Un Niño di nome Godzilla

O’s digest di Nature, cont.

Quirin Schiermeier parla delle ricerche in corso o da fare sul Niño, che riserva sorprese da quando si è studiato per la prima volta negli anni ’50:

But in 2014, the warming along the equator was less pronounced than in most El Niño years, and the westerly wind bursts did not appear as expected. By mid-year, the anticipated El Niño had completely vanished. What had stopped the show, and why the Pacific warming spectacularly resurfaced 12 months later, are questions that are puzzling ocean researchers and meteorologists. (…)
In recent months, it has been keeping pace with the most powerful El Niños on record, and westerly wind outbreaks in early October promised to keep the warming going. As a result, forecasters are warning many parts of the globe to prepare for some wild and crazy weather over the next several months.

Anche per il mese scorso. Le temperature NOAA di settembre fanno uscire il 2015 dal grafico delle anomalie: +0,90 °C rispetto alla media 1901-2000, +0,19 °C rispetto a settembre 2014. E gli incendi sono out of control…

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Riserva sorprese anche la chimica degli inquinanti atmosferici in Cina, scrive Markku Kulmala:

Surprising reactions are going on above Chinese cities that do not occur in cleaner air. For example, small atmospheric molecular clusters (measuring 1–3 nanometres) are tens of times more concentrated in Shanghai, Nanjing and Beijing than in European cities. Secondary aerosols (containing sulfates, nitrogen compounds and organics) form more readily in Shanghai and Nanjing than existing models predicts. Unknown chemical pathways and physical processes must be occurring that could create new types of oxidant or change the surface properties of aerosols, limiting their ability to take up condensable vapours.

Non che in casa sia meglio

City dwellers spend more than 90% of their time indoors, particularly if outdoor air quality is poor. Cooking, smoking, heating and furnishings release PM, PN, CO, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and NOx, adding to pollutants drawn in from outside. …  My colleagues and I estimate that indoor air pollution contributes almost as much as outdoor smog (which causes more than 1.3 million deaths per year) to the pollution-related death toll.

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Nei paper, Catherine Lovelock del Global Change Institute australiano et al. analizzano l’accumulo di sedimenti in 27 mangrovie dell’Indo-Pacifico

for 69 per cent of our study sites the current rate of sea-level rise exceeded the soil surface elevation gain. We also present a model based on our field data, which suggests that mangrove forests at sites with low tidal range and low sediment supply could be submerged as early as 2070.

Commento preoccupato di Marian Turner.

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fonte (con ricette…)

Anche i coccodrilli australiani d’acqua salata dormono metà cervello per volta, come quelli del Nilo, i caimani e i delfini, scrivono Michael Kelly et al. in open access sul Journal of Environmental Biology. Lo fanno anche in natura o i giovani maschi – lunghi 40-50 cm – osservati in vasche sperimentali avevano buoni motivi per star in guardia? (h/t BBC)

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Cherry-picking del giorno

Sarà la paura di un RICO? In un com. stampa di ieri, Exxon Mobil accusa gli “attivisti” di “inganno deliberato” e di cherry picking (senti chi parla!)

ExxonMobil scientists continue to research and publish findings to improve understanding of climate system science as a basis for society’s response to climate change and have produced more than 50 peer-reviewed publications on topics including the global carbon cycle, detection and attribution of climate change, low carbon technologies and analysis of future scenarios for energy and climate.
ExxonMobil scientists have been selected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations’ most authoritative body on the subject, as authors of their past four major assessment reports, and have contributed to National Research Council boards and committees on climate change.

50 papers in 30 anni – ma EM non li elenca, chissà che siano compresi quelli di Willie Soon et al. criticati anche nei rapporti IPCC per le stravaganze, diciamo così, rispetto a migliaia di articoli nei media nello stesso periodo, miranti a disinformare sulle conseguenze delle emissioni di gas serra.

EM aveva promesso di non finanziare più bufale nel 2006, e ogni anno dal 2012 in poi…

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Prima Tamino osserva le somiglianze tra anti-vaxxers e globalcoolisti, poi ne adotta il cherry-picking e i punti esclamativi per produrre questo grafico:

 Here’s hoping some fake “skeptic” shows up to tell us all how this graph is cherry-picked, how dishonest it is to start with an extra-low year to make the following look extra-hot, how my stated “trend rate” (calculated by least squares regression — fancy math no less!) is so uncertain it’s meaningless, how short time spans can all too easily give the wrong impression. If some of the climate anti-vaxxers show up, I’d love to discuss that with ’em.

Per ora non si son presentati né Carlo Rubbia né il ten.col. Guidi né il prof. Crescenti né il signor Sorgenti vice-presidente dell’Assocarboni né…

Be’, tanto… pare che Big Oil & Coal abbia i giorni contati. Il 31 ottobre l’energia gratis e infinita di Mehran Keshe avrà già sostituito il 10% degli idrocarburi:

Italy has already ordered over 1,000,000 units

e da una settimana, in Italia sta crollando il prezzo della benzina, dicono i seguaci del Messia.

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Ri-ass. giustif. fino alle Oche di radiopop, domani in pubblico dalle 12.50 alle 13.30 in Piazza delle Armi, Castello Sforzesco, Milano.