Scientists have found that an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) reduces transpiration and overall evapotranspiration in all biomass. As a consequence, the overall amount of water vapour in the atmosphere is reduced.  

The findings are published in ‘CO2 and Temperature Effects of Evapotranspiration and Irrigated Agriculture,’ (Jorge A. Ramfrez and Bryce Finnerty). [1]

The authors found that the result of lowering atmospheric water vapour is to buffer the “positive feedback” of supposed global warming. Conventional climate science has for decades believed that rising atmospheric CO2 causes rises in global temperature. But global thermometer readings and satellite data proves no increase in temperatures for nearly twenty years despite a substantial increase in atmospheric CO2 levels during the same period.

Most climate scientists had believed that more CO2 in the climate system causes a positive feedback i.e. rises in temperature. Typically, their thesis is that:

“The amount of water vapor in the atmosphere exists in direct relation to the temperature. If you increase the temperature, more water evaporates and becomes vapor, and vice versa. So when something else causes a temperature increase (such as extra CO2 from fossil fuels), more water evaporates. Then, since water vapor is a greenhouse gas, this additional water vapor causes the temperature to go up even further-a positive feedback.” [2]

However, findings by independent scientists (outside the realms of politicized government climate science) and involved in researching plant evapotranspiration, supports earlier peer-reviewed scientific research from the 1980’s that flies the face of positive feedback meme. There is now a growing recognition of a body of evidence telling us that the global biomass of plants significantly impacts evapotranspiration and changes in planted environment directly impact climate.

If you ever walked along an ocean shore you’ll have seen the constant waves rolling in. According to Wikipedia, the idea to harness that wave energy has been proposed as early as 1799. Over the last 15 years several technologies have been proposed. Among them, the Pelamis wave power system is one of a couple of dozens of ocean wave energy extraction schemes.

SAN FRANCISCO — The ancient Maya civilization collapsed due to a century-long drought, new research suggests. 

Minerals taken from Belize’s famous underwater cave, known as the Blue Hole (pictured from space, right), as well as lagoons nearby, show that an extreme drought occurred between the year 800 and 900, right when the Maya civilization disintegrated. After the rains returned, the Maya moved north — but they disappeared again a few centuries later, and that disappearance occurred at the same time as another dry spell, the sediments reveal. [In Photos: Stunning Sinkholes]

Although the findings aren’t the first to tie a drought to the Maya culture’s demise, the new results strengthen the case that dry periods were indeed the culprit. That’s because the data come from several spots in a region central to the Maya heartland, said study co-author André Droxler, an Earth scientist at Rice University.

The Maya civilization flourished in the Yucatan peninsula from 300 to 700. These ancient Mesoamericans built stunning pyramids, mastered astronomy, and developed both a hieroglyphic writing system and a complex calendar system. The Maya calendar became famous in recent years when some doomsayers wrongly claimed that it predicted the end of the world in 2012.

Today is the shortest day of the year, so it should follow that mornings will start getting brighter from now on, shouldn’t it? Not necessarily, writes Kris Griffiths. 

This Sunday, 21 December, the northern hemisphere will experience the shortest day of its year, marked at 23:03 GMT by an astronomical phenomenon known as the winter solstice – the moment the North Pole is tilted furthest from the sun as the Earth continues on its orbit.

The solstice doesn’t always occur on 21 December. Sometimes it nudges into the early hours of 22 December, which will happen again next year. The hour of day also varies. Last year’s arrived at 17:11. Next year’s will at 04:38.

Whatever day or time it happens, for many commuters it means leaving the house and returning from work in darkness, in the knowledge that from here on in the long nights will get shorter, with the sun rising earlier and setting later as we journey again towards the spring equinox.

However, the more astute of these early risers might have perceived a curious development, which may have passed by the more bleary-eyed unnoticed.

It would seem logical that after the shortest day has elapsed the mornings would start getting lighter earlier, but this isn’t what happens – the mornings continue darkening until early in the new year.

Meanwhile, those who thought that the winter solstice would mark the earliest sunset would also be wrong as the earliest sunset arrives a couple of weeks earlier.

The scene could be straight from a science-fiction film: a vision of everyday life, but with one jarring difference that makes you realise you’re on another planet, or in a distant future era.

A sports class is in full swing on the outskirts of Beijing. Herds of children charge after a football on an artificial pitch, criss-crossed with colourful markings and illuminated in high definition by the glare of bright white floodlights. It all seems normal enough – except for the fact that this familiar playground scene is taking place beneath a gigantic inflatable dome.

“It’s a bit of a change having to go through an airlock on the way to class,” says Travis Washko, director of sports at the British School of Beijing. “But the kids love it, and parents can now rest assured their children are playing in a safe environment.”

The reason for the dome becomes apparent when you step outside. A grey blanket hangs in the sky, swamping the surroundings in a de-saturated haze and almost obscuring the buildings across the street. A red flag hangs above the school’s main entrance to warn it’s a no-go day: stay indoors at all costs. The airpocalypse has arrived.

The Greenpeace (GP) Detox Campaign to get rid of a variety of materials in textiles is in its third year.  Let’s dig into just one aspect of it, namely per- and poly-fluorinated compounds (PFCs for short) that are used to make water repelling or waterproof high quality outdoor gear such as rain jackets and hiking boots.

Let’s simply state what the First Law of Thermodynamics is.  From Wiki:

First law of thermodynamics: When energy passes, as work, as heat, or with matter, into or out from a system, its internal energy changes in accord with the law of conservation of energy. Equivalently, perpetual motion machines of the first kind are impossible.

So whether you’re talking of a steel shell around a heated sphere, or a gas around a planet, or a component of a gas around a planet, ask yourself the question:

“Does it pass energy as work, heat, or with matter, into the sphere or planet?“

Consider the passive steel shell around the internally heated sphere, the so-called steel greenhouse.

1.  Does the passive steel shell do work on the sphere?  No, it doesn’t touch the sphere, or at most, simply rests upon the sphere’s surface.

2.  Does the passive steel shell send heat to the sphere?  No, it’s passive firstly, and secondly, it’s cooler.  It has no heat to send to the sphere.  Therefore, it sends no heat to the sphere.

3.  Does the passive steel shell pass matter into the sphere?  No, there’s no exchange of matter.

Therefore, the shell does not cause the sphere to heat up beyond the heat input that the sphere is internally provided.  QED.

The same goes for a gas around a planet, in the context of the sophistically-named “radiative greenhouse effect” of climate pseudoscience.

The First Law of Thermodynamics is all you need to debunk climate alarm, and its sophistical greenhouse effect.

Comical, really.

Whether it’s glowing lava snaking into the sea or lightning blooming in billowing ash clouds, the sight of an erupting volcano inspires awe and wonder.

Now imagine 1,500 of these suckers all shooting off at once. That’s how many active volcanoesdot the Earth, plus an unknown number hidden under the ocean. Every day, between 10 and 20 volcanoes are erupting somewhere on Earth, but scientists say the chance of every volcano on the planet erupting at once is so small that it’s impossible. But what if it did happen? Would Earth as it we know it survive?

Not likely, said Parv Sethi, a geologist at Radford University in Virginia. Even if only the volcanoes on land blasted in sync, the effects would trigger an environmental domino chain many, many times more powerful than a nuclear winter, Sethi said. “Things will become so bad that I wouldn’t want to survive on an Earth like this,” he told Live Science.

The two big hazards from a worldwide volcanic cataclysm are ash and volcanic gases. (While the explosions and outpourings of lava would be deadly to people living close by, the number of deaths would pale compared to those caused by the ensuing climate change.)

The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in China was an era of significant advances in science and art. Europe also flourished, leaving the Middle Ages behind and embracing what became known as the Renaissance. 

The news is abuzz with a socket wrench having been printed with a 3D printer at the international space station. It’s claimed that this wrench was required to be used in an unstated task. 

Hardly a day goes by without a news item about air pollution here or there, about the current “evil extraordinaire,” i.e. carbon dioxide (CO2), about “chemicals” of whatever description that may cause all kinds of unknown problems, and so forth. Nearly without fail, such media reports about CO2 are accompanied by pictures of “smokestacks.” More often than not, you are shown large (and even nuclear) power plant cooling towers with large volumes of white clouds belching out. Please, do have a closer look at such pictures and videos.

If the documentary evidence you are watching on the tube provides a large enough overview area, then you’ll notice that this white “pollution” quickly disappears in the air not far above their source, i.e. the top of the “smokestacks.” There is a simple reason for that:

The European Space Agency has administered the last rites to its Venus Express probe, saying that the spacecraft is now out of control and has gone “gently into the night.”  Its nine years of exploration ending up as Venusian rubble.

Latest Indian floods are being dishonestly linked to supposed ‘human caused’ climate change, says a prominent Indian environment scientist.  Dr Madhav Khandekar, a former research scientist from Environment Canada asserts that there “no evidence” to link the recent flooding in the Kashmire valley (Sept 2014) to humans. In what is increasingly being seen among independent scientists as alarmist propaganda Dr Khandekar adds that the UN’s Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change “should now be closed down.” 

“These extreme weather events are governed by natural variability and reducing human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would be a complete waste of time,” Khandekar told Principia Scientific International.

“I have presented my latest report on Indian monsoon floods and droughts and am asking unbiased news reporters to make the facts known, added Madhav, who is presently on the editorial board of the Journal of Natural Hazards (Kluwer) and has authored other well-received scientific reports on global warming (e.g. see here and here). Like other independent climate researchers he finds that recurring extreme floods and droughts are linked to large-scale atmosphere-ocean cycles like the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the equatorial Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD).

In recent years, the summer monsoon has become weaker with frequent droughts (e.g., 2002, 2004, 2009 2012 and 2014). “The observational evidence it at odds with most climate model projections that predict the intensification of the monsoon with increasing concentration of atmospheric CO2,” said Dr Khandekar.