Happy #Brexitday
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There can be few times in modern history where the political classes and most of the media were so united in a view that was so contrary to the popular will. In many countries that clash between the political “elite” … Continue reading →
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March 28, 2017 at 10:00PM
Recent Sea-Level Change at Major Cities
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Guest essay by Rich Taylor
Human population is becoming increasingly urban, and most of the world’s largest and fastest-growing cities border tidewater. This note presents charts of annual-value (AV) tide-gauge records in or near major coastal cities to illustrate the sea-level change these cities have observed recently, and fits linear trends to the records. Trends range from -1.5 mm per year (mm/y) to 18 mm/y. Tectonic uplift can explain the lowest trends, and cities growing rapidly on unconsolidated sediments (perhaps dredged) have the highest trends due to land subsidence. Urban areas that encompass ground of variable stability observe variable sea-level change. Where the ground is stable, typical change appears to be a rise of 1- to 2-mm/y. Rates above 3 mm/y seem to have a substantial component of natural and/or anthropogenic subsidence. Rates above 10 mm/y appear to be a primarily a consequence of human activity, which implies they should be manageable to some degree.
All records in this review are from the website www.psmsl.org of the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level. Profound thanks are due to the Service and its supporters; the website makes it easy to find and download data of apparent fidelity. All geological information is from the website http://ift.tt/2ofPFl5 of the US Geological Survey. The website presents world geology compiled by the Geological Survey of Canada (Open File 2915) as an interactive map that is easy to navigate and interrogate.
Trends in long records
A few major coastal cities have tide-gauge records that exceed 100 years in length. Records that are sufficiently long and accurate show the transition from stable sea-level that prevailed during the 1800s to the general rise that has been characteristic since about 1900. AVs from the gauge at the small city of Brest show this history clearly.
Brest is on terrane that is mainly sedimentary, which rests on older metamorphic and plutonic rocks that outcrop within 20 km to the north and south. Sedimentary rocks can be porous, and they decompose more readily than plutonic and metamorphic rocks into unconsolidated sediments. Plutonic and metamorphic rocks are typically non-porous. Unconsolidated and consolidated sedimentary terranes are more prone to land subsidence, especially when pore-fluid such as groundwater or natural gas is extracted for some combination of civic, industrial or agricultural use. Volcanic rocks have variable porosity and durability.
Brest has the longest record in the regular PSMSL database, and the record has good continuity and quality. From 1807 to 1900, AVs at Brest suggest sea-level was essentially stable. The trend for the last 100 years has been 1.5 mm/y, likely due to thermal expansion of sea water and the net transfer of water from continental aquifers to the ocean.
Accordingly for major cities with long records, AVs are used that provide a trend as close as possible of 100-years-to-the-present, and the rest of the AVs are presented but not trended.
An alphabetical review follows of the most populous coastal cities.
Bangkok harbor is the site of the Fort Phrachula Chomklao gauge. It is in the delta of the Chao Phraya River, which rests on mainly sedimentary terrane. From 1940 to 1959 (B59) its trend was 2.7 mm/y. Since 1962 (B62) it has been 18 mm/y (i.e. 18 cm/decade). The gauge has data-quality cautions (QCFLAGs) for the sharp increase in trend from 1962 and an apparent datum shift from 2003.
Sixty km to the south-southeast in the Gulf of Thailand is sparsely populated Ko Sichang Island and its gauge. The island is near the boundary where sedimentary bedrock rests on older plutonic terrane. From 1940 to 2002, the trend of the gauge (KS) was 0.8 mm/y. The Ko Sichang trend suggests that most of the apparent sea-level rise at Bangkok to 1959 is due to land subsidence, and that urban activity since 1962 has made the rise about 7-times more rapid than before and about 20-times more rapid than on Ko Sichang.
Unconsolidated sediments, such as in Bangkok harbor, are prone to subsidence but gauges in the Netherlands show that stability can result from planning and management. The Maassluis gauge has the longest record; it sits about 15 km from the North Sea on the Maas channel that takes most of the flow through the Rhine (etc.) delta. Its 1.8-mm/y trend is also the average 100-year trend of the six long-standing gauges (Vlissingen, Maassluis, Hoek van Holland, Ijmuiden, Den Helder, Harlingen and Delfzijl) that monitor sea level for the Netherlands.
Buenos Aires is on mainly sedimentary terrane bordering the Rio de la Plata estuary. Its Buenos Aires gauge provided AVs from 1905 to 1987, and the nearby Palermo gauge provides AVs to the present. Both have trends of 1.6 mm/y.
Chennai is on mostly sedimentary terrane, near the surface contact with underlying metamorphic/plutonic terrane. The trend at the Chennai / Madras gauge from 1916 to 2010 was 0.6 mm/y.
Guangzhou, Dongguan, Shenzhen, Hong Kong (HK), Macau and Zhongshan encircle the Pearl River Estuary (Shiziyuan). This area is on mainly sedimentary bedrock, but underlying plutonic terrane outcrops in the northern part of Guangzhou and in Macau. There are nine gauges in HK and in one in Macau that have operated during the last 100 years, which allow an insight into intra-urban variability. In order of initial AV, the following table and chart summarize information provided by these gauges.
| Gauge | Span of AVs | Trend mm/y | AVs / Span | Chart Legend |
| Macau | 1925-1982 | 0.2 | 58 / 58 | M |
| North Point | 1950-1985 | -1.2 | 35 / 36 | N |
| Chi Ma Wan | 1961-1989 | 1.8 | 15 / 29 | C |
| Tai Po Kau | 1963-2016 | 3.1 | 50 / 50 | P |
| Tsim Bei Tsui | 1975-2016 | 0.6 | 27 / 42 | T |
| Loc On Pai | 1986-1998 | -1.1 | 10 / 13 | L |
| Quarry Bay | 1986-2016 | 2.9 | 31 / 31 | Q |
| Waglan Island | 1995-2015 | 4.0 | 13 / 21 | W |
| Shek Pik | 1998-2016 | 0.1 | 17 / 19 | S |
| Tai Miu Wan | 1998-2016 | 2.9 | 16 / 19 | MW |
In this close cluster of gauges, diversity remains in some trends that span similar intervals. A trend of 1.3 mm/y for this urban area can be obtained by averaging the trends for the gauges, where each trend is weighted by the number of years spanned by the gauge.
Hangzhou is at the south end of the Grand Canal of China in the south-central part of the Yangtze River Delta, and is underlain by sedimentary and volcanic bedrock. It has no gauge in its urban area; the Kanmen and Lusi (discussed with Shanghai) gauges are each about 300 km away. The Kanmen gauge is on volcanic terrane; its trend since 1959 is 5.6 mm/y.
Istanbul is on mixed sedimentary and volcanic bedrock. The nearest indicative gauge might be at Alexandroupolis about 400 km to the east, on mainly sedimentary bedrock. From 1969 to 2014, the Alexandroupolis trend has been 2.6 mm/y.
Jakarta is on mainly sedimentary terrane. It has no gauge in its urban area (and no gauge in Indonesia has more than 8 AVs in its record). Jakarta sits over a sea-floor subduction zone; Lima (q.v.) is in a similar tectonic situation and has a gauge in its urban area.
Karachi is on mainly sedimentary terrane. Intermittent measurements at its gauge from 1916 to 2014 provide a trend of 1.9 mm/y.
Kolkata is in the western Ganges Delta on mainly sedimentary terrane. Its Calcutta gauge has a QCFLAG for an apparent datum shift starting in 1976; its trend since 1932 is 6.9 mm/y. The Diamond Harbour gauge is 40 km further south on the delta; its trend since 1948 is 4 mm/y.
Lagos is on mainly sedimentary terrane. It has no gauge but the Takoradi and Tema gauges, respectively 700 km and 500 km to the west on the same terrane, might provide some indication of sea-level change there. The Takoradi trend from 1930 to 2008 was 2.8 mm/y, excluding AVs from 1972 and 1991 with a QCFLAG for irregular appearance. The Tema trend from 1963 to 1981 was 1 mm/y.
Lima sits on mainly volcanic terrane above the subduction of Pacific sea-floor under South America. Its harbor gauge, Callao 2, has a QCFLAG for many ad hoc datum adjustments made to original data. The trend of the adjusted AVs at Callao 2 since 1970 is -0.3 mm/y. The La Libertad II gauge in Ecuador and the Antofagasta II gauge in Chile sit above the same subduction, have longer records than Callao 2 and neither has a QCFLAG. Their trends, respectively, are -1.3 mm/y for 1950 to 2002 and -0.8 mm/y for 1946 to 2015.
London and area are on mainly sedimentary terrane. The Tower Pier gauge provided urban data from 1929 to 1982 with a trend of 1.7 mm/y. The Southend gauge is 50 km east in the Thames Estuary, and its trend from 1933 to the present is 1.3 mm/y.
The Los Angeles gauge is on mainly sedimentary terrane, as are the Santa Monica. Alamitos Bay Entrance and Newport Bay gauges in the Los Angeles urban area. Santa Monica and Newport Bay are near the outcrop of underlying metamorphic and/or plutonic terrain. The trends in mm/y of the gauges are, respectively, 1, 1.5, 1.6 and 8, and the span-weighted average is 1.7.
Manila is on sedimentary and volcanic terrane. The Manila gauge has QCFLAGs for river discharges and land reclamation. The gauge was moved in 2002. The trend (M62) from 1902 to 1962 was 1.6 mm/y. Subsequently the trend (M63) increased abruptly and has continued to the present at 15 mm/y. The Cebu gauge, 600 km to the south-southeast, is on similar terrane, has a record of comparable length and no noted adjustments or disturbances. Its trend since 1936 has been 1.2 mm/y.
Mumbai is on Deccan basalt, a volcanic rock that typically has low porosity. The trend of the Mumbai / Bombay gauge from 1911 to 2010 was 0.9 mm/y.
Nagoya is on mainly volcanic terrane. There is a non-specific QCFLAG for the Nagoya gauge, but the pattern seen in the combined AVs for Nagoya and Nagoya II is similar to that seen at the Onisaki gauge, on the same terrane 20 km to the south. Tectonic movement is a likely cause of the pattern. Since 1963, the Onisaki trend is -1.5 mm/y.
The New York gauge is on mixed sedimentary-volcanic terrane, as are the Bergen Point gauge on Staten Island and the New Rochelle gauge north of the Bronx. Gauges on the mainly sedimentary terrane are Willets Point, Kings Point, Port Jefferson, Montauk and Plum Island on/by Long Island and Sandy Point off the south shore of New York Bay. USGS Fact Sheet-165-00 mentions subsidence at New York Bay.
In order of initial AV, the following table and chart summarize information provided by these gauges.
| Gauge | Span of AVs | Trend mm/y | AVs / Span | Chart Legend |
| New York | 1917-2016 | 3.1 | 97 / 100 | NY |
| Willets Point | 1932-1999 | 2.4 | 65 / 68 | WP |
| Sandy Point | 1933-2016 | 4.1 | 80 / 84 | SP |
| Montauk | 1948-2016 | 3.1 | 58 / 69 | M |
| Plum Island | 1958-1967 | -4.4 | 8 / 10 | PI |
| New Rochelle | 1958-1981 | 0.6 | 21 / 24 | NR |
| Port Jefferson | 1958-1990 | 2.2 | 31 / 33 | PJ |
| Bergen Point | 1985-2016 | 4.8 | 25 / 32 | BP |
| Kings Point | 1999-2016 | 5.3 | 18 / 18 | KP |
The span-weighted average of the trends is 3.0 mm/y. Given the diversity of trends among gauges and changes in gauge activity, the long-established New York and Montauk gauges, respectively at the southern tip of Manhattan and the eastern end of Long Island, appear to be good indicators for this urban area.
Osaka is in the delta of the Yodo River, which is underlain by volcanic terrane. In its urban area are the Osaka, Kobe and Kobe II gauges, and each has a QCFLAG for subsidence. The trend of the Osaka gauge since 1965 is 5.2 mm/y.
Qingdao has no gauge in its urban area; its coastal portion is on metamorphic and/or plutonic terrane. The Shijiusho gauge, 100 km to the southwest, is on the same terrane. The Yantai gauge is 200 km to the northwest, on plutonic terrane and has a QCFLAG for possible datum shifts. From 1954 to 1994, the Yantai trend was -0.2 mm/y and the Shijiusho trend from 1975 to 1994 was 1.7 mm/y.
Rio de Janeiro is on metamorphic and/or plutonic terrane. The Rio de Janeiro gauge provided 13 AVs from 1950 to 1967, with a trend of 3.7 mm/y. Since 1965, the trend for the Ilha Fiscal gauge has been 1.8 mm/y. The span-weighted average is 2.3 mm/y.
São Paulo has no gauge in its urban area. The closest gauge is Cananeia, 200 km west-southwest, which has QCFLAGs for its anomalous trend of 3.8 mm/y. São Paulo and the gauges at Rio de Janeiro 350 km east-northeast are on the same metamorphic and/or plutonic terrane so the Rio de Janeiro average of 2.3 mm/y might be also indicative for São Paulo.
Seoul is on metamorphic and/or plutonic terrane. Its urban area extends to the coast at Incheon, where the trend of that gauge since 1960 is 1.3 mm/y.
Shanghai is in the north-central Yangtze River Delta, as is the Luci gauge 100 km north of the city centre. Both are underlain by mainly sedimentary terrane. There is a non-specific QCFLAG for the gauge, where the trend since 1969 is 5.6 mm/y.
Shantou has no gauge in its urban area, but it and the Xiamen gauge 200 km to the northeast are both on plutonic terrane. The trend at Xiamen from 1954 to 2003 was 1.1 mm/y.
Tianjin hosts the Grand Canal of China, in the Hai River delta on mainly sedimentary terrane. The trend of its Tanggu gauge from 1975 to 1994 was 5.6 mm/y.
Tokyo is on mainly sedimentary terrane where the Sumida and Tama Rivers reach tidewater. The Tokyo I gauge provided a few scattered AVs from 1958 to 1962. The Sibaura and Tokyo III gauges in combination provide AVs from 1961 to the present, and the trend of both gauges is 1.6 mm/y.
Summary
Most of the world’s largest coastal cities border the Pacific Ocean. In recent decades, apparent sea-level has dropped at Nagoya, Lima and perhaps Jakarta. Sea level has likely risen 1- to 2-mm/y at Qingdao, Shantou, Guangzhou-Shenzhen-HK, Seoul, Tokyo and Los Angeles. It has apparently risen 5- to 6-mm/y at the delta cities of Osaka, Tianjin and Shanghai-Hangzhou. The effect of urban activity is clear in apparent rises of 15 mm/y at Manila and 18 mm/y at Bangkok.
For the Atlantic Basin, sea level has likely risen about 2-mm/y at Buenos Aires, London and Rio de Janeiro. Perhaps any change at São Paulo or Lagos has been similar. The apparent rise at Istanbul might be more than 2 mm/y, and apparent rise of 3 mm/y at New York might be due in part to subsidence.
For the Indian Ocean, sea level has likely risen 0.5- to 2-mm/y at Chennai, Mumbai and Karachi. The delta city of Kolkata has seen an apparent rise of 7 mm/y.
Delta cities and others on unconsolidated sediments have higher apparent rises. However, gauges in the Netherlands show that sea-level change in highly developed regions on unconsolidated sediments can be kept close to change seen generally around the world.
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March 28, 2017 at 08:40PM
CHINA TO MOVE SOME MANUFACTURING TO THE USA
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In global manufacturing, fortunes are starting to shift in America’s favour.
That’s despite Donald Trump’s angry election rhetoric about China “raping” the U.S., and his threats to forcibly bring home manufacturing jobs by slapping across-the-board tariffs of 45% on Chinese imports.
The trends were clear well before Mr. Trump started rallying his blue-collar base with alarmist messages of protectionism. In fact, China’s trade challenge peaked years ago: Exports to the U.S. surged in the immediate aftermath of the country joining the World Trade Organization in 2001, throwing several million U.S. assembly workers out of a job, but they have since flattened out.
Nowadays, the exit of U.S. factory jobs from the country is roughly matched by posts coming in, according to the nonprofit Reshoring Initiative, which encourages companies to bring production back to the U.S.
Job-creating investment from China is booming in particular. Last year, it tripled to $45.6 billion from a year earlier, according to the Rhodium Group.
Chinese social-media sites were abuzz last year when the auto-glass tycoon Cao Dewang announced he was moving part of his production empire to Ohio. Some commentators denounced him for “running away.” He insisted he could make more money producing for the U.S. market from Ohio than China.
Although U.S. wages are still higher than those in China, the gap is rapidly narrowing. Andy Gu, vice president of international business for Midea, a massive home-appliance maker also based in southern China, says a competent engineer now demands up to $50,000 a year. Ordinary workers get about $600 a month, with food and lodging on top.
Moreover, industrial land in the U.S. is often cheaper than in Chinese coastal cities. The shale-gas revolution has dramatically lowered U.S. energy costs.
But the real key is technology: Advanced manufacturing is leveling the playing field.
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March 28, 2017 at 06:30PM
Peak Oil: Not Just Wrong but Invalid
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“Production in a region rarely follows a bell curve nor do regions necessarily experience a single peak. As a result, this method repeatedly predicted premature peaks for many countries and for the world itself.”
“Production patterns are determined by the geology and chemistry of the deposit, plus the engineering decisions on how to produce it, plus the fiscal regime in place.”
Although the insistence that “peak oil” was imminent has largely faded from public view, it remains a valuable illustration of how poorly developed theories can nonetheless catch the public’s imagination, including those who should know better. So what were the theories and methods that were employed to support peak oil, arguments that a library of articles and books repeated to create a false narrative (and, undoubtedly, a ‘97% consensus’).
The original claim underlying peak oil was that resource scarcity would cause oil production to decline in the near future and that nothing could be done to alter that trajectory. Two retired oil geologists—Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrère—justified this idea by making their estimates of recoverable resources using a private database of oil field sizes fitted to the so-called Hubbert curve, a bell curve said to represent production for a region.
Their theory was that since production followed a bell curve, fitting production data for a country or region to a curve would demonstrate the entire trajectory of supply and yield an estimate of the total resource. Also, once half the resource was produced, production would decline; and conversely, if production was declining, then the peak had been reached and half the resource produced.
Actually, though, production in a region rarely follows a bell curve nor do regions necessarily experience a single peak. As a result, this method repeatedly predicted premature peaks for many countries and for the world itself.
Laherrère attempted to reinforce his claims by the use of so-called creaming curves, ordering discoveries by date to show how their sizes decline over time; the asymptote of the curve would then represent the total resource. This method is employed by conventional petroleum geologists, but with this understanding: It works only for a given basin, not a combination of them; it cannot predict the discovery of new basins; and it requires stable estimates of field size.
The peak-oil theorists ignored the first argument, insisted both that no new basins remain to be discovered and that their field size data was stable. (However, they elsewhere chided economists for not recognizing that field size data was often revised upwards.)
The shortcoming was made worse by the insistence that the results were robust, which they were not; as regards the Middle East, for example, creaming curves yielded an estimate that was revised upwards three times. It was simply asserted that the final estimate was correct, and earlier ones not, without recognizing the implication that the method did not yield a stable estimate but one which evolved over time.
Another freshman mistake was to rely on graphs of cumulative data, specifically discoveries and production, which Laherrère noted seem to resemble each other. The first thing taught in freshman statistics is that cumulative numbers are meaningless: next year’s GDP may change substantially compared to this year’s, but if you put a century’s cumulative GDP on a graph you can see no difference.
However, Laherrère in particular believed he has created a ‘model’ whereby he could predict a country’s production by looking at its cumulative discovery trend, although his graphs showing individual discoveries in a country made it clear that they were highly variable and related poorly to subsequent production trends.
The one thing in common with these methods was that they represented curve-fitting, just extrapolating discovery and production trends (and sometimes not accurately). Because some of the proponents are geologists, they claimed that the work was “scientific” and derided their opponents as economists, even though many petroleum engineers and geologists disagreed with their work.
Kjell Aleklett, who took over the leadership of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil despite having little experience in the analysis of resources, insists that his work is “natural science” even though there is no real scientific content: he and his colleagues observe trends and assume they are determined by physical factors.
Which is obviously wrong, given that the so-called scientific behavior is often violated. As mentioned, few countries exhibit a bell-curve shaped production trend, and many of the fields that are said to follow a mathematically precise behavior later violate it. Laherrère has noted that the Forties field production followed a declining trend for years, suggesting that the field’s total resource could be estimated by extrapolating it to the intersection with the x-axis.
The addition of gas-lift caused production to differ from the trend briefly, but then the trend resumed to his great delight—proving, he insisted, that geology determined the profile of a field’s production.
Nonsense. Since he published his graphs, the Forties oil production trend has changed, going flat instead of declining for roughly ten years, with an increase in the field’s proved reserves of 150 million barrels. Production patterns are determined by the geology and chemistry of the deposit, plus the engineering decisions on how to produce it, plus the fiscal regime in place. The latter two can change, as was the case with the Forties field and many others. New investment regularly adds reserves to mature fields, and the trade press is full of articles describing such additions.
More Peak Oil Fallacy
A certain amount of circular, reality-defying logic was also employed in peak-oil theory. Aside from the bizarre suggestion that only geology affected supply, not politics or economics, the insistence that estimates of field sizes did not change and that technology could not increase the recoverable portion of oil was nonsensical from the beginning. Recovery rates have been growing gradually over time, and numerous new methods and inventions have greatly increased the amount of oil that can be extracted.
But for the creaming-curve method to function this had not to be so to function, and in response, peak oil advocates like Jean Laherrère would claim that overall field size increases occurred only in the United States, owing to its industry’s reliance on a more restrictive and conservative definition of reserves. Yet various other sources all noted field size increases in other international settings. And when asked about new technologies, peak-oil theorists claimed that they only increased production rates, not recovery. Again, all the evidence is to the contrary.
Lastly, in a move that should puzzle the typical high school math student, Princeton geologist Kenneth S. Deffeyes developed the “Hubbert Linearization” method. This involves graphing annual production divided by cumulative production on the y-axis against cumulative wells, production, or time on the x-axis.
Naturally, the result is a declining curve because the y-axis denominator, cumulative production, is growing over time. After a century, you get a curve that looks like it’s heading towards zero, an inevitable result that Deffeyes used to predict world oil production would peak in November 2005.
Obviously, the very structure of this “equation” means that any data series will yield the same results, whether it’s global oil production, U.S. GDP, or sales of Hostess Twinkies. All that is being demonstrated is that the annual level becomes small compared to the total historical production as time passes.
Faulty Tradition
Numerous articles about neo-Malthusian theorists, including Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb and the Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth, point to the failure of these predictions without clearly explaining why they failed, leaving many to argue that the theory was sound and the error was only in the calculation of the date of peak production.
Such a rationalization is hardly new: Sixteenth century London astrologers predicted the date when the Thames would flood and destroy London; when it failed to do so, they pacified the angry crowd by assuring them that “…by an error (a very slight one) of a little figure, they had fixed the date of this awful inundation a whole century too early. The stars were right after all, and they, erring mortals, were wrong.” [1]
In other words, the model was correct; a bad piece of data was to blame.
The same is true with neo-Malthusians. Colin Campbell first predicted that world oil production would peak in 1989, a date he repeatedly delayed without admitting to error. Ehrlich has never admitted that the conceptual model underlying his prediction of looming mass starvation was simply wrong, and The Limits to Growth authors, revisiting their 1972 work thirty years later, insisted that the great increase in oil supply simply meant the world was that much closer to the end.
A realist academic would say: No, your model was underspecified and thus yielded incorrect conclusions.
Decision-makers are rarely able to analyze claims and research in any depth, owing to constraints on their time. But it is truly bizarre that such superficial work, based on simplistic and obviously flawed theories and math, should rate such lengthy attention. It behooves us all to pay more attention to the details.
—————
[1] Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (Original in 1841, republished Wordsworth Reference 1999).
The post Peak Oil: Not Just Wrong but Invalid appeared first on Master Resource.
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March 28, 2017 at 06:02PM
Iowa Climate Science Education 