1
Antarctica / Re: Halley base shut down and new crack in Brunt shelf
« Last post by grixm on Today at 05:25:32 PM »Does my eye spy more cracking?
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2
Arctic sea ice / Re: 2021 Sea ice area and extent data
« Last post by gerontocrat on Today at 05:16:01 PM »NSIDC HIGH ARCTIC AREA - a bit more
The first image attached is of the 2021 maximum compared with previous years. 2021 was 8th lowest in tyhe satellite record, while 2020 was 22nd lowest. This suggests that, at least in the High Arctic, the 2020-21 refreeze was less of a recovery than that of the previous year.
The second image is the March monthly averages graph, and just shows that in the High Arctic not a lot goes on as far as area and extent is concerned.
The third image shows the plume of projections. The difference between 2012 and 2020 is at this time of year is pronounced, that makes the final result of 2012 even more extraordinary.
The first image attached is of the 2021 maximum compared with previous years. 2021 was 8th lowest in tyhe satellite record, while 2020 was 22nd lowest. This suggests that, at least in the High Arctic, the 2020-21 refreeze was less of a recovery than that of the previous year.
The second image is the March monthly averages graph, and just shows that in the High Arctic not a lot goes on as far as area and extent is concerned.
The third image shows the plume of projections. The difference between 2012 and 2020 is at this time of year is pronounced, that makes the final result of 2012 even more extraordinary.
3
Antarctica / Re: Pine Island Glacier (PIG) Calving and Discussion
« Last post by grixm on Today at 05:14:21 PM »New images, with some highlights of extensions that wasn't pointed out yet
4
Arctic sea ice / Re: 2021 Sea ice area and extent data
« Last post by gerontocrat on Today at 05:03:59 PM »NSIDC - The High Arctic starting with sea ice AREA
JAXA HIGH ARCTIC SEA ICE AREA: 8,617,976 KM2 as at 10-Apr-2021
- Extent loss on this day 24k, 23 k more than the average loss on this day (of the last 10 years) of 1k,
- Extent gain from minimum on this date is 6,107 k, which is 393 k, 6.9% more than the 10 year average of 5,715 k.
- Extent is at position #9 in the satellite record
- Extent is 57 k MORE than 2020,
- Extent is 24 k LESS than 2018,
- Extent is 11 k LESS than 2017
- Extent is 148 k MORE than 2012
- Extent is 16 k MORE than the 2010's Average
_____________________________________________
Projections. (Table JAXA-Arc1)
The sea ice losses of the last three days persuade me that the maximum for High Arctic Sea Ice Area happened on the 30 March 2021 at 8.700 million km2, 0.07 million km2 above the March 2017 record low maximum of 8.63 million km2.
Just one year, 2012, still had further sea ice gains from today's date.
_______________________________________________________________
N.B. Click on image to enlarge
JAXA HIGH ARCTIC SEA ICE AREA: 8,617,976 KM2 as at 10-Apr-2021
- Extent loss on this day 24k, 23 k more than the average loss on this day (of the last 10 years) of 1k,
- Extent gain from minimum on this date is 6,107 k, which is 393 k, 6.9% more than the 10 year average of 5,715 k.
- Extent is at position #9 in the satellite record
- Extent is 57 k MORE than 2020,
- Extent is 24 k LESS than 2018,
- Extent is 11 k LESS than 2017
- Extent is 148 k MORE than 2012
- Extent is 16 k MORE than the 2010's Average
_____________________________________________
Projections. (Table JAXA-Arc1)
The sea ice losses of the last three days persuade me that the maximum for High Arctic Sea Ice Area happened on the 30 March 2021 at 8.700 million km2, 0.07 million km2 above the March 2017 record low maximum of 8.63 million km2.
Just one year, 2012, still had further sea ice gains from today's date.
_______________________________________________________________
N.B. Click on image to enlarge
5
Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2021 melting season
« Last post by KenB on Today at 04:31:45 PM »Trying to figure out what I'm seeing here off the N. coast of Greenland on WV
As oren points out, experimenting with the "false color" layers on WV should make it apparent that you're seeing clouds over fractured sea ice?
https://go.nasa.gov/3s6K1Bl
Thanks - I need to try that out. The "3-d" effect is still pretty strong for me there.
6
Consequences / Re: COVID-19
« Last post by vox_mundi on Today at 04:19:56 PM »Official: Chinese Vaccines’ Effectiveness Low
https://apnews.com/article/beijing-immunizations-chengdu-coronavirus-pandemic-china-675bcb6b5710c7329823148ffbff6ef9
BEIJING (AP) — In a rare admission of the weakness of Chinese coronavirus vaccines, the country’s top disease control official says their effectiveness is low and the government is considering mixing them to get a boost.
Chinese vaccines “don’t have very high protection rates,” said the director of the China Centers for Disease Control, Gao Fu, at a conference Saturday in the southwestern city of Chengdu.
Beijing has distributed hundreds of millions of doses abroad while trying to promote doubt about the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine made using the previously experimental messenger RNA, or mRNA, process.
Gao gave no details of possible changes in strategy but cited mRNA as a possibility. “It’s now under formal consideration whether we should use different vaccines from different technical lines for the immunization process,” Gao said.
Vaccines made by two state-owned drug makers, Sinovac and Sinopharm, have been exported to 22 countries including Mexico, Turkey, Indonesia, Hungary, Brazil and Turkey, according to the foreign ministry.
The effectiveness of a Sinovac vaccine at preventing symptomatic infections was found to be as low as 50.4% by researchers in Brazil, near the 50% threshold at which health experts say a vaccine is useful.
Beijing has yet to approve any foreign vaccines for use in China.
As of April 2, some 34 million people (out of 1.3 billion) in China have received both of the two doses required for Chinese vaccines and about 65 million received one, according to Gao.
https://apnews.com/article/beijing-immunizations-chengdu-coronavirus-pandemic-china-675bcb6b5710c7329823148ffbff6ef9
BEIJING (AP) — In a rare admission of the weakness of Chinese coronavirus vaccines, the country’s top disease control official says their effectiveness is low and the government is considering mixing them to get a boost.
Chinese vaccines “don’t have very high protection rates,” said the director of the China Centers for Disease Control, Gao Fu, at a conference Saturday in the southwestern city of Chengdu.
Beijing has distributed hundreds of millions of doses abroad while trying to promote doubt about the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine made using the previously experimental messenger RNA, or mRNA, process.
Gao gave no details of possible changes in strategy but cited mRNA as a possibility. “It’s now under formal consideration whether we should use different vaccines from different technical lines for the immunization process,” Gao said.
Vaccines made by two state-owned drug makers, Sinovac and Sinopharm, have been exported to 22 countries including Mexico, Turkey, Indonesia, Hungary, Brazil and Turkey, according to the foreign ministry.
The effectiveness of a Sinovac vaccine at preventing symptomatic infections was found to be as low as 50.4% by researchers in Brazil, near the 50% threshold at which health experts say a vaccine is useful.
Beijing has yet to approve any foreign vaccines for use in China.
As of April 2, some 34 million people (out of 1.3 billion) in China have received both of the two doses required for Chinese vaccines and about 65 million received one, according to Gao.
7
Consequences / Re: COVID-19
« Last post by vox_mundi on Today at 04:12:48 PM »‘You Can’t Trust Anyone’: Russia’s Hidden Covid Toll Is an Open Secret
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/10/world/europe/covid-russia-death.html
SAMARA, Russia — She burst into the hospital morgue and the bodies were everywhere, about a dozen of them in black bags on stretchers. She headed straight for the autopsy room, pleading with the guard in a black jacket: “Can I speak to the doctor who opened up my father?”
Olga Kagarlitskaya’s father had been hospitalized weeks earlier in a coronavirus ward. Now he was gone, cause of death: “viral pneumonia, unspecified.” Ms. Kagarlitskaya, recording the scene on her smartphone, wanted to know the truth. But the guard, hands in pockets, sent her away.
There were thousands of similar cases across Russia last year, the government’s own statistics show. At least 300,000 more people died last year during the coronavirus pandemic than were reported in Russia’s most widely cited official statistics.
The country’s official coronavirus death toll is 102,649.
Deaths in Russia Were Much Higher Than Normal Last Year
Deaths from all causes, shown for selected European countries and the U.S., is the most reliable way to compare mortality during the pandemic across countries.
... “People didn’t know the objective situation,” Ms. Kagarlitskaya said. “And if you don’t know the objective situation, you are not afraid.”
For much of the last year, Russia has appeared more focused on the public-relations and economic aspects of the pandemic than on fighting the virus itself.
... Perhaps the starkest sign, though, of the state’s priorities is its minimization of the coronavirus death toll — a move that, many critics say, kept much of the public in the dark about the disease’s dangers and about the importance of getting a vaccine.
... However, a far different story is told by the official statistics agency Rosstat, which tallies deaths from all causes. Russia saw a jump of 360,000 deaths above normal from last April through December, according to a Times analysis of historical data. Rosstat figures for January and February of this year show that the number is now well above 400,000.
By that measure, which many demographers see as the most accurate way to assess the virus’s overall toll, the pandemic killed about one in every 400 people in Russia, compared with one in every 600 in the United States.
... Mr. Raksha, a demographer, noted that the elevated mortality that accompanied the chaos and poverty of the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, was deadlier than the overall toll of the pandemic.
“This nation has seen so many traumas,” Mr. Raksha said. “A people that has been through so much develops a very different relationship to death.”
... He quoted Dostoyevsky: “Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!”
“We are growing used to living in a pandemic,” ... “We are growing used to the deaths.”
-----------------------------------
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/10/world/europe/covid-russia-death.html
SAMARA, Russia — She burst into the hospital morgue and the bodies were everywhere, about a dozen of them in black bags on stretchers. She headed straight for the autopsy room, pleading with the guard in a black jacket: “Can I speak to the doctor who opened up my father?”
Olga Kagarlitskaya’s father had been hospitalized weeks earlier in a coronavirus ward. Now he was gone, cause of death: “viral pneumonia, unspecified.” Ms. Kagarlitskaya, recording the scene on her smartphone, wanted to know the truth. But the guard, hands in pockets, sent her away.
There were thousands of similar cases across Russia last year, the government’s own statistics show. At least 300,000 more people died last year during the coronavirus pandemic than were reported in Russia’s most widely cited official statistics.
The country’s official coronavirus death toll is 102,649.
Deaths in Russia Were Much Higher Than Normal Last Year
Deaths from all causes, shown for selected European countries and the U.S., is the most reliable way to compare mortality during the pandemic across countries.
| Country | Deaths above normal | Total excess deaths | Covid-19 deaths Reported | Covid-19 deaths per 100,000 |
| Russia | +28% | 362,302 | 57,002 | 39 |
| Spain | +23% | 71,200 | 50,046 | 106 |
| Italy | +19% | 85,600 | 55,535 | 92 |
| U.K. | +17% | 79,700 | 82,620 | 124 |
| U.S. | +17% | 385,100 | 316,370 | 96 |
| Poland | +16% | 48,700 | 17,150 | 45 |
| Czech Rep. | +15% | 11,900 | 8,307 | 78 |
| Switzerland | +13% | 7,200 | 7,210 | 84 |
| Sweden | +12% | 8,100 | 8,582 | 83 |
| France | +12% | 53,100 | 55,381 | 83 |
| Netherlands | +12% | 14,700 | 10,491 | 61 |
| Portugal | +12% | 10,100 | 5,559 | 54 |
| Austria | +12% | 7,300 | 4,473 | 50 |
| Hungary | +7% | 6,900 | 4,672 | 48 |
| Finland | +4% | 1,500 | 489 | 9 |
| Germany | +3% | 19,300 | 22,406 | 27 |
... “People didn’t know the objective situation,” Ms. Kagarlitskaya said. “And if you don’t know the objective situation, you are not afraid.”
For much of the last year, Russia has appeared more focused on the public-relations and economic aspects of the pandemic than on fighting the virus itself.
... Perhaps the starkest sign, though, of the state’s priorities is its minimization of the coronavirus death toll — a move that, many critics say, kept much of the public in the dark about the disease’s dangers and about the importance of getting a vaccine.
... However, a far different story is told by the official statistics agency Rosstat, which tallies deaths from all causes. Russia saw a jump of 360,000 deaths above normal from last April through December, according to a Times analysis of historical data. Rosstat figures for January and February of this year show that the number is now well above 400,000.
By that measure, which many demographers see as the most accurate way to assess the virus’s overall toll, the pandemic killed about one in every 400 people in Russia, compared with one in every 600 in the United States.
... Mr. Raksha, a demographer, noted that the elevated mortality that accompanied the chaos and poverty of the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, was deadlier than the overall toll of the pandemic.
“This nation has seen so many traumas,” Mr. Raksha said. “A people that has been through so much develops a very different relationship to death.”
... He quoted Dostoyevsky: “Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!”
“We are growing used to living in a pandemic,” ... “We are growing used to the deaths.”
-----------------------------------
8
Policy and solutions / Re: Electric cars
« Last post by NeilT on Today at 03:13:29 PM »Quote
In Q1 2021, Chevrolet Bolt EV (the outgoing version) noted its best quarterly sales result ever, exceeding 9,000 units!
Quote
Chevrolet Bolt EV total cumulative sales result in the U.S. just exceeded 88,000.
Quote
Compared to Chevrolet's total volume of 427,950 (down 1.7% year-over-year), the Bolt EV share was 2.1%.
https://insideevs.com/news/498574/us-chevrolet-bolt-sales-q12021/
It is not really yelling competition is it? More like Compliance car.
They still don't get it. At this rate, by the end of 2022, Tesla will produce and sell more EV than GM sells vehicles in total.
9
Policy and solutions / Re: Electric cars
« Last post by NeilT on Today at 03:04:42 PM »Yep but the cost to produce is higher than a $27k sale price. GM will not be able to sustain that or bring volume production.
10
Consequences / Re: COVID-19
« Last post by El Cid on Today at 02:37:16 PM »Vaccine escape is already under way, bad news:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-israel-study-idCAKBN2BX0JZ
The study, released on Saturday, compared almost 400 people who had tested positive for COVID-19, 14 days or more after they received one or two doses of the vaccine, against the same number of unvaccinated patients with the disease. It matched age and gender, among other characteristics.
The South African variant, B.1.351, was found to make up about 1% of all the COVID-19 cases across all the people studied, according to the study by Tel Aviv University and Israel’s largest healthcare provider, Clalit.
But among patients who had received two doses of the vaccine, the variant’s prevalence rate was eight times higher than those unvaccinated - 5.4% versus 0.7%.
This suggests the vaccine is less effective against the South African variant, compared with the original coronavirus and a variant first identified in Britain that has come to comprise nearly all COVID-19 cases in Israel, the researchers said.
“We found a disproportionately higher rate of the South African variant among people vaccinated with a second dose, compared to the unvaccinated group. This means that the South African variant is able, to some extent, to break through the vaccine’s protection,” said Tel Aviv University’s Adi Stern.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-israel-study-idCAKBN2BX0JZ
The study, released on Saturday, compared almost 400 people who had tested positive for COVID-19, 14 days or more after they received one or two doses of the vaccine, against the same number of unvaccinated patients with the disease. It matched age and gender, among other characteristics.
The South African variant, B.1.351, was found to make up about 1% of all the COVID-19 cases across all the people studied, according to the study by Tel Aviv University and Israel’s largest healthcare provider, Clalit.
But among patients who had received two doses of the vaccine, the variant’s prevalence rate was eight times higher than those unvaccinated - 5.4% versus 0.7%.
This suggests the vaccine is less effective against the South African variant, compared with the original coronavirus and a variant first identified in Britain that has come to comprise nearly all COVID-19 cases in Israel, the researchers said.
“We found a disproportionately higher rate of the South African variant among people vaccinated with a second dose, compared to the unvaccinated group. This means that the South African variant is able, to some extent, to break through the vaccine’s protection,” said Tel Aviv University’s Adi Stern.