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| How civilizations cease to exist |
The answer is I do "it" because it is the right thing to do, not because Dredd Blog is concerned with ratings as commercial news outlets must be in order to stay in business and pay the wages of their employees (In a Summer).
On the other hand, regular readers are not likely to ask why Dredd Blog uses the "TEOS-10" software library of Gibbs functions to analyze in situ ocean measurements stored in the World Ocean Database (WOD).
Not-so-regular and new readers, however, may wonder about that.
So today, since a new published paper has been recently released, I will once again explain the reasons.
A recently published paper states:
"In the terrestrial climate system, water is a key player in the form of its different ambient phases of ice, liquid and vapour, admixed with sea salt in the ocean and with dry air in the atmosphere. For proper balances of climatic energy and entropy fluxes in models and observations, a highly accurate, consistent and comprehensive thermodynamic standard framework is requisite in geophysics and climate research. The new Thermodynamic Equation of Seawater –2010 (TEOS-10) constitutes such a standard for properties of water in its various manifestations in the hydrological cycle. TEOS-10 was recommended internationally in 2009 by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) to replace the previous 1980 seawater standard, EOS-80, and in 2011 by the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG)“as the official description for the properties of seawater, of ice and of humid air."(Thermodynamic properties of seawater... TEOS-10, emphasis added). So, since Dredd Blog focuses on the terrestrial (a.k.a. Earth) oceans as well as the impact of climate change on them, and since TEOS-10 is the best tool, that is why it is used here.
The lack of commercial pressures on Dredd Blog (no ads) makes it easier to bring non-commercial scoops to regular readers (Antarctica 2.0, 2, 3, 4, 5, [6 & supplements A, B, C, D, E, F]).
The few, the proud, the marine scientists.
Without tools for insightful measurements we would not know "Earth at risk of heading towards 'hothouse Earth' state" (link).
ReplyDeleteGreat work, Dredd.
ReplyDeleteBeyond sea level measurements, the powers that be are only interested in their own wealth accumulation at the expense of everyone else and the environment. Flawed humanity began civilization which, especially since the Industrial Revolution (followed by the Corporate Takeover), has doomed us (and anyone born hereafter) to being the last of our species.
People can argue about which year civilization will begin to collapse in earnest, but the result is inevitable since there are no "fixes" for climate change, sea level rise, marine death, hothouse earth (thanks Randy), and "minor inconveniences" like Fukushima (itself an extinction event), Chernobyl (covered up, not fixed) and all the rest of the radiation we've spewed since adopting that fatally flawed energy source (the radiation from all the nuke testing is STILL negatively impacting life - see Gunderson, et al).
Our predicament is so complex, with multiple climate systems interacting and influencing each other (and the whole planet), dozens of feed back loops, and man's propensity to make it worse (through both economic action and environmental inaction) that we now witness real trouble growing crops on multiple continents. So we're going to be starving in greater numbers shortly (next few years at most). Add to that the steady depletion of potable water, and there you have it! We're toast, in the short term.
Carry on.
[meant to tack this on to my comment]
ReplyDeleteScituate, Massachusetts could soon be wiped off the map by rising sea level – “There’s no doubt the damage is getting worse”
http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2018/08/scituate-massachusetts-could-soon-be.html
Go toward the ocean from the houses along Inner Harbor Road and you’ll find two alien-like homes that tower some 15 feet above the steep stretch of sand. The stilt homes are the last of their kind in Scituate on the beach. They’re the remaining two of about 30 homes that once stood along the street that were blasted by storms, namely the Blizzard of ’78 and the No Name/Perfect Storm of ’91, and consumed by the ocean. [more; linked at the end of the article is this by the Union of Concerned Scientists: Underwater, from June 2018]
This post contains important knowledge, but I am not interested in this knowledge, I can't understand it.
ReplyDeleteGayle,
DeletePerhaps you need to choose your trances more carefully (Choose Your Trances Carefully, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).