Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mrpg on Thursday December 20 2018, @02:08AM   Printer-friendly
from the keep-on-heating dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

'Pause' in global warming was never real, new research proves

Claims of a 'pause' in observed global temperature warming are comprehensively disproved in a pair of new studies published today.

An international team of climate researchers reviewed existing data and studies and reanalysed them. They concluded there has never been a statistically significant 'pause' in global warming. This conclusion holds whether considering the `pause' as a change in the rate of warming in observations or as a mismatch in rate between observations and expectations from climate models.

[...] Dr. Risbey said: "Our findings show there is little or no statistical evidence for a 'pause' in GMST rise. Neither the current data nor the historical data support it. Moreover, updates to the GMST data through the period of 'pause' research have made this conclusion stronger. But, there was never enough evidence to reasonably draw any other conclusion.

"Global warming did not pause, but we need to understand how and why scientists came to believe it had, to avoid future episodes like this. The climate-research community's acceptance of a 'pause' in global warming caused confusion for the public and policy system about the pace and urgency of climate change.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:35AM (5 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:35AM (#776682) Journal

    We could turn all of the US's coal plants into nuclear in a couple of years.

    What kind of nuclear? It's typical for existing projects to be delayed by years and cost billions of dollars over budget [creativeloafing.com]... and then face many cost issues during operation and after being shut down. It's the kind of hot potato that nearly destroyed Toshiba [theregister.co.uk]. I'll at least agree that we could do something with the waste, especially if NIMBYism isn't a factor.

    Throw me a bone here. A... thorium-enriched bone?

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 20 2018, @06:51AM (4 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday December 20 2018, @06:51AM (#776717) Homepage Journal

    Lead's still less than a buck per pound. Seal it up overkill style, dump it in the middle of a stable mountain that you don't like, and forget about it.

    I was going to say launch it in a random direction and get it to escape velocity but then I looked at the cost per pound of payload to escape velocity vs. amount of fuel a reactor uses in a year. I don't think they have enough profit margin to make that financially possible. It's also not something I'd want going up in chincy, WalMart rockets and getting scattered all across the upper atmosphere.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:08PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:08PM (#776850) Journal

      Actually, if it were evenly distributed before coming down it wouldn't be much of a problem. It's the concentration that's the problem. The high level radioactives burn out pretty quickly, and could be used for process heat after they were no longer good enough for the reactor.

      Actually, IIUC, there are "proposed but never built" reactor designs that could burn the reactor "waste" back to essentially harmless. The problem is that at one stage of the process they create a bunch of plutonium that could be extracted if it wasn't watched carefully.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:19PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:19PM (#776852)

      also, there is a whole lot of nimby--it's a problem even for athiest non-voters that believe in neither political party to do the right thing or those that care not who is in charge as long as the lights are on and they have a job.

      that one mountain they hollowed out and don't use is a good example of that --but I also am sort of skeptical about burrowing into mountains and calling it stable. those mountains came about because the tectonic plates weren't stable. i imagine that the plates underneath are still moving. Maybe not in our lifetimes, or the next generation or two--or even thousands of years.

      but if the goal was to set and forget, wouldn't it be better to find a big flat area that hopefully won't be fracked ever (since that causes earthquakes in places that never had them... something about taking away the grease from stable tectonics...)... and dig down deep enough to set and forget in there?

      I'm sure if the world agreed to, say, dig a hole in antarctica since it's frozen over anyway, and keep going and going... until Cthulu wakes up or they have a respository, the world's spent fuel could be safely stored in an area no one lives in and nothing lives in and has been frozen over for millenia. the only way someone would accidentaly come across it would be in some distant future or aliens dig it out.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:41PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:41PM (#776866)

        Maybe not in our lifetimes, or the next generation or two--or even thousands of years.

        And that's good enough.

        Here's the thing with radioisotopes -- a given isotope is either hot or long-lived, never both. Now spent fuel has a mixture of various half-lives, but if you leave it sit for a thousand years, all the hot stuff (i.e. half-life under a century) has decayed away to almost nothing, and you're left with a bunch of long-lived, but low intensity, isotopes, along with their decay products. At this point, a release into groundwater is no longer such a big deal.

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 21 2018, @01:59AM

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday December 21 2018, @01:59AM (#777052) Homepage Journal

        Never happen. Eco nuts and scientists would lose every last bit of their minds. Doesn't matter if nothing has lived there since before humans were invented. Logic and reason need not apply to the discussion.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.