Skeptics mention the Urban Heat Island and its crickets from the ABC.

A green group mentions the Urban Heat Island effect and the ABC is happy to advertise:

Australian cities are increasingly becoming concrete jungles as trees and canopy coverage disappear, according to experts who warn this is contributing to an urban “heat island” effect.

“We know a tried and tested strategy is the introduction of more trees and green roofs in urban spaces, reducing surface temperatures by up to 40 per cent,” Griffith University urban and environmental planner Tony Matthews said.

40% of what, we might wonder, but the ABC doesn’t.

Could this huge heat effect possibly affect temperature records creating a systematic century scale bias inflating and creating fake hottest ever records. Nothing to see here, nevermind.

What radiates like an oven but doesn’t heat thermometers?

A national initiative — called Greener Spaces Better Places — brings together academic, government and industry groups to promote further greenery in our cities. Its research says black bitumen and dark roofs compound the already-hot days by creating a so-called heat island effect, absorbing heat and radiating it back like an oven.

Radiating like an […]

via JoNova

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February 13, 2020 at 03:50AM

The linked article contains more video material and images.
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In February 2020, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory—SDO—is celebrating its 10th year in space, reports Phys.org.

Over the past decade the spacecraft has kept a constant eye on the sun, studying how the sun creates solar activity and drives space weather—the dynamic conditions in space that impact the entire solar system, including Earth.

Since its launch on Feb. 11, 2010, SDO has collected millions of scientific images of our nearest star, giving scientists new insights into its workings.

SDO’s measurements of the sun—from the interior to the atmosphere, magnetic field, and energy output—have greatly contributed to our understanding of our closest star.

SDO’s images have also become iconic—if you’ve ever seen a close up of activity on the sun, it was likely from an SDO image.

SDO’s long career in space has allowed it to witness nearly an entire solar cycle—the sun’s 11-year cycle of activity.

Here are a few highlights of SDO’s accomplishments over the years.

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February 13, 2020 at 02:49AM

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February 13, 2020 at 01:30AM

Thanks to GWPF for honoring my submission nominating the Tallest Climate Tale of 2019. Their post is We Have A Winner: Tallest Climate Tale of 2019 Text below in italics.Date: 12/02/20GWPF

We have been deliberating hard, and have decided upon a winner for our competition.

At the start of the year, we asked GWPF readers to send us nominations for our search to find the tallest climate tale of 2019. You have not let us down, sending us in entries from around the world.

An honourable mention must go to last year’s winner, Andrew Kissling, from New Zealand, who delivered the goods yet again. Amongst his excellent entries were an article claiming child marriage was increasing because of climate change, and that chips are now an inch shorter, and climate change is to blame.

However, topping the list this year was Ron Clutz, who many of you may be familiar with from his blog, Science Matters. The judges felt that his entry captured perfectly the absurdity of today’s climate change debate.

The article claimed that rational thought itself may become a victim of climate change. We at the GWPF know that rational discussion about climate change is already very rare.

Congratulations to Ron, who wins a bottle of whisky and two GWPF books (Population Bombed and The Polar Bear Catastrophe that Never Happened).

Original Post:  CO2 Hysteria Impairs Thinking

An article by James Pero at Daily Mail confirms suspicions about muddled thinking regarding global warming/climate change.  Is carbon dioxide making it harder to THINK straight?   Excerpts in italics with my comments and images.

Rising CO2 levels may hinder cognitive function and could decrease decision-making efficiency by 50 PERCENT in 2100, study says. 

• Carbon emissions may have a drastic impact on cognitive function
• Researchers say that CO2 may decrease classroom decision making
• It could reduce decision making by as much as 50 percent in 2100, they say

Rational thought may eventually become a victim of climate change according to a new study.

[Well, media announcements and studies like this one show rationality is already greatly compromised.]

Research presented by scientists at the annual American Geophysical Union and submitted to the journal GeoHealth suggests that increased CO2 may soon diminish humans’ capacity to think clearly.

The findings follow previous studies that show how indoor air pollution and poor ventilation can hinder people’s ability to perform mentally, including a study published last year from the University College London.

[Note the chart at the top showing that CO2 in the atmosphere is 410ppm (parts/per/million) , or 0.04%.  Note also that health and safety regulations for buildings expect no harmful effects below 5000 ppm, which would be 10 times the present amount.]

‘Human cognitive performance declines with an increase in CO2’, the researchers wrote in the paper.

‘Direct impacts of CO2 emissions on human cognitive performance may be unavoidable.’

Those studies concluded that circulating air and regulating the amount of CO2 trapped in a room can help mitigate the effects of too much CO2, but new research suggests ventilation in a climate change-addled future might just make matters worse.

[This diagram shows the ratio of human to natural carbon dioxide in the atmosphere equals the ratio of their inflows, independent of residence time.
The amount of CO2 flowing from humans into the atmosphere is miniscule (about 4%) compared to CO2 flowing from the oceans and biosphere (96%).  Thus the human component presently is 17ppm (or 0.002%).  Eliminating our emissions entirely would have no discernable impact on the total amount.  See Who to Blame for Rising CO2?]

It also used two different climate models – one that factors in reductions in CO2 and another that projects conditions if emissions continue unfettered.

In the model that factors in some emissions intervention, scientists say decision making in the classroom could decrease by 25 percent while a model without emissions mitigation could see a whopping 50 percent reduction.

Though previous studies have shown a correlation between brain function and CO2, not much is currently understood about why the gas affects our brains the way it does.

As noted by Gizmodo, a previous study on CO2’s correlation to brain function showed that an increase as little as 5 percent had reduces brain activity.

[Let’s see: A 5% increase in CO2 would be a leap from 0.041% to 0.043%, requiring some fine sensors to even detect it.  Doubtful that brains are that sensitive to the gas itself, but obviously there is huge sensitivity to the idea of rising CO2.

OTOH plants have sensed and appreciated the increased CO2 as shown in the greening of the planet since 1982]
No current research has studied the kind of long-term exposure that will would result from rampant climate change.

As noted by researchers, however, all of the adverse effects of CO2 on mental performance can still be averted by making a concerted effort to lower emissions and stave off climate change.

 

via Science Matters

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February 13, 2020 at 01:24AM