“Whenever you read a media story about how we’re heading toward catastrophe if we continue operating “business as usual” — i.e., if we don’t slash carbon emissions — the reports are almost always referring to a model simulation using RCP8.5. And you can bet that nowhere in the story will they explain that RCP8.5 is an implausible worst-case scenario that was never meant to represent a likely base case outcome, or that scientists have begun castigating its usage as a prediction of a doomed business-as-usual future.”

Could a New Ultraviolet Technology Fight the Spread of Coronavirus?

Published on April 24, 2020April 24, 2020 by sunshinehours13 Comments

Columbia researcher David Brenner believes far-UVC light—safe for humans, but lethal for viruses—could be a ‘game changer.

A technique that zaps airborne viruses with a narrow-wavelength band of UV light shows promise for curtailing the person-to-person spread of COVID-19 in indoor public places.

The technology, developed by Columbia University’s Center for Radiological Research, uses lamps that emit continuous, low doses of a particular wavelength of ultraviolent light, known as far-UVC, which can kill viruses and bacteria without harming human skin, eyes and other tissues, as is the problem with conventional UV light.

“Far-UVC light has the potential to be a ‘game changer,’” said David Brenner, professor of radiation biophysics and director of the center. “It can be safely used in occupied public spaces, and it kills pathogens in the air before we can breathe them in.”

https://news.columbia.edu/ultraviolet-technology-virus-covid-19-UV-light

Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation

Published on April 24, 2020 by sunshinehours1Leave a comment

Ultraviolet blood irradiation (UBI) was extensively used in the 1940s and 1950s to treat many diseases including septicemia, pneumonia, tuberculosis, arthritis, asthma and even poliomyelitis. The early studies were carried out by several physicians in USA and published in the American Journal of Surgery. However with the development of antibiotics, UBI use declined and it has now been called “the cure that time forgot”. Later studies were mostly performed by Russian workers and in other Eastern countries and the modern view in Western countries is that UBI remains highly controversial

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6122858/

Melting Glacier Reveals More Evidence Of Very Warm Medieval Warm Period

Published on April 18, 2020April 18, 2020 by sunshinehours11 Comment

Melting glacial ice high in the Norwegian mountains has revealed the full extent of the Lendbreen mountain pass, an important trade route from the Roman era until the late Middle Ages.

You mean it was warmer in the past? Surprise.

Link

Plane Contrails

Published on March 2, 2020March 2, 2020 by sunshinehours12 Comments

Plane contrails do cause global warming.

“You may think of contrails as tiny lines against a vast sky, but in certain conditions, they can be a lot more. They can stretch tens of miles. Wind can spread them out. They can linger for hours. So as plane after plane runs the same route through the air, new and old contrails mingle and accumulate, forming airborne mosh pits of ice cloud. Scientists call these “contrail cirrus”—high-altitude clouds that can spread over hundreds of square miles. And they’re likely to become more of a problem: One study found that as air traffic increases, the heat-trapping effect of contrail cirrus in 2050 could be three times greater than it was in 2006. Clouds trap heat coming off the earth that would otherwise head for space, making them the biggest variable in the planet’s temperature and climate, according to NASA “

I see them all the time (mostly in the summer) . Contrails that widen.

My picture:

Humans caused more than 1.2 million of the 1.5 million blazes … 1992 to 2012

Published on January 26, 2020 by sunshinehours12 Comments

From the Smithsonian Magazine

According to a press release, researchers from the University of Colorado, Boulder’s Earth Lab took a deep dive into the U.S. Forest Service’s Fire Program Analysis-Fire Occurrence Database, analyzing all wildfires recorded between 1992 and 2012. The researchers found that humans caused more than 1.2 million of the 1.5 million blazes in the database.

The cost of those human-induced fires is staggering. The researchers estimate that man-made fires have tripled the average fire season over the past 21 years from 46 days to 154 days. It now costs over $2 billion per year to fight the fires, and that figure does not include the impacts to recreational lands or local economic impact that fires can have.

Wild Fire