Category: Uncategorized

February 24, 2016 0

Where environmentalists did need to change their tune

By News Desk

( Source ) Nuclear power proponents keep saying that environmentalists should sing a nuclear tune, and a few enviros agree. Personally I remain "meh", maybe even moreso (moremeh?) over the years as the price of renewables and storage keep dropping. I know that nuclear power cost breakthroughs are scheduled for South Korea and China, but we’ve all heard that one before.

February 22, 2016 0

Funny what turns up

By News Desk

Eli Rabett Eli Rabett Eli Rabett is a not quite failed professorial techno-bunny, a chair election from retirement, at a wanna be research university that has a lot to be proud of but has swallowed the Kool-Aid. The students are naive but great and the administrators vary day-to-day between homicidal and delusional. His colleagues are smart, but they have a curious inability to see the holes that they dig for themselves

February 22, 2016 0

Eli Would Like Some Ice With That

By News Desk

Tweet Usually the NH winter is a time when the bets are laid for the summer minimum.  Friend Weasel was not too excited last year although things were, as they were pretty, but not astoundingly (see 2011) low.  This year already astounding things are happening, or perhaps better put not happening, in the Arctic winter.  Not that there is no ice, but there is a lot less ice than expected.  Enough less that 2016 looks like a lock for the lowest global sea ice evah. John Nielsen Gammon has been sending around a frame comparing how in 1922 the farthest north that a expedition could get was 81 o 29′, open ice this year.  Andy Dessler tweeted it  OTOH, the resolution of Cryosphere Today is a bit low, so let’s take a look at the higher resolution images at the University of Bremen from the AMSR2 (2016) and the original AMSR (2003) for February right now and then. But wait, there is even more, at Neven’s Arctic Sea Ice Blog and Gerg has a GIF of  the sea ice in August from the Danish Meteorological Institute’s sea ice maps between 1920 and 1939.  Today’s February looks pretty much icewise like August then

February 20, 2016 0

Water Vapor, Water Vapor Everywhere and It All Absorbs in Air

By News Desk

Tweet Elementary quantum mechanics quickly shows that harmonic oscillators (shown by the dotted line in the figure to the right) can only absorb or emit light associated with a transition between neighboring quantum levels such as between v = 0 and 1.  To the extent that molecular vibrational motion is harmonic, this is an absolute rule. Oh yes, there also has to be a change in the dipole moment between the two levels of the transition which explains why homonuclear diatomics (N 2  , O 2 , H 2 ) don’t absorb in the infrared

February 17, 2016 0

Syria: At the Gateway of Greater War

By News Desk

Links Syria: At the Gateway of Greater War February 17, 2016 ( Tony Cartalucci – NEO ) – Syrian forces backed by Russian airpower have made major advances across the battlefield along multiple fronts.

February 16, 2016 0

Finding the Islamic State a Safe House

By News Desk

Links Finding the Islamic State a Safe House February 16, 2016  ( Ulson Gunnar – NEO ) – Every villain needs a safe house and the Islamic State (IS) is no exception. Luckily for IS, it has two, possibly three waiting for it, all of them courtesy of NATO and in particular the United States. The war in Syria has been going particularly poor for IS.