You can see the bird tracks on this pond, from 350 feet above.
Ground level.
Chemical fertilizer running off from this neighborhood has killed the pond.
via The Deplorable Climate Science Blog
September 1, 2017 at 09:12AM
Month: September 2017
Texan wetland [image credit: Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept.]
This study reported on the U.S. East Coast, but all ideas for protection of increasingly populated coastal areas from severe weather should be under the microscope after the recent floods in Texas. Phys.org reporting.
With the Atlantic hurricane season well under way and Tropical Storm Harvey causing devastation in Texas, a new scientific study reports that coastal wetlands significantly reduce annual flood losses and catastrophic damages from storms.
Led by a team of scientists from the engineering, insurance, and conservation sectors, including researchers at UC Santa Cruz, the study found that coastal wetlands in the northeast United States prevented $625 million in direct flood damages during Hurricane Sandy, reducing damages by more than 22 percent in half of the affected areas and by as much as 30 percent in some states.
The study, published August 31 in Scientific Reports, quantified the flood reduction benefits provided by coastal wetlands across the northeastern United States during Hurricane Sandy, as well as the benefits provided annually in Barnegat Bay in Ocean County, New Jersey.
It used the risk industry’s latest and most rigorous high-resolution flood and loss models and an extensive database of property exposure to show the correlations between property value and wetland presence, and between wetland extent and avoided flood damages.
The vast majority of public and private funding for coastal infrastructure goes toward built structures (e.g., concrete), with only about 3 percent going to restoration of natural infrastructure (e.g., wetlands), according to a recent analysis by UC Santa Cruz researchers.
The authors of the new study said their findings make a clear case for reallocation of this coastal investment portfolio, particularly after disasters such as Hurricane Sandy. “Wetlands can be incredibly effective at reducing property damages from catastrophic storms, and these effects can be clearly understood by combining state-of-art engineering models with coastal ecology and economic analysis,” said lead author Siddharth Narayan, a coastal engineer at UC Santa Cruz.
“Coastal habitats provide benefits that represent hundreds of millions of dollars in annual savings along the U.S. East Coast.”
Continued here.
via Tallbloke’s Talkshop
September 1, 2017 at 08:24AM
In 1971, National Geographic published this map of late summer Arctic sea ice extent.
Here is their current map.
The image below overlays the current NSIDC map (green) on the 1971 National Geographic Map (red.) There is less ice in the western Arctic than 1971, and more ice in the Eastern Arctic
But what is really interesting in the map above is the position of the NSIDC median ice edge line, which extends far outside the 1971 area. This is because NSIDCs ignore all of the pre-1979 data, when sea ice extent was very low.
Arctic Sea Ice Fraud | The Deplorable Climate Science Blog
In the 1950’s experts thought the Arctic would be ice-free within a generation.
The Changing Face of the Arctic; The Changing Face of the Arctic
In order to create their fake linear trend graphs, they start right at the peak in 1979, and ignore all the prior data. Junk science doesn’t get any worse than that.
via The Deplorable Climate Science Blog
September 1, 2017 at 07:42AM
Australia is a large continent in the Southern Hemisphere. The temperatures measured and recorded by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology contribute to the calculation of global averages. These values, of course, suggest catastrophic human-caused global warming. Two decades ago the Bureau replaced most of the manually-read mercury thermometers in its weather stations with electronic devises […]
The post Two Decades of Temperature Data from Australia – Not Fit for Purpose appeared first on Jennifer Marohasy.
via Jennifer Marohasy
September 1, 2017 at 07:35AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 