Messages

1

Consequences / Re: World of 2030

« on: January 20, 2020, 08:08:06 AM »

The median net wage in the Hungarian countryside is cca 600 euros per month per worker.  I guess that is less than the unemployment benefits in most Western European countries...yet somehow people stay alive

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity

Now, PPP comes up implying that although wages are smaller, prices are also lower, so all is good.

1) wages here are much lower than prices vs W.Europe. See map here (net average salary adjusted for living costs in PPP), this shows the actual buying power of salaries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage#Net_average_monthly_salary_(adjusted_for_living_costs_in_PPP)

2) Hungary in very much Budapest-centric. The people in and around the capital live quite well even by global standards. Wages are much higher than in the countryside.

3) In poorer countries wages are lower, therefore the price of non-tradable goods (mostly services, which contain a very big human labour input) is significantly lower. However, tradable goods, say wheat or steel have the same price all around the globe, precisely because they are tradable. Now, the poorer you are the more tradable goods (commodities) you consume and PPP won't help you out. The richer you are, the more services you consume. So a relatively richer man in a poor country lives much better than his/her salary would suggest, but it is not true for the poorer people. That is why (plus because of the above point 2) I did not generally say "people in Hungary" but "people in the countryside".

2

Consequences / Re: World of 2030

« on: January 20, 2020, 07:55:16 AM »

...El Cid won't be open to these questions I assume.

Unfortunately I am not Mother Teresa, and that is why I do not invite the homeless.

3

Consequences / Re: World of 2030

« on: January 19, 2020, 08:52:37 PM »

The median net wage in the Hungarian countryside is cca 600 euros per month per worker.  I guess that is less than the unemployment benefits in most Western European countries...yet somehow people stay alive

4

Consequences / Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event

« on: January 19, 2020, 08:47:19 PM »

We've discussed it upthread and the conclusions from scientific research are quite obvious: no significant global insolation change effect from an August or September BOE, not even July! Picture attached

5

Consequences / Re: World of 2030

« on: January 19, 2020, 02:13:22 PM »

And so what does the Indonesian government do with their unlivable city? They move the capital into the middle of Borneo (with no roads and not much infrastructure, a pretty pristine area), into a city that is surrounded by jungle, so that even this last refuge of the orangutan will be destroyed as millions will flock there from Jakarta and other cities. Clever indeed. Welcome to the world of 2030!

6

Consequences / Re: World of 2030

« on: January 19, 2020, 02:10:24 PM »

Climate refugees from 8 cm sea level rise? I hardly believe that. The thing is, it is a slow process, noone will notice for a good while.

As an example of real horrors rather look at Jakarta. Some parts are sinking by 10-20 cm PER YEAR(!!!) <yet, no refugees!> and are under sea level already, due to three main factors: 1) most important: people lacking good tapwater are pumping groundwater which sinks the ground making the place ever more floodprone and 2) sewers are not being tended to 3) some extreme rain-events (377 mm on a single day, see below) immediately cause chaos and death:

https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/01/01/not-ordinary-rain-worst-rainfall-in-over-decade-causes-massive-floods-in-jakarta.html

More people died there than in the Australia bushfires, and much--much more (400 000!) had to be evacuated. Yet you hear nothing about it in the mainstream media.

This is caused by human stupidity and overpopulation mostly, the extreme rain is just a sidenote.

I brought it up because I think the situation in Jakarta is much worse than an 8 cm sea-rise. Rich countries will be able to cope with a small sea level rise easily. Poor ones will be hit heavily even without such an event due to poor governance

7

Walking the walk / Re: Gardening

« on: January 19, 2020, 01:59:30 PM »

thanks! we have different brandnames here though

8

Consequences / Re: World of 2030

« on: January 19, 2020, 11:49:43 AM »

El Cid, in your country, do you just ask and then you get a piece of land to grow your stuff?

I am lucky to have my own, quite big piece of land (4000m2) around my house with fruit trees and a few older pines and oaks, a big yew tree, hazels, and vegetables, various berries, a small parcel of alfalafa, flowers, etc. I know I am lucky with all this. I also own a forest and some agricultural land. I am quite well off, but that is not the point.

The point is that as far as I know, in many countries you have community gardens, allotments, etc, which you can rent for a nominal fee. Even in my country there are a lot of small villages, where land is virtually free. In fact, a few Dutch farmers and pensioner are moving in. Also some Germans and Austrians are buying old peasant houses in villages with big pieces of land for a few thousand euros near some nice forests/streams. Yes, you have to renovate it, and put a lot of effort into making it all look beautiful.
I just wanted to say that if you want to live a life close to "Nature" and working the land, it is far from impossible for many people.

9

Consequences / Re: World of 2030

« on: January 19, 2020, 10:26:42 AM »

nanning,

No offens, but you are a typical dreamer (I know some) who fantasizes a lot about ecosystems and sustainable living, but you can not grow even a tiny part of your own food. I agree with Bruce, get an allotment. Using nothing else than good, homemade compost and some care, you can grow 2-8 kgs of produce per m2 per year with organic, no dig methods. You will also learn a lot about ecosystems as well, get some exercise and have a great time in your small parcel of polyculture as an added bonus.  You can grow flowers, clovers, lavander and lupins (my favourite!) interspersed with vegetables. You will see all sorts of bumblebees working on these and then other bugs and birds will come. Put out some old, rotting wood for snakes (I have a few Aesculapian snakes in my garden and various toads as well) to hide under. There is a beautiful world out there to be watched and cared for! That is how the world of 2030 will be a better one...

10

Consequences / Re: World of 2030

« on: January 19, 2020, 10:17:17 AM »

Anybody got a guess of what we get in the next 10 years?

Based on your numbers I would say 5-8 cms sea level rise until 2030. Nothing to write home about. (don't misunderstand me, it is a serious long term problem and whole countries will be uinder water in 100-200 years, but not much to create interest in 10 years(

11

Walking the walk / Re: Gardening

« on: January 19, 2020, 10:09:42 AM »

They say that there is no mold at all.
Also, what you said about legionella is interesting but true. As the air / soil below ground is pretty constant 8-12 C, there can be no legionella

12

Consequences / Re: The Climatic Effects of a Blue Ocean Event

« on: January 18, 2020, 08:33:17 AM »

1. Beckwith is not a climate scientist, his guesses are as good as mine at the minimum. Actually, he is worse, as he's been known to make extraordinary claims that proved to be completely false. I would be very careful about anything he says.
2. The research he quotes above is valid though, written by actual climate scientists. I read the paper.
3. Ice albedo feedback is a very important but not very well quantified mechanism, there are still a lot of questions about it (mostly cloud-effects). Still, it is unquestionable that the warming of the planet (especially the oceans) leads to less arctic ice, which leads to more heating of the arctic sea, that leads to less arctic ice. Eventually a BOE will happen and it will seriously effect the climate of the whole planet.
4. I would argue that as the Arctic becomes icefree, there will be more moisture and more clouds, that lessen this effect, but as all real climate scientists know, future cloud-effects are the greatest uncertainity in modelling climate.
5. Most of the extra "heating" would come from spring and summer insolation. An ice-free Arctic in September or even August would not change much as per the paper.
6. Their calculation of 25 years of extra Co2 would probably imply 0,5-0,9 C of global warming. If there are more clouds as I expect, it is probably around or below 0,5 C. All this will happen only with an ice-free arctic during summer and spring! That is basically a year-around free arctic. No real scientists see that happening within 50 years.
7. So for the next decade the extra warming even from an Arctic that becomes mostly ice-free in August/September (this will probably happen in the 2020s I think), is at most +0,1 C globally.
8: It is quite obvious though that +1,5 C or +2 C globally is not achievable. +3 C is the best that mankind can hope for by 2100. I think that is achievable. Mind you, that would probably imply +6 C on NH midlatitude land! (cca +4 C vs current temps)

13

Walking the walk / Re: Gardening

« on: January 18, 2020, 07:35:51 AM »

Apparently there is significant risk of mold problems developing when you blow air through buried tubes to manage temperature. The condensed water and potential pooling of water in the underground tubes can over time introduce mold spores to your air stream. Also seems to me to be a great method of culturing legionaires disease.

Much safer to do the heat transfer with fluid filled closed loop  exchange tubes with heat exchanger/radiator in the greenhouse/living space. Might need much narrower trenches to place the exchange pipes too.

yes, many worry about this, but it has never happened in these greenhouses

14

Arctic sea ice / Re: Atmospheric connections, structure, and long range weather forecasting

« on: January 17, 2020, 03:02:02 PM »

There is NO split in the GFS forecast. There is stratospheric warming on jan 29 but no split forecast. Without a split, no beast from the east, sorry

15

Consequences / Re: Weird Weather and anecdotal stories about climate change

« on: January 17, 2020, 08:40:45 AM »

I am a bit fedup with this doomer-sh**. I stated well known scientific facts, ie: very abrupt climate changes routinely happened not only in Greenland but also in NH midlatitudes  without somehow destroying the ecosystem in the past few thousand years. Just one example:

https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article-abstract/36/5/407/29759/Rapid-ecosystem-response-to-abrupt-climate-changes?redirectedFrom=fulltext

"Transitions between different ecological states occurred in as little as 40–230 yr and seem to have been controlled by the position of the Polar Front...open, treeless vegetation indicate cold and dry conditions in response to Heinrich events. Alternating phases of higher and low lake organic productivity, stratified surface waters and long-lasting lake ice cover, decreased or increased catchment erosion, and tree-dominated or herb-dominated vegetation resemble Dansgaard-Oeschger interstadial-stadial variability"

From treeless dry steppe to boreal forest in S.France in a matter of decades. There you have it.

also:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2007GL031716
strong correlation between Greenland and Europe temps

This is my last post on this thread about this since it is clearly offtopic. SRY

16

Consequences / Re: Weird Weather and anecdotal stories about climate change

« on: January 16, 2020, 01:27:05 PM »

As for this

" Wetlands turned to deserts decimating life and temperate forests turned to insect filled jungles. Many species went extinct, many species thrived. Rivers formed, rivers dried. But there were no humans there to write about it."

I totally agree, that is what I said above. There were huge and FAST changes which decimated life but did not destroy it at all.

Now, as for this one:

"If there were 7 billion settled humans, dependent on nature for water, food and a stable atmosphere at the time of D-O events, what would have happened to them?"

This is a relevant question. And I say that there would have been huge problems when temperatures FELL during these D-O events, partly because of less heat and partly because it brought with it much drying, decimating agriculture and possibly leading to war. When temperatures ROSE in Europe, it would have been a blessing: longer growing periods and more rain = more food.

This is not only a theory, it is a historical fact: every big COOLING event led to catastrophe: when the Roman Warm period ended, the Dark Ages arrived and before that the Greek Dark Ages. Recently the Little Ice Age wreaked havoc.
When warming came to Europe it led to great and stable empires. Mycene, then the Romans, then Charlemagne's "Renaissance" after hundreds of dark ages

17

Consequences / Re: Places becoming less livable

« on: January 16, 2020, 08:11:24 AM »

Money or health? What a choice. They should ask old people to answer that question.

The greatest wealth is health, no question about that

18

Consequences / Re: Weird Weather and anecdotal stories about climate change

« on: January 16, 2020, 08:10:13 AM »

As for the orderly jet stream:

My completely unscientific view is that  as wind pushed a lot of ice into the Barents very early this year, this led to cool temperatures (see Longyearbyen's weather this year as opoosed to previopus years!)  and this stabilized tropospheric temperatures at a low level (cold) which helped stabilize the stratospheric vortex. While in the past few years the Barents was mostly icefree and therefore warm which destabilized the stratospheric vortex from the bottom leading to waviness and splits.
So that is why I think we have a stable jetstream, no vortex split and generally "calm" winter weather.

As for storms: there are two forces: 1) it is shown that tropical cyclogenesis is likely to become stronger but 2) the lessened Equator-Pole temperature difference should lead to less wind in the NH. I am not sure which one prevails but either way the Netherlands is going to become a place becoming less liveable as it will have to fight ever more and ever stronger floods

19

Consequences / Re: Weird Weather and anecdotal stories about climate change

« on: January 15, 2020, 12:55:18 PM »

1. Club of Rome: I did read the whole book cca 30 years ago and also Malthus's book, and many of the followups and became a doomer thereof. To tell you the truth I was scared to shit and thought the world would soon end. 

2. I previously quoted studies about abrupt climate changes, but I always have to requote them because doomers do not believe it:

the first relevant hit in Google from a reliable source:

https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/abrupt-climate-change-during-the-last-ice-24288097/

"One of the most surprising findings was that the shifts from cold stadials to the warm interstadial intervals occurred in a matter of decades, with air temperatures over Greenland rapidly warming 8 to 15°C" (the original study used decades as well, but said that it likely happened within a matter of YEARS. )

I did not see Greenland temperatures going up 8 to 15C in the past decades, so saying that the current warming is unprecedented is baseless in my view

3. Not being a doomer does not make one a denier. I am optimistic that humanity will overcome this very real, very serious threat

20

Consequences / Re: Weird Weather and anecdotal stories about climate change

« on: January 15, 2020, 08:32:27 AM »

"After reviewing their computer simulations, the research team came to the following conclusions:[1]:23–24

    Given business as usual, i.e., no changes to historical growth trends, the limits to growth on earth would become evident by 2072, leading to "sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity". This includes the following:
        Global Industrial output per capita reaches a peak around 2008, followed by a rapid decline
        Global Food per capita reaches a peak around 2020, followed by a rapid decline
        Global Services per capita reaches a peak around 2020, followed by a rapid decline
        Global population reaches a peak in 2030, followed by a rapid decline"

from:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth

21

Consequences / Re: Weird Weather and anecdotal stories about climate change

« on: January 14, 2020, 01:25:24 PM »

cheap money borrowed from the future was not a concept until recently . Now it is a $270 trillion reality . b.c.

This is a major and popular misconception

1) Real goods can not be borrowed from the future only nominal assets. Borrowing can temporarily push up the nominal price of stocks, housing, etc but won't change the amount of real goods available
2) There were huge borrowing binges in the past, starting from John Law's experiment in quantitative easing in France in the 1700s, then hyperinflítion after WW1, then the fixing of interest rates at an unnaturally low level during WW2 (see the US Fed's policies during the 1940s), then the Japanese bubble, etc, etc, many, many examples of unnaturally low interest rates leading to huge borrowing and eventual collapse of  asset prices
3) Forecasting the end of the world is always a very attractive psychological position as it proves me that I am cleverer than everybody else and when they realize their doom I will be standing there, telling everyone: "I told you so"

22

Consequences / Re: Weird Weather and anecdotal stories about climate change

« on: January 14, 2020, 10:18:50 AM »

The most famous is the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth , 1972. It has many iterations ever since. They basically predicted a huge slide of civilization in the 2010-30 period (industrial production collapse, food scarcity, etc). there have been many like this .

And obviously the first one was Malthus, who wrote his works in the early 1800s. His disciples updated it and always expected a collapse in the near future

23

Consequences / Re: Places becoming more livable

« on: January 13, 2020, 04:41:11 PM »

this is OT, but my above numbers are correct

my original statement was that humanity (if well organized and having a certain culture/workethic, you name it) can come back from real serious collapses, just like it happened after ww2 in many countries, most notably germany. the marshall plan was miniscule relative to the huge comeback of germany (or italy for that matter) or relative to the aid new eu members receive. It was not due to aid but due to determination, culture, societal structure, etc. The same would happen if for any unknown reason the grid would collapse
 

24

Consequences / Re: Places becoming more livable

« on: January 13, 2020, 08:02:10 AM »

Yes, Oren, we all know that the theoretical solution is reducing childbirth, but that is not a solution in reality because you can not make it happen. Look at Africa: 1 billion people in 1995, 2 billion by 2050 and 4 by 2100 - based on current projections (and demographics is not easy to change).
My question was not based on theory but about actual, doable solutions.

As for your projection that a post AGW world would be able to support only 1 billion people I find it highly doubtful as we can already easily grow enough food for 15 billion (provided that meat is off the table)

Tom,

The Marshall plan was not very big for Germany. The USA gave away 12 billion usd, of which "only" 1.5 billion went to Germany. In total, recipient countries received cca 3% of their GDP, Germany received less than that, cca 1-2%. For comparison: Eastern European countries received 10-30 (!!!!) % of their GDP during 2013-2020 from EU funds.

As for places becoming more liveable, I agree with Voltaire: tend to your gardens, and the world will become a better place

25

Consequences / Re: Places becoming more livable

« on: January 12, 2020, 01:57:16 PM »

Couple of points:

- As I have said (and proven by science), previous ice ages came and ended very-very quickly (in a matter of years or decades with 5-15 C swings!), probably even quicker than the current era of AGW, so the idea that ecosystems will not be able to cope is quite groundless...to which you reply: but those were "intact" ecosystems. Well, it does not matter. Adaptation speed is not dependent on species number, it is based on adaptation speed.
- but, but: precipitation patterns will change. YES, they will. We had a Green Sahara just 5 k years ago, and forests in Central Asia. This is nothing new. We might even see the Sahara greening again!
- permafrost: I attach a map of the permafrost. Cca 1 million million people live in those areas in NA (750k in Alaska and at most 250 k in canada), and a maximum of 3-5 million in Russia (the whole of Yakutia eg has only 1 million people on 3 m sq km!!!) and it is not a surprise, it's not nice there. This is a non-issue relative to the size of the economy
- NZ: I think more people will die of earthquakes there during this century than due to climate change. It is very much protected, probably one of the biggest winners
- human population: this is absolutely true, there are simply too many humans for this planet, but I do not think that any of you would have an IMMEDIATE solution
- if electricity goes all goes...well I would refer to WW2. It seems  that you can have a normal country and government with little food and electricity (eg Russia or UK)

All in all, climate change will undoubtedly hurt, but humans are much more adaptable than you would think. Witness the 2 world wars, or just the last one in Germany: everything was destroyed there and yet, after 20 years they emerged as a highly developed country again.

I am not saying that nothing is to be done - on the contrary, many things will have to change: what we eat, what we wear, how we travel, how we build our homes, etc, etc. This is happening. Yes, it should happen faster, I agree, but don't count out humans just yet!

26

Consequences / Re: Places becoming more livable

« on: January 09, 2020, 08:00:00 AM »

Civilisation will find out it can't survive without ecosystem functions and can't survive the effects of +4°C.

The idea of "Places becoming more livable" is absurd I think.

Civilization really can't survive without ecosystems. However, warming by itself will not cause ecosystem collapse. The world has seen huge temperature swings without ecosytem collapse, eg. at the end of the last ice age, European temperatures went up by 5-15 C within a matter of decades if not years (based on greenland ice core measurements!)

So, thinking that a 4 C temperature rise will somehow destroy ecosytems is totally baseless scientifically. There WILL be places becoming more liveable, Canada is a prime example - and most of Europe by the way. As for the tropics: they will have serious problems.

27

Walking the walk / Re: Gardening

« on: January 06, 2020, 04:33:48 PM »

Why perforated pipes?

Some say perforated is better if you have no watertable issues, because of
a) better heat exchange and
b) the moist greenhouse air becomes drier air

Source :

http://www.ecosystems-design.com/faq.html

"How does a climate battery work?
During the day when the greenhouse interior is being heated by the sun, the climate battery fans push this heated air from high in the greenhouse down through the underground heat exchange tubing. This warm, moist air cools as it runs through the tubing, depositing heat by conduction into the surrounding soil, and condensed water vapor with latent heat through perforations in the tubing. This cooled, dryer air returns to the greenhouse space, cooling and drying the greenhouse, and regaining its capacity to absorb moisture and heat from the greenhouse again. It is a simple form of the heat pump cycle, that takes advantage of the latent heat energy stored in water vapor, and the phenomenon of condensating said vapor by bringing the air temperature down to dew point through heat transfer to the cooler soil.



"Why do you recommend short runs of heat exchange tubing (25-35’) vs. less longer runs? Could longer runs be used?
We have found from experience that 25-35’ runs work well for efficient air-to-soil heat exchange in these systems, but that is not to say that longer runs couldn’t work as well. The issue we have found with longer runs is that after ~35’ oftentimes the air has already reached soil temperature and is no longer transferring heat to the soil, thereby wasting the remaining tube length. This also creates uneven heating of the greenhouse soil, with soil near the climate battery intake warmer than near the exhaust. We suspect there are arrangements that could make longer runs work, such as increasing air speed, but we have not tested it out enough yet to confidently recommend it. Any shorter than 25’ of tube length and you risk not bringing the temperature of the air down to dew-point while in the tubes, missing the benefits of water-vapor phase-change."

28

Walking the walk / Re: Gardening

« on: January 06, 2020, 08:11:19 AM »

Ok, lots of questions, and as I am just planning, unfortunately I have no experience yet. So here comes only what i understood:

1) water table: that is certainly a concern. Where tha water table is high, only unperforated pipes can be used. I read though that perforated pipes are better if applicable. Pipes are usually 4-6 inch (10-15 cm) diameter and run underground 7-13 meters. in bigger greenhouses they run into a bigger manifol, or many bigger ones. In my case, there is no watertable to 10 m at least,as I live on a hilltop, so i will go with a perforated pipe. And no permits are needed here at all.
2) You are right about pipe height: since cold air sinks, there is one pipe that is close to the top of the greenhouse and one close to the floor. this is what I plan, too: one end of the tube near the floor, one at 1,5 meter
3) "Will city water be available? Grid electricity?" Yes, our house is close to the city, so no problem with those
4) Stratification? I really don't know
5) I am digging my hole so I have not taken a temp reading that, but I will. I do have data from around the country though about soil temps at 1,2,3 meter depth and they are pretty similar, so I will likely get no surprises: 1 meter temps are usually 4-6 C in Jan-Feb, and 18-20 in Aug/Sep. That is my planned depth, so I used that in my calculations. I could go deeper if I used a backhoe for digging, but I do it manually now

29

Walking the walk / Re: Gardening

« on: January 05, 2020, 09:15:33 PM »

Based on what I read there are 2 concepts

1) Citrus in the snow guy, open system: he puts down tubing 10 feet deep and it is an open system, ie. one end of the pipe is in the greenhouse, the other is outside. The cold air during winter is being pulled into the greenhouse and while being pulled, warms up to the soil temp (at 10 feet depth), which seems to be cca 50 F (=10 C) there, thereby warming the greenhouse. Summer: opposite, obviously. He's got two thermostats, he operates the sytem if temps inside go up above 25C or below 10 or 5C

2) Closed system: 7-13 m long pipes are laid 0,5-1,5 meter below the greenhouse in the soil and the air is circulated in those (perforated pipes) by a fan. As the greenhouse is perimeter-insulated to 1 meter below surface, it is a sort of battery ("leaky" to the bottom) that can be "charged" with daytime heat and this heat is regained during night, or some later night

2b) Not only perimeter insulation but a total insulation, a true thermal battery is below the greenhouse, but same as 2)

In all cases only a fan is used and the COP is variously estimated between 3 and 30 based on circumstances (my back-of-the envelope calculations) do support these numbers.

it is a very cheap and simple system actually, I plan to use for my small greenhouse a 12 m long pipe and a small fan, these cost no more than 100 euros altogether and its maximum energy consumption (if it works around the clock, which is very rare!) is cca 500 Wh per day which costs less than 10 cents per day

30

Walking the walk / Re: Gardening

« on: January 05, 2020, 07:17:56 PM »

Terry, if you mean the "Citrus in the snow" guy, I think he recently started selling parts for such greenhouses, but you would probably need to contact him to find out. Also, ecosystem designs, the page I quoted above, builds passive solar greenhouses+geoair/climatebattery, but i have no first hand experience:
http://www.ecosystems-design.com/four-season-greenhouses.html

I merely try to copy these guys after having read a lot about this stuff (but try to make it as simple and as low ecological footprint as possible). I will tell you how my project worked out on these pages. Stay tuned!

31

Walking the walk / Re: Gardening

« on: January 05, 2020, 07:10:55 PM »

So, I was looking around to replace at least a part of the plastic insulation, and it seems that I can get 5 cm thick reed "sheets", or whatever you call them, for a reasonable price. This is the stuff they used to make their roof of in medieval europe (see pic attached). The good thing is that these roofs are still used in some parts of the countryside, and they usually last  20-30 years or even longer! Bad thing is that of course it is more expensive than plastic, but not by that much , while its insulation properties are a bit worse. So I think that the underground insulation is still going to be EPS (reed would not last long in the wet underground) but the aboveground one could be 10 cm thick reed (it will cost about 10-12 euros per sqm).

32

Science / Re: Water availability

« on: January 04, 2020, 07:21:57 PM »

Wow! People living in a desert have little water after they used it for irrigation. How amazing

33

Walking the walk / Re: Gardening

« on: January 04, 2020, 07:21:02 PM »

So, I decided to build a small passive greenhouse with a climate battery... this is actually pretty cool and very cheap to operate, so i hopefully won't need any heating:

http://www.ecosystems-design.com/climate-batteries.html

Looks like lots of tubing and plastic... What about using rotting horse manure as a heat source? I'm thinking about that (if I stay another winter here in Bavaria). We got lots of folks with horses around here. 10m²x0.5m I could get from one friend alone who just dumps the manure into the forest.

You are right about plastic. I hate it and avoid it whenever i can. But let's be honest: how many square meters of plastic insulation have you got in your house? Hundreds. Same for pipes, many hundreds of meters. I will use about 20 sqm of 10 cm EPS and about 12 meters of the most  simple PVC plastic pipes. I think that 30 yrs from now we will have cheap and reliable, environmentally friendly hemp insulation but not now.

AND:

The food I will produce will be totally organic, no pesticides, fungicides, etc, more nutrient dense, and much better tasting!
Also it will not have to be shipped from far, no heating will be needed to produce it. Do you know the ecological footprint of the food you buy in the supermarket? Salad greens, and tomatoes brought from Spain or the Netherlands, that are produced in huge, heated greenhouses.

I bet that even considering the plastic (which I truly hate), my footprint will be much smaller. I designed this greenhouse as simple as I could, using as few materials as I can. If we had plenty of cheap strawbales as insulation (even though I would have to change it every year) I would have considered that but it is not available.
 

34

Walking the walk / Re: Gardening

« on: January 04, 2020, 08:27:57 AM »

Great. This is very impressive. I don't remember in which country you live, just to know if I could hope similar crops here....
I have a recipe with Kale to share. ....

I do like brussel sprouts with sour cream mashed like potatoes, they taste good!

As for my location: it is Hungary, winter minimum temp is between -15 and -10 C, winter average temp 0-1 C (average -2 night +3 daytime), summer average temp cca 22 C (cca  17 night 27 daytime), summer high 35-36 C

Theoretically (and based on others' experiences) if you have a well insulated pit greenhouse, you should not see much freezing during winter here, since the soil at 1 m is 5-6 C, so you get a constant "heating" from below plus the little sunshine minus outside temps. Should add up to greenhouse min temps on average of 2-3 C, and highs of 8-10 C during winter

35

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2019/2020 freezing season

« on: January 03, 2020, 07:44:38 PM »

uni-hamburg amsr2uhh, atlantic side, dec25-jan2.

wow! whatsuppwiththat?? has the new  melting season begun???

36

Walking the walk / Re: Gardening

« on: January 03, 2020, 01:25:30 PM »

So, I decided to build a small passive greenhouse with a climate battery, this is actually pretty cool and very cheap to operate, so i hopefully won't need any heating:

http://www.ecosystems-design.com/climate-batteries.html
also check out this video:


My planned size is 8*2 meters, it is going to be a pit style greenhouse, 0,5 m deepth underground, with maximum height of 2,3 meters. I plan to dig the hole, put down perimeter insulation to 1 meter depth and build the structure during February. Glazing is 16 mm polycarbonate. I plan to plant the first cold-hardy plants at the end of Feb and transplant melons, tomatoes at the end of March, so that I could harvest them from  the end of May. Wish me luck!!

37

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2019/2020 freezing season

« on: December 29, 2019, 07:25:42 PM »

Barents extent is very big this year and this might explain the stability of the polar vortex, keeping the arctic relatively cold and the continents warmish

38

Policy and solutions / Re: Biomass issues

« on: December 20, 2019, 08:13:36 AM »

absolutely, sidd. for wood (or any organic matter for that matter) to break down you need 3 things: water and air and above freezing temperatures. if you don't have those, it will take ages for it to break down...

39

Policy and solutions / Re: Biomass issues

« on: December 17, 2019, 08:31:00 PM »

Flori is right.
1) german monoculture forests are unhealthy because they are monocultures and because their soil is often terrible (and these two are not independent of each other)
2) biochar is a good long term solution to sequester carbon plus improving the soil

I wonder though whether taking the wood to a factory and taking the char back to the forest and burying it is not extremely unefficient?!

Based on the studies I read, biochar is a good solution for the tropics where you have extreme leaching from the soil but not necessarily useful in temperate climates. Anyway, it seems that you need to "preload" it with nutrients/microorganism before burying to be effective (eg. soaking it in urine or compost, etc).

40

Consequences / Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource

« on: December 15, 2019, 01:57:19 PM »

Hypothetical situation:
"I can't handle this. It must not be true that only civilisation is destroying all the forests, all life. I must find ways to water down all the good talk about those wild savages. To convince them that the savages are not better than us! Aarrgg. CAN'T be better than us. Impossible! I must convince them that us is all there is. Aaarrgg! it can't be trueee!"

hypothetical situation:

"Oh no! It can't be! I want to believe that there truly was a Golden Age, when man and all the beasts of this world lived in harmony in the Garden of Eden. What is this guy saying? He is destroying my butterfly-filled dreams! I know that modern industrial civilization is evil, and it was perfect during the great old days, when half of babies died before age 5 and expected lifespan was 35 years at most. Oh yes, those were the days. I won't let anyone spoil the glorious past when there still was balance in the Force!"

41

Consequences / Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource

« on: December 14, 2019, 02:00:22 PM »

Furthermore: The aboroginals created pretty large scale climate change by burning the forest!

https://theconversation.com/how-aboriginal-burning-changed-australias-climate-4454

"...We showed that the climate responded significantly to reduced vegetation cover in the pre-monsoon season. We found decreases in rainfall, higher surface and ground temperatures and enhanced atmospheric stability. In other words, there was a decline in the strength of the early monsoon “phase”.

The results of the experiment lead us to suggest that by burning forests in northwestern Australia, Aboriginals altered the local climate. They effectively extended the dry season and delayed the start of the monsoon season...."

42

Consequences / Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource

« on: December 14, 2019, 01:57:43 PM »

You must realize though, that Australians consciously burn some part of the vegetation every year to stop the creation of real big fires. Moreover, this has been a practice for thousands of years! There is plenty of smoke and fire every year there

The aborigines did not farm. It was mostly lightning strikes from dry electrical storms.

NOT AT ALL! See (as i personally saw it done - this was a widespread practice) :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-stick_farming

"Fire-stick farming, also known as cultural burning,[1][2][3][4] is the practice of Indigenous Australians regularly using fire to burn vegetation. While it has been discontinued in many parts of Australia, it has been reintroduced to Indigenous groups[5][1][3] by the teachings of custodians from areas where the practice is extant in continous unbroken tradition.[6][5] There are a number of purposes, including to facilitate hunting, to change the composition of plant and animal species in an area,[5][4] weed control,[5][4] hazard reduction,[1][4] and increase of biodiversity.[5] Fire-stick farming had the long-term effect of turning dry forest into savannah, increasing the population of nonspecific grass-eating species like the kangaroo.
One theory of the extinction of Australian megafauna implicates the ecological disturbance caused by fire-stick farming.[7]

In the resultant sclerophyll forests, fire-stick farming maintained an open canopy and allowed germination of understory plants necessary for increasing the carrying capacity of the local environment for browsing and grazing marsupials. "

43

Consequences / Re: Forests: An Endangered Resource

« on: December 13, 2019, 08:01:22 AM »

You must realize though, that Australians consciously burn some part of the vegetation every year to stop the creation of real big fires. Moreover, this has been a practice for thousands of years! There is plenty of smoke and fire every year there

44

Walking the walk / Re: Gardening

« on: December 10, 2019, 11:51:57 AM »

Ok, so even now, all of you who live in NH midlatitudes, you can still get some fresh greens for almost free.
I planted mustards in September/October into some beds (after melons and tomatoes and sweetpotatoes were done there) and they grew very big (1 meter). I harvested the greens continuously. Also, beets' leaves can be harvested into December and together with the very frosthardy rocket(ruccola) they make a nice salad.

Now that 3 days ago a hard freeze (-8 C) killed the mustards, I still have some fresh greens for salad under a small low-tunnel which only costs a couple of euros. The greens (salads, rocket, etc) can survive -5 to -10 degrees at night easily under the plastic because during the day even without direct sunshine temps go up above zero, and that is all they need. Last year we had a very warm winter (minimum temp only -10 C) and I could harvest greens all thru the winter. It's worth doing it, almost zero work, no weeding, no watering needed during the winter (i open the lowtunnel when it gets warm or if we get a warm rain)

45

Arctic sea ice / Re: Atmospheric connections, structure, and long range weather forecasting

« on: December 09, 2019, 08:55:09 AM »

It seems that there is going to be no polar vortex split despite the warming. No split seen on any forecast just some displacement

46

Arctic sea ice / Re: "Stupid" Questions :o

« on: December 08, 2019, 12:27:31 PM »

If I want to know which countries are the happiest/best to live in I do not need to look at GDp or any other data, just one:

Where do people emigrate to and where do they emigrate from?

They leave places they don't like and go to places they like. That's it.

Not many emigrate to Russia or India, but many Russians an Indians emigrate to Europe and the US...wonder why

47

Arctic sea ice / Re: When will the Arctic Go Ice Free?

« on: December 08, 2019, 08:09:41 AM »

You just take the 2012 minimum and you are almost done except for the Bering-facing part around the NP which was more open in 2007 and 16

48

Consequences / Re: Drought 2019

« on: December 07, 2019, 12:25:51 PM »

^^
I remember a lot of desert land around Coolidge AZ that had once been cotton fields.
After ~ a decade of diminishing returns they found that even native cactus had difficulty making a comeback.
Terry

We screwed up the soil big time. Most of these dustsorms are man made. Not because of less rain but because we destroyed the soil

49

Arctic sea ice / Re: "Stupid" Questions :o

« on: December 07, 2019, 08:28:47 AM »

But what is perhaps the most surprising thing to me is how unpopular it is to hope for a good outcome from our current predicament. If you are not one of the "the world is going to hell in a handbasket" brigade then the severest opproprium seems to be your lot.

you are 100% right about this one

50

Consequences / Re: Global Surface Air Temperatures

« on: December 06, 2019, 06:46:26 PM »

Anyways, next year is going to be a nice experiment to see the actual effect of So2 aerosols on temperatures. We should thank the shipping industry