Friday 29th of March 2024

wacko wisdom of the white house deepshitter...

genius

President Donald Trump's administration has ended US space agency Nasa's monitoring system into greenhouse gases, a US journal has revealed.

The Carbon Monitoring System (CMS), a $10m (£7m)-a-year project which remotely tracks the world's flow of carbon dioxide, is to lose funding.

Science magazine reports that its loss jeopardises the ability to measure national emission cuts - as agreed to by nations in the Paris climate deal.

The US plans to withdraw from the deal.

However, until a pullout is formalised in 2020, the US continues to be part of the international climate accord. 

US officials are currently in Germany as part of talks to outline a detailed rule book for the 2015 Paris agreement. They are reportedly insisting on strong rules for reporting and monitoring greenhouse gas emissions.

The country's environmental policy has shifted under a Trump administration, which wants to bolster the US's fossil fuel industry.

Graphic showing impact of US pulling out of Paris deal

Mr Trump has repeatedly threatened Nasa's earth science budget and other climate missions. In March, a spending deal signed in Congress omitted mention of CMS, effectively killing future US research into verifying greenhouse gas emission cuts.

"If you cannot measure emissions reductions, you cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the agreement," energy and environment professor Kelly Sims Gallagher told the journal. 

Presentational grey line

Making cheating easy

By Matt McGrath, Environment correspondent in Bonn, Germany

Accurately measuring emissions of carbon dioxide has been one of the major challenges for UN negotiators since concerns over climate change first manifested in the 1990s. 

Right now most countries produce annual estimates based on working out how much fuel is used in transport, energy and industry. These are often wildly inaccurate, making cheating easy. 

Attempts have been made to develop space and aircraft-based systems and Nasa's CMS is perhaps the most advanced. 

The development of CMS has helped the US and other developed countries put pressure on emerging economies like China to agree to strong systems to monitor, record and verify their emissions - something that China and India have strongly resisted. 

The cancellation of the CMS system will be seen here in Bonn as a weakening of the chances of developing a robust and transparent emissions monitoring system - something that many see as critical in building trust for the future of the Paris climate agreement. 

Presentational grey line

Nasa's CMS has supported dozens of research projects since 2010 to make sense of monitoring and measurements of the world's carbon dioxide and methane through satellite and aircraft instruments. 

It has also helped countries assess their carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.

Nasa says that not all carbon monitoring and measuring will be lost with the end of CMS. 

Steve Cole, a Nasa spokesman, told the BBC: "The winding down of this specific research programme does not curb NASA's ability or commitment to monitoring carbon and its effects on our changing planet."

"In fact, Gedi, a new ecosystem carbon-monitoring instrument, is set to launch to the International Space Station this summer."

Getting Gedi, the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation laser system, into orbit is listed in Nasa's 2019 budget request, even though the programme is called a CMS mission, according to the agency's site.

Notably, the agency's 2019 request specifically mentions termination of CMS.

Nasa's budget overview says the agency's new fund allocation "refocuses existing Nasa activities towards exploration, by redirecting funding to innovative new programmes and providing additional funding to support new public-private initiatives".

Rachel Licker, a senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the BBC that ending CMS - even if some existing projects continue - is a cause for concern. 

"In the long-term, dismantling the Carbon Monitoring System will adversely affect our ability to track flows of carbon through our land, oceans, and atmosphere," Ms Licker said.

"Being able to better track carbon is critical to evaluating efforts and policies aimed at limiting global warming and its impacts."

With repeated talks of a space force and sending astronauts back to the moon, Mr Trump appears to favour space missions over earth science.

Leadership in the field of carbon monitoring will likely pass to Europe, which has one carbon-monitoring satellite of its own and more to come. 

And the scientific shift to Europe may have already begun.

In December of last year, French President Emmanuel Macron lured 13 US climate scientists to France by way of a "Make Our Planet Great Again" project, awarding $70m in research grants.

 

Read more:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44067797

the source of our next troubles: EXTRA CO2...

 

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/33287

 

So what is global warming?

 

Average temperatures on the surface of the Earth are maintained via the gaseous mix

Water vapour represents about 75 per cent of this influence

CO2 induces about 20 per cent 

Other gases induce the rest of the average temperature, including methane and nitric oxides.

Oxygen is viewed as a “cooling gas”

 

Despite the very small quantities of CO2, should there be none in the atmosphere, the temperature would plummet around 35 degrees Celsius in 50 year. 

 

With the Vostok record we have established that the natural maximum variations are between 180 ppm of CO2 for ice ages and 300 ppm of CO2 for warmer period. These natural variations are mostly induced by the Milankovitch cycles

 

Climatologists will also add that:

 

EXTRA CO2 — presently 100 ppm above MAXIMUM natural settings — AND EXTRA OTHER warming GASES in the atmosphere will induce a warming above the “normal” natural settings. Even Arrhenius predicted this. 

 

The EXTRA CO2 is human-activity induced — ESPECIALLY THROUGH THE BURNING OF FOSSIL FUELS.

 

SIMPLE.

 

NO PROPER scientists can dispute this statement. Only a genius like Trump can...

trump the barbarian...

Trump's renown is rooted in American hero myths. Trump says that women like Carla Bruni lust after him, something that women like Carla Bruni vehemently deny. Trump says he is exorbitantly rich, yet Trump ran himself into the ground with his casinos to the point that he was 295 million dollars in debt in 1990. He was bailed out by the banks and by his father. The greatest myth, though, has to do with Trump's alleged negotiating expertise. This too is nonsense. Trump was never proficient in the art of the deal. As a businessman, he paid far too much for substandard properties and has shown no patience as a politician. He isn't curious. His preparation is nonexistent. Strategy and tactics are both foreign to him. Trump is only proficient in destruction. And that's what he does.

He backed out of the Paris climate agreement while promising a "better deal for America." But nothing came of the promise, neither a plan nor meaningful talks. In Trump's Washington, the only thing that matters is dismantling the legacy of his predecessor, Barack Obama. Trump also promised to improve Obama's health care plan, but the details are complex and bothersome. So Trump destroyed Obamacare and has done nothing to replace it.

 

Read more:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/editorial-trump-deals-painful-...

 

This is why Trump is President of the United States of Philistania, Barbaria. As a philistine, he is proud of his conflicted cultural ignorance and contradictory love for Israel. The previous tenants of the White House were more measured in their double dealings.

mad dogs and yamerikans...

US President Donald Trump has torn up yet another international treaty this week and pushed the world to the brink of more war in the Middle East – all on the back of absurd anti-Iran claims.

What do you call it when one country appoints itself to unilaterally violate international consensus and law in order to recklessly pursue illegal interests? A global dictatorship seems not exaggerated.

READ MORE: 'Elephant in China Shop': Trump's Stance on Iran 'Leaves More Than Just Shards'

Let's relieve ourselves of illusions about "American democracy" and "freedom loving, law-abiding beacon of hope"; rather we need to call Washington out for what it is.

Make no mistake, the US government is acting like a rogue regime that is out on its own, holding a blow torch to the face of global peace. To have the support of just two other client regimes — Israel and Saudi Arabia — in violating the Iran nuclear deal this week only emphasizes Washington's wayward tyranny.

Russia, China, the European Union and the United Nations — signatories to the landmark 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — have all deplored Trump's move to blow up that accord.

Just like the Paris Accord on climate change and various trade treaties, Trump has shown a brazen disdain for any multilateral diplomacy. His high-handed, maximalist attitude reveals that his policy is not so much "America First" as "American Fist".

 

Don't hold your breath either for any success in Trump's supposed diplomacy with North Korea. Trump's notion of engagement is simply premised on capitulation by the other side.

In announcing US withdrawal from the JCPOA this week, Trump is full-on invoking the dubious principle that "might is right". With no regard for legal obligations or diplomatic norms, the US under Trump is showing its true colors as a hegemon that brooks no reciprocation. The United States views itself above the law. It is only others that are bound by petty legal constraints.

Arguably, this dictatorial nature of US power was always present — witness the dropping of atomic weapons on Japan and its endless number of wars over the decades — but now, under Trump, the true nature of the beast has emerged.

The shock felt among supposed European allies is palpable after Trump ripped up the US obligation to the nuclear accord. Washington's arrogant warnings to the EU to start winding down multi-billion-dollar investments in Iran have slammed into German, French and British illusions about a supposed "trans-Atlantic partnership".

READ MORE: EU's Juncker: Europe Must Replace US as Leader After Trump Quits Iran Deal

But what's even more shocking is the pile of falsehoods and lies spouted by Trump for why he was nixing the Iran deal.

The venomous labelling of Iran as "the world's biggest state sponsor of terrorism" (the sheer irony of that from the US!) and Trump's outrageous assertions that Iran was secretly building a nuclear bomb have no basis in reality. Trump is basing his whole argument on irrational "Iranophobia" and bombastic propaganda supplied by Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

No sooner had Trump announced American rejection of the international treaty, the Israelis stepped up deadly air strikes on Syria, including casualties among Iranian military present in that country.

 

The world is being pushed to a new war in the Middle East, which could escalate into an international conflagration — solely on the back of outlandish claims leveled by the American president in complete dereliction of legal standards.

The truth is that the Trump administration is wrecking an international treaty not out of any avowed security concerns over Iran and its alleged nuclear ambitions. That allegation is a flagrant lie which has been disproven by numerous inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran has fully complied with the JCPOA.

What Washington is really after is its long-term goal of regime change in Tehran. The American rulers have never forgiven Iran for its revolution in 1979 which dealt a blow to US hegemonic interests in the strategically important Middle East.

READ MORE: Nuclear Deal With Iran 'Dead': US Aims for Regime Change in Tehran – Analyst

The party that has singularly not complied with the JCPOA is the United States. Trump is talking about re-imposing nuclear-related sanctions within weeks, but the US has never lifted a range of bilateral sanctions against Iran despite the signing of the nuclear accord.

The continuance of US sanctions has impeded the implementation of the Iran deal by the rest of the world. Fearful of incurring US penalties, European investors have been reticent to go all into Iran.

Trump's plan to reinstate tougher sanctions on Iran are aimed at hitting the Iranian people with ever-harsher economic and social consequences.

Ahmad Noroozi of the charitable Barakat Foundation, based in Tehran, says that Iranians have hardly felt any benefits from the JCPOA because of ongoing US sanctions — nearly three years after the deal with signed.

The Barakat Foundation is involved in wide-ranging social projects, including rural poverty alleviation, empowering women, house building, schools and healthcare provision. It is patronized by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. But in US media, the foundation is denigrated as the "Khamenei's business empire". Consequently, American sanctions continue to thwart many socially progressive projects, hitting ordinary Iranians' livelihoods.

The pain inflicted on Iranians by American sanctions, from food insecurity to restricted supply of cancer drugs, is aimed at fomenting social unrest and ultimately regime change.

Such an objective is illegal and morally reprehensible. Rather than admitting its criminal agenda, the Trump administration is disguising it with a veneer of nuclear security concerns.

But virtually the whole world can see through this veneer as a risible pretext for regime change. In pursuit of that criminal objective, Washington is willing to vandalize international law, snub global consensus, disenfranchise allies and, ultimately, to incite all-out war.

 

At this week's Victory Day commemorations in Moscow's Red Square, Russian President Vladimir Putin commented on the specter of war. Referring to the historic defeat of Nazi Germany on May 9 1945 by the Soviet Red Army, Putin said: "Behind new threats stand the same ugly, old traits: egoism and intolerance, aggressive nationalism and the pretensions to exceptionalism."

"Pretensions to exceptionalism" was a veiled reference to the United States and its oft-stated presumption of vain supremacy.

Its unilateral, tyrannical behavior towards international law, multilateralism, inciting regime change and war is proof of US global dictatorship.

There can be no illusions about what the world is up against in dealing with the rogue regime that is the United States of America. The tyranny is unmasked like never before.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.

 

read more:

https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201805101064337311-us-tyranny-unmasked/

record may temperatures for USA...

New weather data show the month of May was the hottest ever recorded in the contiguous United States, with temperatures that soared more than 5 degrees Fahrenheit above 20th century averages. Climate scientists say May’s heat toppled the previous record, set in 1934 at the height of the Dust Bowl, and is consistent with models for global warming. The record U.S. temperatures came as 2018 is on track to be Earth’s fourth-hottest year on record—while the five warmest years on record all have taken place since 2010.

 

Read more:

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/6/8/headlines/record_

降雨量を記録する

At least 100 people are thought to have died after record rainfall caused flooding and landslides in western Japan, a government spokesman says.

More than 50 others are believed to be missing, the Japan Times reported.

Since Thursday, parts of western Japan have received three times the usual rainfall for the whole of July. Two million people have been ordered to evacuate as rivers burst their banks.

"We've never experienced this kind of rain before," a weather official said.

Rescuers restarted their search through the mud for any survivors or the bodies of those killed on Monday morning.

An official in Okayama prefecture told AFP news agency that water levels were gradually receding and that emergency teams may be able to access the worst-hit areas on foot.

Most of the deaths have occurred in Hiroshima prefecture.

Read more:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44762110

2 metres by 2100...

By Martin Bush. Reposted with permission from ClimateZone.org.

While renewable energy is on a roll — setting records in Europe over the last few months, and racking up impressive numbers in capacity buildout in 2017, it’s easy to forget what is happening behind the scenes.

Extreme weather gets all the headlines: the wildfires in Canada and Sweden, the flooding in Japan, the heatwaves in Canada and the U.S. But what are called the slow onset climate change events are inexorably moving forward.

Think or Swim

Let’s start with sea level. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) recently published a report called Underwater, which examined more closely the impact of future sea level rise on coastal cities in the U.S. The UCS took as their baseline that global mean sea levels would rise about 2 meters between 2010 and the end of the century — a projection judged as being very likely in several reports published last year.

The UCS report looked at the impact on coastal communities of chronic inundation due to sea level rise — defined as a zone experiencing at least 26 floods a year. By the end of the century, the UCS analysis shows that as many as 2.4 million of today’s residential properties and about 107,000 commercial properties, worth roughly $1.07 trillion, would be at risk of chronic flooding.

As several million American coastal residents are forced to move inland, coastal property values collapse. The tax base of coastal towns drops catastrophically — resulting in the dramatic reduction in numerous critical social services and the total impoverishment and eventual abandonment of many coastal communities.

In the US, Florida and New Jersey are most at risk. Over the next 30 years, roughly 64,000 homes in Florida and 62,000 in New Jersey will be at risk of chronic flooding.

These states are just the worst affected, but the whole of the eastern shoreline of the US and the coast of Atlantic Canada are all hugely at risk — particularly the low lying areas of Nova Scotia.

Only Two Meters?

A sea level rise of two meters in 2100 now looks like wishful thinking. Recent satellite data from NASA and the European Space Agency, show that ice losses from Antarctica are causing sea levels to rise faster today than any time in the past 25 years. The rate of melting has risen three fold since 2012.

Sea level rise is essentially caused by two related phenomena: the melting of ice sheets and glaciers, and the expansion of ocean water as it warms. It’s the melting bit which is slowly spiralling out of control.

The Greenland and Antarctic icesheets hold absolutely enormous quantities of ice. Together they lock up 99 percent of the world’s fresh water. Literally trillions of tons of ice which — if it all melted away (which it won’t) would raise sea levels by more than 60 meters, inundate and render uninhabitable most of the islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and flood countless American, Canadian, and European coastal communities, driving millions of families inland in search of higher ground.

It’s not going to happen — not in our lifetimes anyway.

But it’s started.

The Antarctic is a colossal ice sheet — the largest in the world and about 9 times larger than Greenland’s. Before 2012, ice was being lost at a steady rate of about 76 billion tonnes a year. But since 2012, the amount of ice lost has jumped to almost 220 billion tonnes a year. Nearly three times higher.

Most of this loss was from the huge Pine island and Thwaites glaciers — which are rapidly retreating due to ocean-induced melting.

More importantly, data from the GRACE satellites show that both ice sheets, Antarctica and Greenland, have undergone an accelerating rate of melting since 2009. The rest of the world’s glaciers — much smaller but still a major factor in global sea level rise — have been melting since at least 1980.

This acceleration in sea level rise is being matched by other fundamental climate metrics. Consider atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide — the principal greenhouse gas and the major driver of increasing global warming. It’s not breaking news that global CO2 levels continue to increase — levels are now closing in on 410 ppm: up from about 320 ppm in 1970.

But most people might not be aware that the rate of growth of CO2 concentrations is not steady: it’s increasing. The rise in atmospheric levels of CO2 is accelerating — just like the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic icesheets and the majority of glaciers worldwide.

The chart below is from NOAA. Although there was a slowdown in the decade from 1990 to 1999, the rate of increase picked up where it left off in the decade that followed. The current decade from 2010 looks set to continue the long term trend — although we won’t know for sure until we get to 2020.

 

Read more:

https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/07/20/antarctic-melt-accelerates-sea-lev...