Just another bunch of old volcanoes we didn’t know about, found off Tasmania

A few weeks ago a CSIRO boat mapped out a string of 3 kilometer high seamounts that no one knew about. They are 400km east of Tasmania and sit in water 5 km deep (so no one is going to run into them, even in a military sub.)

But remember, even though 80% of the ocean floor is unmapped, and we haven’t even logged, named or noticed thousands of volcanoes, we *know* that they are not heating the ocean, changing ocean currents, or affecting our climate. Skillless models tell us so. (Pay us your money).

h/t Thanks to Tallbloke

Huge underwater volcano chain discovered off Tasmania

Denise Chow, Euronews

“We’ve only mapped a tiny fraction of the ocean floor,” said Andrew Fisher, a marine geologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not involved in the new discovery. “We have more detailed maps of Mars, Venus and the moon than we do of the seafloor. Other planetary bodies can be mapped in high resolution with satellites, but on Earth, the water layer gets in the way. The only way is to go out with ships.”

More than 80 percent of the ocean remains unmapped and unexplored, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That’s because it’s difficult and time consuming to create detailed seafloor maps. Sonar-equipped research vessels like the Investigator must make a series of passes over an area in a process Fisher likened to mowing a lawn.

The original press release, October 8, 2018.

Scientists uncover volcanic lost world off the Tasmanian coast

The lost world was uncovered during detailed seafloor mapping by CSIRO research vessel Investigator while on a 25-day research voyage led by scientists from the Australian National University (ANU).

The mapping has revealed, for the first time, a diverse chain of volcanic seamounts located in deep water about 400km east of Tasmania. The seamounts tower up to 3000m from the surrounding seafloor but the highest peaks are still far beneath the waves, at nearly 2000m below the surface.

“Our multibeam mapping has revealed in vibrant detail, for the first time, a chain of volcanic seamounts rising up from an abyssal plain about 5000m deep, [says Dr Tara Martin from the CSIRO].

These new huge seamounts are not the same as another bunch of 123 seamounts discovered South of Tasmania. Those ones were made 55 million years ago by a hot plume that is currently busy working under Mount Erebus in Antarctica.

9.5 out of 10 based on 85 ratings

134 comments to Just another bunch of old volcanoes we didn’t know about, found off Tasmania

  • #
    theRealUniverse

    Very interesting but not really a surprise, considering the great unknown ocean depths.
    And yes, more ocean heaters.

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    • #
      el gordo

      We should know by next year if this is a biodiversity hotspot because the waters are warmer, the whales take full advantage on their way north.

      Anyway I think its fair to say most of the ocean warming is an underwater activity and unrelated to CO2.

      https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/oceans-heated-by-volcanic-ridges-and-seamounts/47148/

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        Hotspot from hell?

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          • #
            OriginalSteve

            Beth, this should interest you, poorly behaved climate activists = coming physical violence to bribg about climate based tyranny? Have the globalists run out of patience and ready to use violence to intimidate those who stand against them ( coz we are winning…?)

            https://www.newscientist.com/article/2184211-frustrated-climate-activists-resort-to-civil-disobedience-in-london/

            “Frustrated climate activists resort to civil disobedience in London
            Protestors in Parliament SquareStefan Rousseau/PA Wire/PA Images
            By Michael Le Page

            Is this the start of a massive campaign of civil disobedience around the world? The hundreds of protestors of all ages who illegally blocked the busy road outside the UK’s parliament this morning think so.

            The idea behind the Extinction Rebellion movement is that governments around the world are failing to do enough to prevent extreme climate change and the ongoing mass extinction. The only choice left, they say, is to rebel.

            “The situation is dire, and there are very few governments that are prepared to act,” one of the protestors, Annie Randall, told New Scientist. “We are really fed up.”

            At least nine people were arrested during today’s protests, according to those at the scene. More were forcibly removed from the road by police without being arrested. The Extinction Rebellion says it has hundreds of supporters willing to risk arrest.

            Last week, 100 academics signed a letter to The Guardian, saying they believe it is their moral duty to “bypass the government’s inaction and flagrant dereliction of duty, and to rebel to defend life itself.” However, it appears that no academics were arrested today.

            “What we need are scientists to get arrested,” says Gail Bradbrook, one of the movement’s organisers. “Don’t leave it to us.”

            Climate targets
            There is no doubt at all that the basic premise of the Extinction Rebellion – that governments are not doing enough to limit climate change – is correct. “

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            • #
              Kinky Keith

              Devotion to the cause.

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            • #

              “At least nine people were arrested during today’s protests, according to those at the scene. More were forcibly removed from the road by police without being arrested. The Extinction Rebellion says it has hundreds of supporters willing to risk arrest.”
              The people are revolting! I’m with them; I demand the weather stays the same! Yes I demand the Status Quo! Where’s my placard?
              Wixy.

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            • #
              AndyG55

              Yep, the warming since the LIA and the extra atmospheric CO2 has made the world a MUCH more liveable place for all.

              Many people still live in places where COLD can be a real issue, and a bit more warming would be a great blessing. Warm places are not likely to get any warmer even in the fantasy the farcical climate change models.

              Unfortunately that extra warming is not likely to happen…

              No possible amount of atmospheric CO2 can do anything to stave off the coming cooling trend.

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            • #

              Steve, from your article …’The protesters today
              heralded their London demonstration as a success,
              saying that movements are springing up elsewhere,
              including in Melbourne, Australia, and in Seattle
              and Los Angeles in the US.

              Behind a lot of these protest movements is funding
              by George Soros… His Open Society Foundation is
              committed to promoting a left wing globalist agenda
              that includes their climate change noble cause for
              action. Soros has spent more than $400 million world
              wide via O.S.F. org and indirectly through his top 7-
              figure grantees, Alliance for Global Justice and Tides
              Foundation to fund protest groups like Rise up.Org,
              Antifa and his own Central European University in its
              Occupy Movement. CEU stated policy is to create Social
              Justice Warriors.

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              • #
                Kinky Keith

                We need to keep sight of this.

                The ultimate irony where the easily manipulated are controlled by Mega Money.

                These people are the trusting ones but their trust has been betrayed by Master Manipulators whose two main aims are wealth accumulation and manipulation.

                KK

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              • #
                OriginalSteve

                Beth, it may be that the caravan of insanity thats heading through mexico right now may also be another soros invention…..

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            • #
              William

              I clicked on the link to the letter “Facts about our ecological crisis are incontrovertible. We must take action” to the Guardian signed by 100 academics –

              Arran Stibbe Professor of ecological linguistics, University of Gloucestershire
              Dr Rupert Read Reader in philosophy, University of East Anglia
              Richard House PhD (Env sci) Chartered psychologist, Stroud
              Professor Woody Caan Editor, Journal of Public Mental Health
              Windy Dryden Emeritus professor of psychotherapeutic studies, Goldsmiths University of London
              Harvey Goldstein Professor of social statistics, University of Bristol
              Jonathan Gosling Emeritus professor of leadership studies, University of Exeter
              Paul Hoggett Emeritus professor of social policy, UWE, Bristol
              Wendy Hollway Emeritus professor of psychology, Open University
              Martin Milton Professor of counselling psychology, Regents University London
              Lynne Segal Anniversary Professor of psychosocial studies, Birkbeck, University of London
              Farzana Shain Professor of sociology of Education, Keele University
              Prem Sikka Professor of accounting and finance, University of Sheffield
              Brian Thorne Emeritus professor (counselling), University of East Anglia
              Frederick Toates Emeritus professor of biological psychology, Open University
              Dr Steve Tombs Professor of criminology, Open University
              Tony Watts OBE Emeritus professor of career development, University of Derby
              Michael J. Wright Ph.D., Emeritus professor in cognitive neuroscience, London
              Dr Ruth Adams Senior lecturer in cultural & creative industries
              Dr Meg-John Barker senior lecturer in psychology, Open University
              Dr Onel Brooks Senior lecturer in psychotherapy, counselling and counselling psychology
              Dr Dominique Chadwick independent researcher and film-maker, Cambridge
              Dr Anne Chapman
              Dr Red Chidgey Lecturer in gender and media, King’s College London

              A few professors didn’t list their fields, but of the three I looked up, one was literature, another education and the third social science. There were a couple specialising in climate change research (on the gravy train), but most are social scientists or from other fields where they are equally useless when it comes to understanding scientific methodology. The main author of the letter Dr Alison Green is a psychologist.

              A reputable newspaper would have thrown the letter in the bin.

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      • #

        This is certainly true for any deep water warming, where the temperature is otherwise fixed by the density/temperature profile of water. The warming alarmists usually obsess about is that of only the top few hundred meters of the oceans. Once the depth hits the top of the thermocline, the heated surface water becomes insulated from the deep cold. While we don’t often think of water as an insulator, any material can insulate hot from cold at a sufficient thickness.

        The fact that only the top few hundred meters of the oceans are involved with the energy balance, and not their entire depth, is why we perceive seasonal change across the oceans and why the consensus is so wrong about the possibility of longer term affects that have yet to materialize.

        Also consider that the solid surface of Earth below the oceans has more in common with the Venusian solid surface than with the virtual surface of Earth whose temperature we care about. Both lack diurnal or seasonal variability and both depend on the temperature/density/pressure profile of the material between it and the virtual surface in direct equilibrium with the Sun to ‘insulate’ its temperature from that of the virtual surface.

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  • #
    John of Cloverdale, WA, Australia

    More grant money, please.
    “It’s a whole new way of understanding the effect of climate change, the strength of the East Australian Current and what the future may hold for our grandchildren.”
    Volcano cluster thought to be 50 million years old accidentally discovered off the coast of Sydney

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    • #
      el gordo

      Good catch John and joining the dots it all fits in very snugly.

      ‘The poleward flowing East Australian Current (EAC) is characterised by its separation from the coast, 100–200 nautical miles north of Sydney, to form the eastward flowing Tasman Front and a southward flowing eddy field. The separation zone greatly influences coastal ecosystems for the relatively narrow continental shelf (only 15–50 km wide), particularly between 32–34°S.’

      Suthers et al 2011

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    • #
      PeterPetrum

      They just had to work in “climate change”, despite the fact that it is totally unrelated to what they have found. And don’t forget the “grandchildren”.

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  • #
    James Murphy

    It’s not clear if these are active, dormant, extinct, or even the source of ‘black smokers’, so I guess more research is needed.

    It might seem pointless to some, but I would rather see the results of this sort of research than spend ages editing data to fit climate models.

    This paper from 2015 has a lot of interesting information in it regarding the huge uncertainties, the lack of horizontal and vertical resolution, and huge gaps in data. Fascinating to say the least.

    Weatherall, P., K. M. Marks, and M. Jakobsson (2015), A new digital bathymetric model of the world’s oceans, Earth Space Sci., 2, 331–345:
    available here:
    https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2015EA000107

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  • #

    More things in heaven and earth and in the ocean depths, Horatio,
    than is dreamed of in all yr cli-sci-consensus ideology.

    160

    • #
      Hanrahan

      Some of the South Indian Ocean has been mapped in the last few years. The Chinese and Malaysians didn’t chip in much, as I recall.

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  • #
    Latus Dextro

    Fascinating.
    An ANU team on board the Investigator finds a clutch of inconvenient volcanoes.
    An UNSW ship of fools led by Prof Chris Turney is marooned and locked in ice.

    Wouldn’t it be lovely to be a fly on the wall in their respective Uni tea rooms at smoko time.
    As their identity politics dictate, Leftist academe will commence their inevitable self-digestion.

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  • #
    Steve Spencer

    Don’t volcanoes emit CO2? Sometimes enormous, stupendous, unbelievable qualities of CO2?

    That being so and the climate models being so reliant on knowing and quantifying what all the inputs are, isn’t it reasonable to assume that we at least knew how many of these super-CO2-emitters exist?

    Yes, I know. Silly me.

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    • #
      Steve Spencer

      >quantities of CO2<

      Doh!

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    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      Yes.

      Wouldn’t it be nice if they actually sampled the zone around the new discovery to determine the CO2 concentration.

      That might be just too much to expect. After all, we don’t want to find a rational reason for ocean CO2 variation do we?

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      • #
        sophocles

        The hot spot which allegedy created these submarine mountains is said to be what is currently venting through Mt Erebus in Antarctica. It would be interesting to map both the movement of the hot spot and the movement of the plates over the last 55MY.

        In that time, tectonic action can move things around quite large distances.

        Just a thort :-).

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        • #
          James Murphy

          Here’s a quick summary of volcanism in Eastern Australia

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          • #
            sophocles

            I’ve seen the scoria cones visible from the lookout at the top of the Grampians across Victoria to the east. They look very similar—just a bit older by being somewhat more eroded—to the scoria cones across Auckland City. Until I did a bit of research, I briefly wondered if they had shared the same hot spot which was sparking Auckland’s volcanoes.

            I dismissed that when I found out relative ages. The Victorian cones are positively ancient when compared with Auckland’s. (Or Auckland’s are positively juvenile and recent when compared with Victoria’s … thousands of years vs millions) To resurrect that idea, I would have to search the Tasman floor between here(Ak) and Victoria for other examples and compensate for Australia’s relatively rapid northward movement. I have a strong feeling I would be searching in vain.

            Still, it was an attractive idea … good on looks but bad on ages 🙂

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            • #
              James Murphy

              It could be a long swim across the Tasman, I think!

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            • #
              GTB

              Is it possible that volcanos and plate movements might cause some sea level rise?

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              • #
                Graeme No.3

                GTB:

                Of course. The (much) higher sea levels in the Cretaceous (inland seas in Nth. America and Australia) is explained by extensive volcanism and tectonic stresses in (what became) The Caribbean.

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            • #
              Graeme No.3

              sophocles:
              The extinct? volcanoes in the west of Victoria and across Sth. Australia around Mt. Gambier are only thousands of years old.
              If those in the East are millions of years old they probably date from when Australia split from Antarctica and headed NNE while Antarctica went slightly south. About 50-55 million years ago is current thinking.

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              • #
                sophocles

                To Graeme No 3 @ #6.2.1.1.3:

                I’ve been to Mount Gambier, climbed it and looked at the blue and green lakes. I was disappointed by those. They are much smaller than our version in Rotten-rua (Rotorua for non-natives, the `Rotten’ comes from it’s atmospheric hydrogen sulphide … 🙂 ) and I had been getting used to the larger scales of things in Oz, so my expectations there were, um, proven to be unrealistic.

                That was as far as I had penetrated into SA. I had been intending to reach Adelaide but didn’t, running out of time, so I turned to drive back to Melbourne. I stopped at the Grampians, climbed to the observer `platform’ or lookout and espied the Victorian scoria cones to the east then.

                I (still) know nothing about SA’s geological and volcanic history—I haven’t researched any of it at all. It’s on my list of to-do’s but a long way from the top (it’s a very long list!) … unfortunately.

                I only looked for data on Victoria’s ones because they looked so familiar, small scoria cones, just like Auckland’s ones, but looking more worn and eroded.

                Thanks for the snippets.

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              • #
                robert rosicka

                Sophocles , widgemooltha near Kalgoorlie is the site of one of the few known super volcanoes .

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              • #
                James Murphy

                Sophocles, and indeed, anyone else interested in the geology of South Australia, I recommend a couple of resources to keep in mind if the desire ever strikes, or the list ever gets short enough!

                – The MESA journal – a quarterly publication containing research papers, industry news, etc. Usually at least 1 thing worth reading in it!
                http://www.energymining.sa.gov.au/minerals/knowledge_centre/mesa_journal

                – For really detailed info, I don’t think anything comes close to these 2 publications, both getting on a bit in years (but have some updates since original publication). They are still a virtual ‘bible’ for SA geologists in a lot of ways:
                Bulletin 54 – The Geology of South Australia: Volume 1, The Precambrian
                Bulletin 54 – The Geology of South Australia: Volume 2, The Phanerozoic
                hardcopy is $80 per volume, or $50 on DVD
                or…free in PDF format
                from here:
                https://products.sarig.sa.gov.au/Products/Index/232

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              • #
                sophocles

                to: robert rosika @ #6.2.1.1.2

                Yes, Jo did a post about that a couple of years ago. It was very interesting.

                A bit O/T but only slightly, Yellowstone is a super volcano and it seems to be stirring. Well, it has been for most of last century but the activity is getting a few geologists worried because it’s becoming more frequent. Nobody has any idea how much it will or will not stir before it goes BANG, or if it will only go bang. Whatever it does, if it goes BIGBANG, that’s the USA gone. The deep magma chamber could be refilling … but then again, it could be all hot air and noise. More research required.

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              • #
                sophocles

                To James Murphy @ #6.2.1.1.3

                Thank you James, I’ve noted the references you’ve provided for examination later. I’m grateful for that consideration, thank you.

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            • #
              beowulf

              Sophocles
              There was a small area of volcanic ash discovered at a mini-cone in western VIC about 25 years ago, dated to around 800 years BP. Not recorded in many texts and I don’t have the reference at hand.

              Unfortunately for your hot spot theory, we have the Cosgrove “hotspot track”, a line of basalt volcanos which stretches for over 2,000km from the central QLD coast southwards through central NSW and VIC to under Bass Strait immediately northwest of Tassie, where it is thought to be sitting waiting to burst into action. I doubt that Australia can be moving steadily NNE and suddenly do a jump to the west to put a hot spot under Rotorua, but you never know. It’s been a few million years since that hot spot was last active as a volcano.

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              • #
                sophocles

                To: Beowulf @ #6.2.1.1.4

                Heh, my thinking did not even advance to that of theory, not even to the point of hypothesis. It started as a curious question to find out about back in 1990. I parked it until I could get around to finding out about it. I found a book in one of our public libraries in or around 1992 or 1993 which rather threw a bucket of cold water over it but not definitively so.

                It fell flat on its face within the first few minutes of on-line searching. That was early 2000—it took me a few more years to get around to as the Internet wasn’t particularly advanced for its first five years and I was using it at work, not home.

                Rest assured though, it was roundly and soundly defeated without clearing any hurdle and immediately dismissed.

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    • #
      David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

      Ian Plimer’s “Heaven and Earth” talked about the amount of CO2 from volcanos. Large amounts is my memory. Ignored by IPCC.
      Cheers, Dave B

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    • #
      theRealUniverse

      The other day I just watched a video (YTube) about the KT boundary ‘dino killer’ impactor 65myr ago, source Naked Science docs. All reasonable science with reasonable evidence and refereed to the global cooling due to huge volumes of dust and soot in the atmosphere, BUT they went on at the end to say there was enormous volumes of CO2 produced (probably true) and it caused ..wait for it…warmal globing on a massive scale! I would suggest that the CO2 ENHANCED the plant growth after the massive forest fires that occurred world wide and helped the mammals survive, more like it. I stopped it right there. They always have to get a plug for CO2 = warming regardless of the fake science. I also find their docs a bit dramatic, but interesting.

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      • #
        sophocles

        To: theRealUniverse @ #6.4:

        The last super-continent had started to drift apart for only a few million years at the time of the Dino Killer’s impact, so much of the world’s forests were in, effectively, just one place.(see Cretaceous continental drift maps) The sunlight-blocking umbrella of the impactor’s debris caused the die off forest which might not have died off, that which was well outside the immediate surroundings of the impact area after the impact. A few years after the impact, that dead and now very dry forest burnt.

        If you ever find the iridium-rich stripe in the rocks (Italy is a good place to look, I hear) you will find, just as the original discoverers did, a thin layer of carbon on top of it. It would have been a huge fire … California just doesn’t know how lucky it is!

        The first victims were the titanosaurs (over 50tons of herbivorous dinosaur such as Argentinosaurus (up to 90tons)) which grazed the Cretaceous forest. Their food supply had just been destroyed, so they died out. CO2 levels before the impact were around 1000 to 1200 ppmv, and oxygen levels were around 22-23% instead of today’s 21%. The forest was huge!. All this meant the forests recovered from the massive grazing inflicted by the titanosaurs and other smaller herbivores, very quickly. But: kill the food source, and those dependent on it die, quickly. Huge animals require huge food, and the forest could easily supply it. With the continental drift underway, the titanosaurs could have been on the endangered list anyway and this bang pushed them over the edge.

        The second victims were the apex predators like T-Rex and the die-offs and extinctions tumbled down the pyramid.

        The enormous volumes of CO2 claimed to be produced wasn’t. It was pretty warm at that time, with CO2 levels c. 1000 – 1200 ppmv. Temperatures would have fluctuated suddenly with initially cooling, the sun being obscured by the debris blown into the atmosphere, then heating when the burning occurred. Interestingly, temperatures returned to more or less normal soon after the Big Bang from what I’ve read and seen.

        That ended the Cretaceous and started the Paleocene, the first epoch/eon of the Paleogene, It was warm before the Big Bang and it settled back to how it had been afterwards with things returning to pretty much normal temperatures soon after the fires had died down until the late Paleocene [66MYA – 56MYA] when Global Warming started. At about 60MYA, before the end of the Paleocene but before the Eocene, a significant warming started, what became the PETM or Paleocene-Eocen Thermal Maximum. It wasn’t caused by CO2. It was caused by lots of sunshine and very little cloud. It lasted until c. 44-43MYA.
        It can be seen here. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum#/media/File:65_Myr_Climate_Change.png)

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        • #
          theRealUniverse

          “The enormous volumes of CO2 claimed to be produced wasn’t. ” Yep I was a bit suspicious of the claim in that doc. And yes I had heard or read previously that only Nth American forests caught fire. They claimed that the ‘sparks of hot rock’ spread around the globe, sounds more than unlikely. I think the real Dino kill off was that they starved, the herbivores died and then carnivores ran out of food too.

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  • #
    Bill In Oz

    Good research ! The role of under water volcanoes is a big question in any climate discussion.

    I wonder if all the information gathered during the search for the missing Malaysian Airlines plane in the Indian ocean, will ever be publicly available..They searched a huge area of the South Eastern Indian ocean

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  • #
    Mal

    Give me a research grant and I will show that these are as a result of anthropogenic induced runaway vulcanism.

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  • #
    Yonniestone

    It appears more often than not the Geologists had the upper hand in this climate debate all along, mapping the earth’s ocean floor will give us a fantastic revelation too our recent past of minimums and maximums and how our planet altered its exterior appearance that led to the many stages of human movement and habitation.

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  • #
    Mark M

    We don’t like the data produced by the latest science, so here’s our new, dramatic hypothesis …

    Climate change: Oceans ‘soaking up more heat than estimated’

    The world 97% doomsday science has seriously underestimated the amount of heat soaked up by our oceans over the past 25 years, researchers say.
    Their study suggests that the seas have absorbed 60% more than previously thought.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46046067

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    • #
      AndyG55

      “Their study suggests that the seas have absorbed 60% more than previously thought. “

      Yep, the increase in UV during the series of Solar Maxima last century did have a much larger effect than climate scientists understand or are prepared to accept.

      There is of course absolutely no mechanism by which atmospheric CO2 can cause ocean warming, nor is there any proof that it has, or ever will.

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    • #
      theRealUniverse

      The BBC (British BS Cooperation) used to be good at science but they now just push agendas, regardless of the truth of any of it.

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    • #
      sophocles

      oceans soaking up more heat than estimated

      … what else can they do when the clouds go away?

      `They’ have always way underestimated—if they’ve ever thought about it before—the effects of clouds, which means by inference, they have also always underestimated the effects of the absence of clouds.

      Maybe `averaging clouds’ leads to big errors.

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  • #
    Mark M

    Turns out emitting a trace gas (CO2) is a truly lousy way of boiling oceans, turning them acidic and killing whales and seabirds, and the food they live off …

    Whales, seabirds drawn to chain of volcanic seamounts off Tasmanian coast

    “The seamounts provide a remarkable diversity of seabirds and marine mammals far greater in abundance than what we had in Australian waters,” he said.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-08/seamounts-mapped-off-tasmanian-coastline/10351572

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      Greg in NZ

      Priceless CSIRO mumbo-jumbo from a Dr Tara Martin: “a big hotspot came in under the earth’s crust, made these volcanoes and then helped the earth’s crust break… Who can imagine that there are 3km high mountains tucked in under the earth’s waves.” Say what!? A “Dr Woehler said he was surprised to see so many whales.” Surprised! Shocked! Stunned! Who can imagine… so many ‘Doctors’ aboard one ship being so ‘surprised’ at the world around them – hopefully the skipper and crew had their wits about them because the ‘passengers’ sounded like a bunch of crazy climate cuckoos.

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    sophocles

    These volcanoes: they’re popping up … everywhere!

    but on Earth, the water layer gets in the way. The only way is to go out with ships.”

    … or American submarines. But, the Americans will be pleased to hear these ones will leave their subs alone, being too deep to bounce a sub off. They do need better charts. 🙂

    Mapping the ocean floor(s) seems to have been pretty hit and miss, mostly miss, since the WW2. It could really do with a concerted and systematic effort to find out what is really down there. The El Nino phenomenon has been linked to tropical volcanic activity (http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/roypta/368/1919/2481.full.pdf) several times and more often in recent years, in particular. We have flood volcanism (eg, Deccan Traps 67MYA, Siberian Traps c. 250MYA and more in North America) which have been linked to large bolide impacts on the opposite side of the globe. There is a lot of knowledge waiting down there and we’ve been discovering it in such piecemeal and barely scratch the surface form.

    The El Nino phenomenon affects the climate strongly. Pinatubo and more recent volcanoes, affect climate immediately for a few years. Supervolcanoes, it is thought, can affect it for longer. Mount Tabo c. 70,000 YA, a super volcano in Sumatra, is thought (see Toba trifecta of catastrophes to have caused almost a decade of cold and a further cool period lasting c. 1000 years. It almost wiped out humanity—the genetic bottleneck it may have been responsible for (posited by in 1993, by science journalist Ann Gibbons and supported by Geologist Michael R. Rampino of New York University and volcanologist Stephen Self of the University of Hawaii at Manoa) was thought to have reduced homo sap’s population to around a 1000 or so individuals. Rather a close call for the species.

    Following Toba, at about 41000 years, was the Laschamp Event, a full magnetic pole reversal which lasted a mere 440 years or thereabouts before switching back. Again, there was long term frigid conditions. The plantary magnetic field fell to c. 5% of its normal strength over that reversal, which opened the atmosphere to the punishment of the solar wind which could do as it liked to the terrestrial weather.

    A second supervolcano erupted c. 39000 years ago in the area of today’s Phlegraean Fields near Naples, Italy and is also documented within a sediments core from the Black Sea. We, the human species, seemed to have been targeted.

    The Tasmanian volcanoes have but recently been discovered so it’s too early to shovel blame and vitriol on their collective mountains for great climate disturbances and mass destruction of the race. We haven’t known about them to be able to do that. But, by studying them, we might learn more about this world. We’ve certainly learnt enough to put the Institute for Propaganda of Climate Catastrophe’s Radiative Greenhouse Theory proposals for Climate Change down as pure hubris.

    By learning more about the sea floor, we can determine more effects which have affected the environment in major fashion, and more about our own history which will help us with holding off the rabid misanthropists, the superstitious, and the Gullible Witch Hunters from, hopefully, tearing down and destroying all the progress and knowledge we have amassed, and hijacking civilization with a collection of pseudoscientific assertions.

    It’s happened before, when Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria c. 415 AD, had Hypatia killed by his rioting and rampaging monks. Sic transit Gloria Mundi. It was the third attack on the Great Library of Alexandria allegedly started by Julius Caesar in and may have caused the lights of civilization to dim dramatically and usher in the Dark Ages. The great library suffered a lot of damage from Caesar’s fires in 48AD, when the fires set to burn the Egyptian fleet spread, It may have been burned again by the Emperor Theodosius in 390 A.D. and Islamic scholars believe the library was burned by at the order of Umar, a Caliph from Mecca, after the Muslim conquest of Alexandria in 641 A.D. It might not have been totally destroyed by any one of those fires but the frequency of them may have overwhelmed the Great Library in the end.

    Now we have a flimsy pseudo-science being used as an excuse to attack and (maybe) destroy the first global civilization. We need to know more about our planet to prevent such an attack from succeeding. The Gullibles can only be saved by knowledge.

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    sophocles

    # 12 in moderation.

    And I didn’t use the #fr@ud# word once!
    I did use Gullible once twice. And “rioting” and
    “rampaging” … “hubris” too but not the f-word. Not once.
    “Hypatia” is not swearing, although Bishop Cyril in the same
    paragraphs as Julius Caesar and Theodosius might be considered
    so.

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    sophocles

    The Climate Trifecta is supported by this page [https://www.science20.com/news_articles/disaster_trifecta_40000_years_ago_climate_shifts_geomagnetic_field_reversal_and_super_volcano-95357]

    Here’s a bit of bio about an eminent mathematician and astronomer who lived, worked and taught at the Great Library of Alexandria. An admirable woman.

    Cyril was later declared a saint by the church for his efforts in suppressing paganism and fighting for the true faith. Hypatia’s death has long been recognized as a watershed mark in history delineating the classical age of paganism from the age of Christianity.

    (more from Hypatia of Alexandria. I don’t think I would like to see Mickey Mann canonized for his fish-hook … ah, Hokeystick. Blerk.)

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    sophocles

    Background and support for The Laschamp Reversal describing some of the effects and some possible (bad) outcomes for the current excursion.

    What I have written here is not to be confused with the Carrington Event of 1-2 September 1859 when the Sun spat out a coronal mass ejection (gigantic solar flare) directly at Earth. The flare seemed to be aimed at Earth and this led to speculation about a Sun-Earth connection

    There is a connection, through the solar wind and solar and upper atmosphere terrestrial electric currents. The connections are formed with the coronal holes and the conduit/conductor for charge transfer between sun and earth is the solar wind.

    A feeble planetary magnetic field may permit atmosphere to be stripped away by the solar wind which is not a desirable state but we are helpless to prevent it.

    The IPCC wants to ignore the Sun, tries very hard to, except for it’s visible light TSI: the Solar Constant. They have a Cargo Cult Mentality: all the trappings and pretense with none of the technological reality (like using Coconut shells for headphones,) and trying to call a variable star constant. Little wonder their projections have been continuously and consistantly wrong since it was created.
    Banana Benders.

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      theRealUniverse

      Ignoring the Sun (by IPCC) is deliberate IMO. As them to explain why it is cold at the poles and hot at the equator. Grade school stuff. If the Sun went out the place would freeze solid in days.

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        sophocles

        Ignoring the Sun (by IPCC) is deliberate IMO.

        Of course it is. Why else would they latch onto the TSI (which is about the only aspect of the sun which varies so slightly), declare the variable sun constant and carry on trying to prove it’s mankind’s fault?

        They know dammed well full inclusion of the full effects of the sun would put them out of a job immediately. Employment Protection at work.

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      theRealUniverse

      Just looked at that Lampchamp article, interesting that they found associated massive volcanic events with the reversals. I think Robert Felix would agree with that.

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    Malcolm Robinson

    These volcanoes and many more have been visible for years on Google Earth to anyone who cares to look for them. And the commercial fishing fleets have known about volcanic seamount in the southern for years longer as the go to place for such fish as orange roughly.

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    pat

    1 Nov: CarbonBrief: Daisy Dunne: Negative emissions: Scientists meet in Australia to discuss removing CO2 from air
    An international group of researchers and policymakers met in Australia’s capital this week for the country’s first major conference dedicated to the topic of “negative emissions”.
    The two-day event, held at the Australian Academy of Science’s Shine Dome in Canberra, played host to a range of ideas for removing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it on land, underground or in the oceans.

    The topics discussed ranged from “natural” solutions, such as boosting the carbon stores of soils and giant kelp forests, to the more experimental, including “fertilising” the world’s oceans.
    Carbon Brief was at the conference, which was organised by researchers from Australian National University and the University of Tasmania, to take in the presentations, talks and discussions…

    Australia’s offering to the growing field comes at a time when its government is facing criticism for inaction over climate change. Concerns over political apathy were articulated by Prof John Hewson, a former leader of the country’s conservative Liberal Party and prominent voice on climate change within Australia.
    In a rousing introductory talk, Hewson said he was “personally embarrassed” by the government’s lack of emissions reduction policies and raised a round of applause from the audience after saying: “If a government doesn’t have a climate action plan, it forfeits the right to be a government.”…

    (DAISY LIKES THE APPLAUSE FOR HEWSON; INCLUDES HER OWN TWEET ABOUT IT, WHICH HAS NO REPLIES)

    In a plenary talk, Major General the Honourable Michael Jeffery, a former governor-general for Australia and founder of the non-profit Soils for Life, spoke of the threats to Australian farmers caused by record droughts and increasing soil infertility…READ ALL
    https://www.carbonbrief.org/negative-emissions-scientists-meet-in-australia-to-discuss-removing-co2-from-air

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    pat

    2 Nov: BBC: Weather: UK experiencing hotter days and ‘tropical nights’ – Met Office
    By Matt McGrath
    The UK has experienced more weather extremes over the last 10 years when compared with previous decades, a Met Office report has said.
    The hottest days have become almost 1C hotter, warm spells have increased, while the coldest days are not as cold.
    The number of so-called tropical nights – when temperatures stay above 20C – is increasing.
    The Met Office says these changes are consistent with warming driven by human activities.
    The new study compares UK weather data from the period 1961-1990 with the 10 years between 2008 and 2017…READ ON

    FROM 175 COMMENTS, MANY MOCKING:
    170: lion: hey matt frosts for the previous 6 nights for me, why did your weather site not indicate below 0 temps eg last night your bbc weather site reproduced +6c for me when it was actually -4.3c, theres a story for you matt try some real investigating journalism for once.

    168: bobf: And if we start our analysis in 1960 we can include the winter of 1963 (the coldest UK winter for decades) in the stats.
    Take a look at the charts. Nothing but cherry picking and data tampering. Still they’ve got to cash in on this years warm summer while it is still fresh in people’s minds. Forty years of runaway, cataclysmic global warming and it was nearly as warm as 1976.
    https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46064266

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    pat

    of course, the story is everywhere:

    2 Nov: Sky News: UK climate getting warmer and wetter, says Met Office
    Our hottest and coldest days are both getting warmer and tropical nights are becoming more common, a report says.

    2 Nov: Guardian: UK heatwaves lasting twice as long as 50 years ago – Met Office
    Tropical nights starting to be recorded and ice days becoming less frequent
    by Jonathan Watts
    In line with numerous other research papers on the rise in global temperatures, it also highlights how weather patterns are being pushed off a normal path as a result of human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases…

    2 Nov: UK Times: Winter loses its bite and summer rises
    by Tom Whipple
    There are now one and a half fewer days a year when the temperature in Britain never goes above freezing point, according to a Met Office study. There is also an extra day a year which tops 25C. The report looked at how climate change was affecting the extremes of British weather, rather than just seasonal averages.
    It showed that we were far less likely to experience deep freezes. Between 1961 and 1990 the country averaged 4.8 days without a thaw, compared to 3.2 between 2008 and 2017. The lowest minimum temperature on average was also affected — rising from minus 8.5C to minus 6.8C.
    While winters are becoming less extreme, the opposite is true for summers…

    Carbon Brief: The Met Office report follows the publication of recent research, covered by the Washington Post, USA Today and MailOnline, suggesting climate change is increasing the chances of summers such as that seen in 2018, with record temperatures across much of the northern hemisphere. The study, by Prof Mike Mann and colleagues, suggests climate change is disrupting patterns in the jet stream and so making weather extremes more likely, says the Washington Post.

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      robert rosicka

      They then went into all the health problems associated with warmer temps which proved they had no idea what they were talking about .

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      James Murphy

      I thought “climate change” was going to slow, or stop the Gulf Stream, causing the UK to freeze…?

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    pat

    sound plan?

    2 Nov: Guardian: Summers could be entirely powered by clean energy by 2050
    Demand for the rest of the year and lower solar output will still keep energy firms in business
    by Adam Vaughan
    But while wind, solar and nuclear power would provide nearly 91% of the country’s electricity by then, up from about 50% today, gas power stations are still expected to be needed during winters…

    Analysts at Aurora Energy Research looked at how the wholesale power market would cope if the UK meets its target of slashing carbon emissions 80% by 2050.
    They found that the price of power would drop to nearly zero between April and October because of lower demand and the glut of electricity coming from solar panels and windfarms…
    But energy firms would still have a viable business model because the other half of the year prices would hit around £70 per megawatt hour, higher than today’s annual average of £50-60 per MWh…

    However, he said if the country adopted a tougher approach of reducing emissions to zero, as ministers recently asked experts to consider, that would break the market because prices would go too low for companies…

    But because of higher demand and lower solar output in winter, gas power plants would still be needed to fill in the gaps between November and February.
    Their owners would need an additional payment during winter for being ready to provide backup power when needed, to make the economics work…
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/02/summers-could-be-entirely-powered-by-clean-energy-by-2050

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    pat

    ***CAGW zealots claim another scalp:

    2 Nov: Guardian: Editorial: The Guardian view on vegans: a dietary challenge
    A huge reduction in meat-eating is called for. No wonder carnivores are feeling defensive
    Veganism, once widely seen as an alternative, if not an extreme, lifestyle, is now in the mainstream. Exactly how many people in the UK have eliminated animal products including dairy and honey from their diets is uncertain…

    Last month a major international study concluded that huge reductions in meat-eating are essential, especially in the western countries that eat most of it, since food production is a big contributor to global warming as well as deforestation, water shortages and pollution from fertilisers. This was one of the main arguments for veganism made by the freelance journalist Selene Nelson in an article this week, after her exchange of emails with Waitrose Food magazine editor William Sitwell ***led to his resignation…

    Mr Sitwell had responded to her pitch for a vegan series featuring recipes and tips with a reply that joked he might instead commission a series about “killing vegans” to “expose their hypocrisy”…

    Had he thought better of his rudeness and sent a follow-up email, the story might have had a different ending. Vegans, as has been pointed out by Mr Sitwell’s defenders, are not a minority it is a crime to insult. What they are, to those who would rather ignore the peril of rising carbon emissions, is an irritation. To others who share their concerns, they offer a challenge – even an inspiration.
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/01/the-guardian-view-on-vegans-a-dietary-challenge

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    pat

    1 Nov: Motherboard/Vice: The Seafloor Is Dissolving Because of Climate Change
    According to a new study, ocean acidification is setting off a dangerous feedback loop that’s dissolving the very bottom of the ocean
    by Caroline Haskins
    According to a study published this week in PNAS (LINK), this sets off a feedback loop that acidifies the ocean even more quickly, a process that is already killing off foundational marine life species such as coral and threatening the balance of all ocean ecosystems on which we depend.

    “Our study confirms that humans are now a geological force capable of impacting the Earth’s system, like a super-volcano or a meteoritic impact,” Olivier Sulpis, an earth science researcher at McGill University and lead author on the study, said to Motherboard in an email…
    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d3qaek/the-seafloor-is-dissolving-because-climate-change

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    • #
      robert rosicka

      Oh dear Lord does this mean when the sea floor dissolves the earth will be flat again !

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      • #
        joseph

        “Oh dear Lord does this mean when the sea floor dissolves the earth will be flat again !”

        I don’t think so . . . . the earth has always been flat . . . . it means that when the sea floor dissolves it will be like pulling the plug in a bathtub and all of the oceans will disappear . . . .

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    • #
      James Murphy

      I thought that calcium carbonate solubility in seawater increased with pressure, therefore, depth, Below the lysocline, the concentration of CO3 2- ions changes from being supersaturated, to undersaturated, hence…solubility.

      Deep sea carbonates just don’t really exist. 75% of the world’s oceans are deeper than 3km… and, if deep sea waters do not really mix with shallower seas on a time scale that humans can observe (used as one reason why we should sequester C02 into deep water), then… what’s the problem, exactly? Seawater chemistry is not just CO3 2- concentration, or CO2 solubility, so, good luck coming up with a definitive understanding of the oceans…
      (what would I know, I’m just a geologist and engineer…not a chemist)

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      • #
        James Murphy

        I should say deep sea carbonate (aragonite/calcite) precipitation does not occur, rather than deep sea carbonates don’t exist… otherwise someone will get pedantic.

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      • #
        robert rosicka

        Depends on if the chemist is working on CAGW or not , after all according to them it is possible for sea water that’s Alkaline to become more Acidic while still being Alkaline and above a PH of 8 .

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  • #

    “More than 80 percent of the ocean remains unmapped and unexplored…”

    Most of Earth is unvisited, unless you think the surface and atmosphere to 35000 feet is all there is of Earth. All that water and crusty stuff and hot mush below us…no access. All that ceaseless movement and pressure. All that magnetism, extending from the guts of the planet into space. What’s it like down there? How do we get a good look?

    We have been able to work out that volcanism leading to short-term global effects is inevitable over a century. A volcano some 75,000 years back had longer term effects on all life, but you’d have to be unlucky to cop one of those. A super-dirty Laki eruption or a whopper like Tambora or Krakatoa, on the other hand, is a certainty within a few life-times. A biggie like Novarupta or Pinatubo will probably come round in less than one average life-time.

    They reckon forecasting of Pinatubo saved at least 5000 lives. You can’t know much, but it’s nice to know a bit. Wonder why Decade Volcanoes, the IAVCEI etc aren’t more prominent and better resourced. (Just kidding. I don’t wonder at all. Not one bit.)

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    Mount Erebus? Is this the same Mount Erebus that has constantly spewed chlorine into the atmosphere over Antarctica? The volcano that did NOT thin out the ozone layer in a region inhabited by 1000 humans in the Southern Hemisphere? And is not that the same Southern Hemisphere herein reside but 1/9 of humanity (as in the answer to the percentage of iceberg problem in physics book density chapters)? The volcano NEVER mentioned in connection with the LACK of an ozone hole over where 8/9 of humanity spew nationalsocialism and communism into the atmosphere? How odd that anyone should mention THAT volcano now that new laws banning regular freon and forcing us to rely on high-pressure substitutes have made air-conditioners unreliable over the entire surface of the planet. All 20 “climate” scientists (the 97%) assure us THAT volcano will never have anything to do with anything, and never did.

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    Kinky Keith

    It would seem very likely that the last peak of oceanic volcanism would have coincided with the last extensive ice age.

    At its peak twenty or thirty thousand years ago the oceans were 130 metres lower than now and the reduction in water pressure on the sea bed would almost certainly, perhaps 97% certainty, have increased the possibility of volcanic emissions.

    But of course this line of investigation cannot be pursued because it would require the acknowledgment of a powerful force of nature.

    We all know that this scenario is not possible because it is scientifically acknowledged that the greatest disturbing force on our Planet is the unbridled human emissions of CO2 over the last century.

    KK

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    Another Ian

    O/T but

    “FRIDAY FUNNY – At Long Last, Kevin Trenberth’s Missing Heat May Have Been Found! Repeat, May Have Been”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/11/02/friday-funny-at-long-last-kevin-trenberths-missing-heat-may-have-been-found-repeat-may-have-been/

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    • #
      Mark M

      We’re gonna need a bigger Hiroshima bomb doomsday analogy …

      SKS: Global Warming at 4 Hiroshima Bombs per second

      “Our climate is absorbing a lot of heat.
      When scientists add up all of the heat warming the oceans, land, and atmosphere and melting the ice, they find our climate is accumulating 4 Hiroshima atomic bombs worth of heat every second.”

      http://4hiroshimas.com

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    Jim

    I once remember, Google maps, at one time used a radar sat images showing the ocean floors. That went away, about the time it showed the locations of flying submarines. You could zoom in on features, trenches, and smokers. And land items. It was interesting.

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  • #
    TdeF

    Yes, the ocean bottom is as significant as the Himalayas. So is the 4km mountain of ice we call Antarctica, the size of South America. A few bits of sea ice at the warm north pole mean nothing. They come and go.

    What is clear is that Climate Models ignore the oceans and understand nothing of their dynamics. El Nino and La Nina being the most obvious. Unpredictable. Volcanoes are just another major source of climate change but unpredictable and as pointed out, largely unknown. Volcanoes under Antarctica, under the ocean and under the land. A single volcano can do as much as a major meteor, especially the mega volcano in Yellowstone park.

    Still we are told the models are right, perfect, despite the fact that they largely ignore the oceans. We have been given another ten years to stop breathing so much. Even the Pope this time. The sky is falling. Again.

    Can you imagine the planet earth without the oceans, without their effect on climate? Still the models consider that the atmosphere is massive when in fact it is 1/350th the size of the oceans with 1/50th of the CO2 available. These same models predicted a major increase in hurricane activity. There has been a major decrease.

    So at what point will all this make believe science computer modelling stop? When the world cools and they cannot explain it? No, they will blame carbon dioxide. Somehow. Their careers depend on it.

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    Roy Hogue

    Knowing the volcanic history of the Hawaiian Islands, part of a string of underwater volcanoes stretching from Midway all the way down to Kauai, I’m not surprised that more under water volcanoes have been found off Tasmania. There must be others waiting to be discovered as well, both active and inactive.

    The ocean bottom is the greatest challenge to explore on the planet. Go down a hundred feet and you have left the light behind and have none except what you bring with you. The pressure increases approximately half a pound/square inch for ever foot you go below the surface. And even when you have light it’s dissipated quickly, limiting your search radius visually.

    It’s an interesting coincidence that you mention submarines because I’ve been in an email discussion about them with my brother-in-law and one of his friends concerning a particular WWII sub named the Barb since this morning. During WWII the maximum designed operating depth of the fleet submarine was 300 feet. But one of ours went to a depth of 600 feet to escape a depth charge attack. It’s right in the log book on display at the submarine museum next to the Battle Ship Arizona Memorial Visitor’s Center at Pearl Harbor.

    I was uneasy just thinking about going to sea in the sub we toured while there. I can’t even imagine going into battle inside of something like that.

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    Bob in Castlemaine

    Some of Prof. Ian Plimer’s known unknowns? Of course such “unknown” sub-sea volcanoes have no influence on ocean temperature nor do they contribute to CO2 emissions – yeah right!

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    theRealUniverse

    You can tell with all the posts of science absurdities on here, good research guys, that THEY are getting desperate to push this scam. The public are getting tired and more aware, especially that the EU is getting allot more early snow and cold, which of course, is a true sign of eminent disastrous ‘warming’.

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      robert rosicka

      Speaking of science absurdity, this story about lizards adapting to fear cats and foxes in the last 150 years in Oz has to be one of them .

      https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-03/lizards-evolve-to-detect-invasive-species-as-predators/10460926

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      • #
        Bill In Oz

        Robert,
        Why is it absurd ? I read that story on ABC. It makes sense to me. Of course over time all life will evolve in response to predation from new predators such as cats & foxes ( and dingos as well )

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        • #
          Ghibli Levante

          Hi Bill,

          What is absurd is people who put solar panels on their roof then tell everyone how bad renewable energy is.

          People like robbie.

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          robert rosicka

          Bill you either don’t have cats or go bush much or live in a rural area .
          If me and the cats can get near them I’m thinking either they’re not that smart or they need to do more research .
          Australia has had all sorts of predators for millennia that included lizards in their diet , Quoll and Dingo although Dingo is a recent invader but my point is there were and are a whole host of things that dined on lizard so for me to believe that lizards offered themselves up as meals to cats and foxes for the best part of 150 years I’m going to need some convincing .

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          robert rosicka

          Also they quote 150 years since cats and foxes were introduced to the region ? Not sure if that’s OZ or a specific region but foxes were introduced mid 1800’s and cats could have been here a lot longer than that .
          It’s been theorised that cats may have been introduced over 400 years ago by the Dutch .

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    pat

    3 Nov: ABC: Dry spell pushing Tasmania’s east coast farmers to the edge, as feed supplies dwindle
    By Declan Gooch
    Updated about 4 hours ago
    “The east coast is always dry, but for the last five years we’ve had half our annual rainfall,” Ms Brouder said.
    “2014 was the driest on record in 118 years, and this year we’ve still got about 45 millimetres to go before we reach that record,” she said…

    Mr Johnston’s wife Tracey said there seemed to be little awareness in other parts of the state about the seriousness of the conditions on the east coast.
    “I travel the state fairly often. I was up on the north-west coast … and they’ve had a fabulous season,” she said.
    “People are quite shocked when I say we haven’t had any rain.”…
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2018-11-03/dry-conditions-hit-east-coast-tasmania/10461274

    not a single temperature mentioned in the article:

    3 Nov: ABC: Tasmania weather: Winds, rain and falling temperatures hit the state but fire concerns continue
    By Lucy MacDonald
    Updated 20 minutes ago
    While Friday was all about summer vibes and sun dresses, today Tasmania is taking a trip back to winter with cold air, high winds, thunderstorms, hail and even snow…
    A snow-capped kunanyi/Mt Wellington greeted many, with snow down to 600 metres in some parts of the state although it’s likely to rise quickly to 1,000 metres…

    Weather bureau forecaster Michael Lasko said this kind of weather was not unusual for Tasmania.
    “When it’s spring time in Tasmania, the weather can be quite changeable with periods of winter-like weather and summer-like [weather] coming very closely between each other,” he said…

    The overnight rain did little to hinder a 660-hectare bushfire, which is currently burning at Swanston on the east coast…
    “We’re hoping by tomorrow evening we’ll have a better idea of where we’re at with the fire,” he said.
    “The fire isn’t contained as such, but we have got some good construction around it, and we’re quite confident at this stage that the fire will remain in the area that it’s in.”…
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-03/tasmania-weather-turning-cold-and-nasty/10462746

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    pat

    behind paywall. perhaps someone will excerpt:

    An inconvenient truth for Gore
    The Australian-14 hours ago
    Analysis by the pro-action Climate Home News is that “the alliance of rich, emerging and poor economies that sealed the Paris climate deal is falling apart”.

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    pat

    2 Nov: Environmental Working Group: Is EPA’s Climate Change Website Gone for Good?
    Under Coal Lobbyist, Agency ‘Disappears’ Global Warming Info
    Contact: Alex Formuzis
    WASHINGTON – The section of the Environmental Protection Agency’s website that linked human activity, fossil fuels and carbon dioxide to climate change seems to have disappeared for good.
    This week the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, or EDGI, which monitors any changes to federal agency websites, discovered that the main climate change section of the EPA’s site is gone.
    In April 2017, the agency took down the website, claiming it was temporary, in order to update the content to reflect the Trump administration’s views on climate change.

    Now, EDGI reports, the “update” notice has been replaced with no mention of climate change. Instead, site visitors get this message: “We want to help you find what you are looking for.”
    “Apparently they don’t want to help very much,” said EWG President Ken Cook.
    “But it’s not hard to figure out why,” said Cook. “Andrew Wheeler, acting chief of the agency, was a longtime lobbyist for the fossil fuel industry before he joined President Trump’s anti-science, anti-public-health administration. Why would he want an EPA website packed with irrefutable data detailing how that industry is a leading driver behind dirty air, increases in childhood asthma and premature death, wildfires and hurricanes from hell, rising sea levels, drought and famine?”
    https://www.ewg.org/release/epa-s-climate-change-website-gone-good

    2 Nov: Guardian: ‘It’s a ghost page’: EPA site’s climate change section may be gone for good
    Material that said humans were warming the planet was taken down last year for an ‘update’
    by Oliver Milman
    “It’s an embarrassment. It is a ghost page,” said Judith Enck, who was EPA regional administrator during Barack Obama’s presidency. “It’s a bit like Amazon not allowing the public to order books via its website – it’s that fundamental. There’s no other issue at the EPA more important than climate change; it affects air, water, health and whether large parts of the world will survive.”…

    Enck said that EPA career staff are “frustrated” and “ashamed” about the new stance on climate change and urged her former colleagues to speak out…
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/01/epa-website-climate-change-trump-administration

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    pat

    1 Nov: The Hindu: India to host key meetings ahead of Poland climate talks
    by Jacob Koshy
    Ahead of the December climate talks in Katowice, Poland, India is hosting two key meetings in New Delhi with a group of countries called the LMDC, the ‘Like Minded Developing Countries’ (India, China, Venezuela and Iran) and BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China), which are networks that have been formed to lend weight to the concerns of the developing countries.
    One of these meetings, of the LMDC, was underway on Thursday here…

    The Hindu had reported on October 15 that India was having discussions with at least 40 countries, including China, to forge alliances and compel developed countries to make good on promises, made over the years, to provide enough finance and technology to stem global warming.
    These meetings are important, said Union Environment Secretary C.K. Mishra, for countries to craft a common front to ensure that the rules, which will govern how the 2015 Paris climate pact that will come into force from 2020, are implemented fairly.

    Last month, Mr. Mishra chaired a session at a ‘Pre-COP’ meeting in Poland. “Ahead of the talks next month, we are aiming for transparency and in ensuring that matters related to finance and technology are all discussed together, instead of separating them under various heads, as seemed to happen previously,” Mr. Mishra told The Hindu.
    https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/india-to-host-key-meetings-ahead-of-poland-climate-talks/article25394418.ece

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    pat

    all over the MSM:

    2 Nov: InsideClimateNews: US Supreme Court Allows Children’s Climate Lawsuit to Proceed
    By Staff
    In their order late Friday, the justices suggested that the government’s arguments ought to be considered by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals before being reviewed by the Supreme Court.
    The children’s attorneys said they were moving forward and hoped the trial, which had been scheduled to start on Oct. 29, could begin in district court in Oregon within days…

    “The youth of our nation won an important decision today from the Supreme Court that shows even the most powerful government in the world must follow the rules and process of litigation in our democracy,” said co-counsel Julia Olson, executive director of the nonprofit Our Children’s Trust. “We have asked the District Court for an immediate status conference to get Juliana v. U.S. back on track for trial in the next week.”…

    The justices also left open the possibility that the government could appeal to the high court again if doesn’t get what it wants from the court of appeals. Both Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was appointed last year by President Donald Trump, would have granted the government’s request, the order stated…
    https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02112018/children-climate-lawsuit-supreme-court-roberts-gorsuch-thomas-trump-appeal

    2 Nov: WaPo: Supreme Court refuses to block young people’s climate lawsuit against U.S. government
    By Robert Barnes and Brady Dennis
    Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch would have stopped the suit. The other justices did not indicate how they voted on the government’s request…

    The court’s three-page order (LINK) said the government should seek relief from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. It noted the government’s assertion that the “suit is based on an assortment of unprecedented legal theories, such as a substantive due process right to certain climate conditions, and an equal protection right to live in the same climate as enjoyed by prior generations.”…

    The justices acknowledged that the 9th Circuit had previously turned down the government but said those decisions came when there was a “likelihood that plaintiffs’ claims would narrow as the case progressed.” That no longer seems the case, the unsigned opinion said, suggesting the possibility that the 9th Circuit might see things differently now.
    And it left open the possibility that the government could return to the Supreme Court…

    The plaintiffs “seek nothing less than a complete transformation of the American energy system — including the abandonment of fossil fuels — ordered by a single district court at the behest of ‘twenty-one children and youth,’ ” Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court.
    “As the government has maintained since first moving to dismiss this suit in 2016, [the] assertion of sweeping new fundamental rights to certain climate conditions has no basis in the nation’s history and tradition — and no place in federal court.”
    Francisco acknowledged that he was asking for “extraordinary relief” by asking the high court to intervene before a trial began. But he said the unique nature of the lawsuit deserved such an exception…
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-refuses-to-block-kids-climate-lawsuit-against-us-government/2018/11/02/34bd7ee6-d7af-11e8-83a2-d1c3da28d6b6_story.html?utm_term=.2ac488b9cf80

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    scaper...

    Here you go, Pat.

    Climate champion Al Gore has given a frank assessment of the latest UN report into the dangers of global warming. Interviewed by US public broadcaster PBS, Gore said the language used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its report on limiting global warming to 1.5C had been “torqued up” a little to get the ­attention of policymakers.

    This was appropriate, he said, because climate change was a global emergency that posed “an existential threat to human civil­isation on this planet”.

    There has been plenty of “torquing up” as conflicting signals buffet what is supposed to be a milestone in implementing the Paris Agreement in Poland next month. Peak stupid in climate change politics usually is timed to coincide with key decisions that have to be made to keep together a UN process in which the annual bill for meetings alone is calculated at more than $150 million.

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    Internationally, the conflicting signals include the demise of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the rise of authoritarian president-elect Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Together with Donald Trump’s withdrawal of climate change funding and threats to leave the Paris Agreement altogether, the global sentiment going into Poland is vastly different from that coming out of Paris.

    Analysis by the pro-action Climate Home News is that “the ­alliance of rich, emerging and poor economies that sealed the Paris climate deal is falling apart”. In many countries, it says, climate scepticism and economic nationalism are usurping the international green enthusiasm of 2015.

    Even countries that remain committed to climate action are consumed by domestic concerns, such as Brexit in Britain and political instability in Germany.

    But in Australia, “torquing up” continues to reach new heights. In a speech to the National Press Club this week, Australian Conservation Foundation chief exec­utive Kelly O’Shanassy out-torqued the IPCC. “If we continue to burn coal and gas for decades to come, we will kill the 1.5 degree target, we will not have a habitable planet and hundreds of millions of people will die,” she said.

    Tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes tweeted from his recent­ly purchased $100m harbour-front mansion a modern-day equivalent of “let them eat cake”. Cannon-Brookes’s answer is a $200 prize for a new logo for “fair dinkum” power that is reliable, renewable and cheap.

    However, the real torque is the way in which small deceptions, repeated often, are allowed to become fact. The results of a recent survey of company directors illustrate the point. Federal opposition climate change and energy spokesman Mark Butler says: “We’ve also seen the biannual survey of company directors for the first time place climate change, or action on climate change, at the top of the list of challenges that company directors think the federal government should be acting on.”

    A full reading of the Australian Institute of Company Directors report shows otherwise. The leading economic challenges cited are rising global economic protectionism, global economic uncertainty, energy policy, taxation system, high energy prices, red tape, low productivity growth, the China economic outlook and then climate change. Climate change is considered a major long-term issue for government to solve. But what business wants the government to concentrate on now is energy policy, tax reform and infrastructure.

    Likewise, it has become an ­article of faith among many that the Wentworth by-election was swung by climate change, which would be a dominant issue at the next election. The ACF has activated a lobbying effort in marginal seats to push the issue. “We are making this the climate election,” O’Shanassy says.

    But research by Essential Media shows that pushing renewable energy is a first-order issue only among those who already vote Green. According to Essential’s October 23 report, the most important issues for the federal government to address in the next 12 months are cost of living, improving the health system and housing affordability. Promoting renewable energy was a first-order issue for only 7 per cent of respondents. Overall, the issue of renewables ranked eighth behind the major concerns and then job creation, improved wages, economic growth, national security and terrorism.

    What is not in dispute is the cost of the low emissions transition so far. Nathan Vass, founder of the Australian Power Project, which is championing a continued role for coal, says renewable energy subsidies at state and federal levels to date amount to $42.5 billion.Across that same period 10 coal-fired power stations have been taken out of action and, according to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission’s recent report, electricity prices have increased in real terms, adjusted for inflation, by 56 per cent. For the $42.5bn spent, greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector have risen by 50 million tonnes a year or 40 per cent since 1990. Globally, greenhouse gas emissions are back on the rise after slowing with the global financial crisis.

    Ironically, it is the US that is bucking the global trend: its emissions fell 2.7 per cent last year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Reported emissions from large power plants declined 4.5 per cent since 2016, and 19.7 per cent since 2011 due mainly to a switch from coal to natural gas from fracking.

    US EPA acting administrator Andrew Wheeler says the Trump administration has proven federal regulations are not necessary to drive CO2 reductions. “These achievements flow largely from technological breakthroughs in the private sector, not the heavy hand of government,” he says.

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      el gordo

      Hmmm …. we get your gist, brevity, brevity, all is brevity.

      While you’re there, I think Morrison needs a quick reshuffle, what do you think?

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    pat

    3 Nov: SMH: Greens seek to shame Labor by vowing to restore carbon tax
    By David Crowe
    The Greens will vow to restore the carbon price put into place in 2011 and scrapped in 2014, telling voters the Parliament can reinstate the policy as if the scheme had never been repealed by the Coalition.
    But it will drop the fixed price in the first three years of the original carbon tax and instead promise a market price linked to overseas carbon schemes…

    Greens leader Richard Di Natale held a meeting with Mr Shorten in recent weeks to find common ground on reducing emissions but the two parties have radically different proposals, setting the scene for an election contest over which side promises the strongest action.
    Labor assistant spokesman for climate change, Pat Conroy, has hit back at accusations from the Greens that Labor is working with the Coalition on climate policy, pointing to the fateful decision by the Greens to vote against the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in Parliament in 2009.
    “The Greens are the ones that voted with Tony Abbott to stop the CPRS in 2009. You did the Liberals’ bidding and instead of having an effective and scalable ETS for the last seven years we’ve had the climate wars,” Mr Conroy tweeted…

    The Greens will go to the election promising carbon reductions that are much deeper than Labor, with a 90 per cent target for the electricity sector on the grounds that must do more “heavy lifting” to avoid more difficult cuts in sectors like farming.
    The Greens’ policy is to cut emissions across all sectors by 63 to 82 per cent by 2030 and to have a net zero economy by 2040, a decade ahead of Labor.
    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/greens-seek-to-shame-labor-by-vowing-to-restore-carbon-tax-20181102-p50dp5.html

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    pat

    2 Nov: Toronto Sun: LORNE GUNTER: Don’t expect rebates to keep pace with rising carbon taxes
    It may now, ironically, be better to be a taxpayer in a province, such as Ontario, that is refusing to go along with Justin Trudeau’s federal carbon scheme than a taxpayer in, say, Alberta, where the NDP government of Premier Rachel Notley is dutifully collaborating with the prime minister’s foolhardy plan to tax carbon emissions out of existence.

    If you live in a province that has no carbon tax of its own — currently Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island — you will pay the feds a carbon tax on every litre of gasoline you buy, on your natural gas and electricity bills, and on just about every good trucked to your local store or every parcel delivered from an online retailer. But once a year when you file your taxes, you’ll get a rebate — a rebate the Liberals calculate will be slightly greater than the amount of carbon tax you paid.
    So let’s play that game for a minute or two…

    ***The Liberals have already announced the tax will move from $20 per tonne of emissions in 2019 to $50 a tonne by 2022. But on Wednesday, in a very sneaky document (LINK), the Trudeau government finally admitted it would likely have to raise the tax far beyond $50 a tonne after 2022.

    In order to encourage Canadians to cut down their emissions — to drive less, heat or cool their homes less, buy fewer foreign goods (bye-bye fresh fruit in winter) — internal Liberal documents show the carbon tax will have to increase to a minimum of $200 or even $300 a tonne.
    Can you count on your rebate keeping pace?
    But it’s even worse in provinces with their own carbon tax, because their taxpayers get no federal rebate at all.
    https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/gunter-dont-expect-rebates-to-keep-pace-with-rising-carbon-taxes

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    pat

    2 Nov: Bloomberg: Bill Gates, Pearl Jam Back Carbon Fee in Washington State Vote
    by Ari Natter
    Ballot initiative 1631 would impose a fee on refineries, utilities and other producers of CO2 emissions of at least $15 per ton starting in 2020 if voters approve the measure on Tuesday. State officials estimate it would raise $2.3 billion by 2025 for clean energy spending…READ ALL
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-02/bill-gates-pearl-jam-back-carbon-fee-in-washington-state-vote

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  • #
    pat

    2 Nov: Bloomberg: U.K. Promotes Global Airline Carbon Market After Brexit
    by Matthew Carr
    Britain is urging the European Union to support a global carbon market for emissions from airlines, a move that would probably supersede the bloc’s own trading program.
    Aviation is too big of an industry to be covered piecemeal by regional pollution rules, according to Liz Sugg, the U.K.’s aviation minister. Flights within the union are covered by the EU’s carbon market, the world’s biggest emissions trading system. It’s not clear whether the U.K. will remain in that market after Brexit on March 29.
    “Given the international nature of the aviation sector, measures with a global scope are required to ensure action is taken — not just on certain routes or in certain regions, but at a global scale that captures the majority of emitters,” Sugg wrote in a letter to the lobby group Transport & Environment seen by Bloomberg News…

    Airline Demand for Carbon May Drop 66% If EU Adopts Global Deal
    The EU countries have agreed to monitor, report and verify emissions in the industry as a first step in entering the UN program.
    “Implementing this global scheme will encompass many routes that are currently not covered by any climate change measures, including from some of the world’s largest aviation nations, and supports major emitters to take a consistent approach to global aviation climate action,” the British official said in the letter.

    With aviation emissions forecast to triple by 2050, regulation is inevitable. Airlines have said they prefer a single international standard, which would be cheaper and easier to deal with than a patchwork of local programs. Their proposed market will place a price on emissions, but only those above 2020 levels…

    When the EU tried to expand its coverage to international trips into and out of Europe, it triggered an outcry from nations including the U.S., China and Brazil that argued the measure was beyond the bloc’s authority.
    https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/u-k-promotes-global-carbon-market-for-airlines-as-it-leaves-eu

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    GreatAuntJanet

    Definitely time to listen to this 2016 number again – proving once more that it isn’t the left that have a sense of humour! I think My Dog’s a Democrat.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3VLqLLWxbQ

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    AndyG55

    UAH for October released

    COOLER than.. 2017, 2015, 2016, 1998, 2003, 2005, 2014, 2012.

    Year to date..

    COOLER than 1998, 2016, 2010, 2017, 2015, 2002

    USA48: October is in 15th place out of 40

    Australia: October is in 18th place out of 40

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    sophocles

    The sea floor is lined with calcite.
    According to a study published this week in PNAS , this sets off a feedback loop that acidifies the ocean even more quickly, a process that is already killing off foundational marine life species such as coral and threatening the balance of all ocean ecosystems on which we depend.

    ROTFL.

    It’s not even an interesting hoax, but it’ll explode a few of the Gullible’s heads …

    ROTFL

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    el gordo

    O/T

    ‘Trump administration fails to stop groundbreaking lawsuit brought by kids who claim government inaction is violating their rights.’ Oz

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