richard Pearson, from Noosa.

It now appears that Dr Pearson has been conducting his own climate science experiments — at home, in his kitchen, armed only with thermometers, two fish cooler boxes and a roll of cling film. Some may find the results remarkable; you see, Dr Pearson believes he may have disproved the greenhouse effect (you may now pinch yourself).

We know this because he wrote about his experiment on the website of the climate sceptic group the Galileo Movement — whose patron is the noted climate expert (and radio presenter) Alan Jones. Dr Pearson’s conclusion?

‘That the Greenhouse Effect theory is not confirmed by this experiment and may be disproved by it.’

Now, even though the notion that a guy in his kitchen in Noosa armed with two eskies and a roll of cling film could single-handedly disprove the greenhouse theory may seem just a tad fanciful – because I acknowledge that to some it may – I thought I’d waste the time of an actual atmospheric scientist.

Because after all, I don’t presume to be a scientist even though I did once make one of those volcanoes from bicarb of soda, vinegar and food colouring. My experiment was a success and also falsified the outrageous claim that my mum’s tablecloth was “stainless”.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/politics/queensland-and-the-weird-alternate-reality-of-climate-change-denialists/

The Greenland ice sheet melted at a faster rate this month than at any other time in recorded history, with virtually the entire ice sheet showing signs of thaw.

The rapid melting over just four days was captured by three satellites. It has stunned and alarmed scientists, and deepened fears about the pace and future consequences of climate change.

In a statement posted on Nasa's website on Tuesday, scientists admitted the satellite data was so striking they thought at first there had to be a mistake.

"This was so extraordinary that at first I questioned the result: was this real or was it due to a data error?" Son Nghiem of Nasa's jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena said in the release.

He consulted with several colleagues, who confirmed his findings. Dorothy Hall, who studies the surface temperature of Greenland at Nasa's space flight centre in Greenbelt, Maryland, confirmed that the area experienced unusually high temperatures in mid-July, and that there was widespread melting over the surface of the ice sheet.

Climatologists Thomas Mote, at the University of Georgia, and Marco Tedesco, of the City University of New York, also confirmed the melt recorded by the satellites.

However, scientists were still coming to grips with the shocking images on Tuesday. "I think it's fair to say that this is unprecedented," Jay Zwally, a glaciologist at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center, told the Guardian.

The set of images released by Nasa on Tuesday show a rapid thaw between 8 July and 12 July. Within that four-day period, measurements from three satellites showed a swift expansion of the area of melting ice, from about 40% of the ice sheet surface to 97%.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/24/greenland-ice-sheet-thaw-nasa

Other recent satellite science has revealed complexities in other parts of the world, with the world's greatest peaks in the Himalayan mountain chain revealed as having lost no ice in the last decade. Another study showed the Karakoram glaciers as having grown over the last decade. However, the contribution to sea level rise of these and other mountain chains such as the Andes and Alps are dwarfed by Greenland and Antarctica and, globally, 443-629bn tonnes of meltwater are added to the world's oceans each year. This is raising sea level by about 1.5mm a year, in addition to the 2mm a year caused by expansion of the warming ocean.

Earlier analyses of Greenland's glaciers found their speed has doubled in 10 years and were accelerating. Extrapolation of that doubling implied glacier loss in Greenland would drive up sea level by 9cm by 2100, leading to an overall rise of 80cm. Another extrapolation imagined a tenfold rise in glacier speed, leading to 47cm of sea level rise from Greenland and 2m overall. The new research shows glacier acceleration remains "well below" even the lower scenario.

"A doubling in all glacier speeds was never a prediction for Greenland, it was a thought experiment, a "what if" scenario," said Bamber.

Moon noted: "Ten years is still a short time when studying glaciers. There is no reason to think we won't get to the 80cm level. And even small rises in sea level will have very big impact in some places, as storm surges hit coasts. If you raise the floor of a basketball court by just a few inches, you will see many more slam dunks."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/03/sea-level-rises-greenland-glaciers?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

Scientists drilling deep into the edge of modern Antarctica have pulled up proof that palm trees once grew there.

Analyses of pollen and spores and the remains of tiny creatures have given a climatic picture of the early Eocene period, about 53 million years ago.

The study in Nature suggests Antarctic winter temperatures exceeded 10C, while summers may have reached 25C.

Better knowledge of past "greenhouse" conditions will enhance guesses about the effects of increasing CO2 today.

The early Eocene - often referred to as the Eocene greenhouse - has been a subject of increasing interest in recent years as a "warm analogue" of the current Earth.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19077439

Climate change is here — and worse than we thought

When I testified before the Senate in the hot summer of 1988 , I warned of the kind of future that climate change would bring to us and our planet. I painted a grim picture of the consequences of steadily increasing temperatures, driven by mankind’s use of fossil fuels.

But I have a confession to make: I was too optimistic.

My projections about increasing global temperature have been proved true. But I failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase in extreme weather.

In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures, which will be published Monday, my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present.

This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened. Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.

The deadly European heat wave of 2003, the fiery Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma last year can each be attributed to climate change. And once the data are gathered in a few weeks’ time, it’s likely that the same will be true for the extremely hot summer the United States is suffering through right now.

These weather events are not simply an example of what climate change could bring. They are caused by climate change. The odds that natural variability created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small. To count on those odds would be like quitting your job and playing the lottery every morning to pay the bills.

Twenty-four years ago, I introduced the concept of “climate dice” to help distinguish the long-term trend of climate change from the natural variability of day-to-day weather. Some summers are hot, some cool. Some winters brutal, some mild. That’s natural variability.

But as the climate warms, natural variability is altered, too. In a normal climate without global warming, two sides of the die would represent cooler-than-normal weather, two sides would be normal weather, and two sides would be warmer-than-normal weather. Rolling the die again and again, or season after season, you would get an equal variation of weather over time.

But loading the die with a warming climate changes the odds. You end up with only one side cooler than normal, one side average, and four sides warmer than normal. Even with climate change, you will occasionally see cooler-than-normal summers or a typically cold winter. Don’t let that fool you.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/climate-change-is-here--and-worse-than-we-thought/2012/08/03/6ae604c2-dd90-11e1-8e43-4a3c4375504a_print.html

In 118 years of U.S. records, July 2012 stands as king, hotter than any month previously observed. NOAA reports today that the average temperature across the continental U.S. was 3.3 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 20th century average, 0.2 degrees hotter than the previous record set in July, 1936.

Link: July State of the Climate report from NOAA

Not only was the month of July unrivaled for its hot temperatures across the nation, but so too were the first seven months of the calendar year and the last 12 months. In fact, the last four 12-month periods have each successively established new records for the warmest period of that length.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/us-has-hottest-month-on-record-in-july-2012-noaa-says/2012/08/08/0fae675c-e169-11e1-98e7-89d659f9c106_blog.html?hpid=z3

See image and article at top...

In July 2019, Gregory Dipple, a geologist at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, hopped on a 119-seat charter flight in Yellowknife, Canada, and flew 280 kilometers northeast to the Gahcho Kué diamond mine, just south of the Arctic Circle. Gahcho Kué, which means “place of the big rabbits” in the Dënësu̧łinë language of the region's native Dené or Chipewyan people, is an expansive open pit mine ringed by sky-blue lakes. There, the mining company De Beers unearths some 4 million carats' worth of diamonds annually. But Dipple and two students weren't there for gems. Rather, they were looking to use the mine's crushed rock waste as a vault to lock up carbon dioxide (CO2) for eternity.

At Gahcho Kué, Dipple's team bubbled a mix of CO2 and nitrogen gas simulating diesel exhaust through a grayish green slurry of crushed mine waste in water. Over 2 days, the slurry acquired a slight rusty hue—evidence that its iron was oxidizing while its magnesium and calcium were sucking up CO2 and turning it into to carbon-based minerals. The CO2-hungry waste from the diamond mine is an exotic deep-earth rock, shot up to the surface in the volcanic eruptions that bring up diamonds. But a wide array of rock and mudlike wastes from mining, cement and aluminum production, coal burning, and other large-scale industrial processes share a similar affinity for the greenhouse gas. Known as alkaline solid wastes, these materials have a high pH, which causes them to react with CO2, a mild acid. And unlike other schemes for drawing excess CO2 from the atmosphere, these reactive rocks can both capture the gas and store it, locked away permanently in a solid mineral.

“The potential is real,” Dipple says. “It will make an important contribution to lowering CO2.

If he and others can make the scheme practical, it could address two environmental problems at once. Today, mines and industry generate some 2 billion tons of alkaline solid wastes every year, and more than 90 billion tons are stored behind fragile dams and heaped in waste piles, a threat to people and ecosystems (Science, 21 August, p. 894). In 2010, for example, a dam failure in Hungary released a 2-meter-high wall of red mud—an alkaline waste from aluminum production—that killed 10 people and buried villages. And caustic leachates from mountains of steel slag waste have wiped out fish populations in Pennsylvania and the United Kingdom.

Reacting these wastes with CO2 from the air could make them safer by solidifying them—and at the same time help the world avert climate disaster. In the 2015 Paris climate agreement, most of the world's countries resolved to limit climate warming to below 2°C. For that to happen, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has determined, cutting greenhouse gas emissions won't be enough. Countries will also need to employ “negative emissions technologies” (NETs) to pull as much as 10 billion tons (gigatons) of CO2 out of the atmosphere every year toward the end of this century. Possible NETs include planting vast forests, which suck carbon out of the air as they grow; chemically absorbing CO2 from the air or power plant exhaust and pumping it underground; and growing grasses or shrubs, burning them for energy, and capturing and storing the CO2 (Science, 16 February 2018, p. 733).

But underground storage chambers can leak, and forests can burn. Mineralization is more permanent: Carbon-based minerals, or carbonates, are among the most stable on Earth, adds Siobhan “Sasha” Wilson, a biogeochemist at the University of Alberta, Edmonton. “It's a really robust place to store CO2,” she says.

And suitable rock waste is plentiful. Start with ultramafic wastes, the calcium- and magnesium-rich rock in which diamonds, along with metals such as nickel, platinum, and palladium are found. A 2019 report on NETs by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) described CO2 storage in ultramafic mine wastes as “low-hanging fruit.” Today, some 419 million tons of this and less alkaline “mafic” wastes are produced annually. If fully carbonated, they could lock up 175 million tons of atmospheric CO2 per year. Then there are the alkaline wastes from aluminum, iron, steel, and cement production, which could bring the total up to at least 310 million tons—and by some estimates more than 4 gigatons (GTs)—of CO2 trapped each year. The somewhat less alkaline basalt rock powder generated by coal production could sequester another 2 GTs per year, Phil Renforth of Heriot-Watt University and his colleagues have calculated—meaning alkaline wastes could in principle provide more than half of the negative emissions that IPCC called for.

But there are major hurdles. Governments will need to offer incentives for mineralization on the massive scale needed to make a dent in atmospheric carbon. And engineers will need to figure out how to harness the wastes while preventing the release of heavy metals and radioactivity locked in the material. Still, “Alkaline wastes have tremendous potential,” says Liang-Shih Fan, a chemical engineer at Ohio State University, Columbus. “It's a potential one should not overlook.”

THE NOTION of storing CO2 in minerals isn't new. Plans to capture the gas from the air or power plant exhaust often call for injecting it into underground rock formations that, like mine waste, react to form carbonates. And certain rocks naturally capture CO2 in a process known as weathering. In Oman, vast ridges of a mineral called peridotite mineralize CO2 from the air, forming white veins resembling marbling in steak. Similar smaller formations dot the globe.

Mine wastes behave the same way. In 2014, Wilson and colleagues analyzed mine tailings from the Mount Keith nickel mine in Western Australia and found that the mine's 11 million tons of tailings produced each year spontaneously react with CO2, locking up about 40,000 tons of the gas. That's equivalent to about 11% of the CO2 output from the mine's operations.

Read more:

By Robert F. Service

Science  04 Sep 2020:

Vol. 369, Issue 6508, pp. 1156-1159

Read from top.