These posts are intended to share information and ideas about climate change and hence act as a roundtable. Comments rehashing whether human activity causes climate change are off-topic.
In what is called ‘attribution science’ climate scientists are getting better at analysing how much climate change has influenced particular extreme weather events.
In short, it is no longer a question of weather there is an influence, rather how much.
It would be useful to know, for example, whether the kind of storm that hit South Australia is still a once in 50 years event. Continue reading Climate clippings 185
The Arctic sea ice extent has just reached the second lowest ever, tied with 2007. I got the story from The Guardian, but here’s the story at NSIDC:
Leaders from federal and state road and transport agencies, motoring clubs, local government and engineering and industry groups met in Brisbane in August to consider how government and industry can better collaborate to ensure a smooth transition to the world of connected and automated vehicles.
They are expecting partially automated vehicles on public roads before 2020, and highly automated and driverless vehicles within the ensuing decade. Continue reading Climate clippings 183
Half the price of coal!
Missouri lawyer Joshua Neally was driving his Tesla Model X home from his office when he suffered piercing pain in his stomach and chest. Rather than call an ambulance he set his Tesla Model X in self-driving mode and headed for a hospital 20 miles (32km) down the road. He was able to park it and check himself in.
He suffered a pulmonary, a potentially fatal obstruction of a blood vessel in the lungs. Very probably, the car saved his life. Continue reading Climate clippings 180
Angela Merkel has struck a deal with the German states to slow down the growth of green power, capping the expansion of onshore wind power at 2.8 gigawatts in capacity per year. The reason given is:
We’ve now had 14 consecutive record global temperature months:
It’s tapering, but when will it end? Continue reading Climate clippings 178
His boss, Pauline Hanson, thinks he has the “true facts”, and in denialists quarters he has gained a reputation for exposing corruption in the IPCC, the CSIRO and elsewhere. Continue reading Climate clippings 177
The latest Morgan Stanley report is bullish about the growth of battery storage in the Australian market. They think we’ll have 6.6GWh of battery storage in Australia by 2020, which is what the Australian Energy Market Operator last week predicted for 2035. Continue reading Climate clippings 176
Crops affected include barley, maize or millet, cassava and sorghum.
Poisons include nitrates, “prussic acid” or hydrogen cyanide, and fungai. Continue reading Climate clippings 174
This edition of Climate clippings is devoted to some random transport ideas that have come my way.
By the end of the year Singaporeans could be using driverless electric pod vehicles to get to and from school and work: Continue reading Climate clippings 173
RenewEconomy has a great post on pumped water storage to store electric power to complement solar. It talks about working heads of less than 200 metres and the use of “turkey nest” dams. Continue reading Climate clippings 172
