Tag: science

The science is in. Climate alarmism can end. Since 1959 increases in atmospheric CO2 is due to sea surface temperature

Last month, Japanese researcher Dai Ato published a study that examined the relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels and human emissions, with sea surface temperature as a key factor.

The findings reject the theory that human-caused emissions are the primary driver of atmospheric CO₂ increase. Instead, the study concludes that sea surface temperature plays a dominant role in regulating CO₂ levels and no human impact is observed.

Ato’s study was published on 16 August in Science of Climate Change, a not-for-profit independent scientific journal dedicated to the publication and discussion of research articles, short communications and review papers on all aspects of climate change.

The multivariate analysis used publicly available data from prominent climate research and energy-related organisations. He found that human emissions were not a determining factor in any of the regression models. 

A regression model is a statistical technique used to estimate the relationship between a response (dependent) variable and a set of explanatory (independent) variables. 

The study concluded that sea surface temperature (“SST”), not human emissions, was the independent determinant of the annual increase in atmospheric CO₂ concentration.

“This study is the first to use multiple regression analysis to demonstrate that the independent determinant of the annual increase in atmospheric CO₂ concentration was SST, which showed strong predictive ability. However, human CO₂ emissions were irrelevant. This result indicates that atmospheric CO₂ has fluctuated as natural phenomenon, regardless of human activity,” the study says.

“The global SST has been the main determinant of annual increases in atmospheric CO₂ concentrations since 1959. No human impact was observed.”

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Egyptologists uncover 2,500 year-old observatory full of precise tools

Egyptologists have excavated a nearly 9,150-square-foot astronomical observatory in modern-day Tell el-Faraeen dating back to the sixth century BCE—the first and largest of its kind from that era. In an August 23 announcement from Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (interpreted from Arabic to English using Google Translate), the mud brick structure contained numerous tools that, although comparatively simple in design, allowed for the precise study and measurement of solar calendrical dates related to Egyptian religious rites, royal coronations, and agricultural plans.

The facility is located within a sprawling archeological site now known as the Temple of Buto (the Greek name of the Egyptian god, Wadjet), and is located about 50 miles east of Alexandria. Built in the southeastern portion of the temple, the astronomical complex featured an east-facing entrance for sunrises, an L-shaped open central hall supported by columns, and a high, inward sloping mud brick wall “resembling the style of the Egyptian edifice known in temple entrances,” according to the government’s statement.

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Scientists Detect Invisible Electric Field Around Earth For First Time

An invisible, weak energy field wrapped around our planet Earth has finally been detected and measured.

It’s called the ambipolar field, an electric field first hypothesized more than 60 years ago, and its discovery will change the way we study and understand the behavior and evolution of our beautiful, ever-changing world.

“Any planet with an atmosphere should have an ambipolar field,” says astronomer Glyn Collinson of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

“Now that we’ve finally measured it, we can begin learning how it’s shaped our planet as well as others over time.”

Earth isn’t just a blob of dirt sitting inert in space. It’s surrounded by all sorts of fields. There’s the gravity field. We don’t know a lot about gravity, especially considering how ubiquitous it is, but without gravity we wouldn’t have a planet. Gravity also helps keep the atmosphere snug against the surface.

There’s also the magnetic field, which is generated by the rotating, conducting material in Earth’s interior, converting kinetic energy into the magnetic field that spins out into space. This protects our planet from the effects of the solar wind and radiation, and also helps to keep the atmosphere from blowing away.

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Stone Age builders had engineering savvy, finds study of 6000-year-old monument

The Neolithic farmers and herders who built a massive stone chamber in southern Spain nearly 6,000 years ago possessed a good rudimentary grasp of physics, geometry, geology and architectural principles, finds a detailed study of the site.

Using data from a high-resolution laser scan, as well as unpublished photos and diagrams from earlier excavations, archaeologists pieced together a probable construction process for the monument known as the Dolmen of Menga. Their findings, published on 23 August in Science Advances1, reveal new insights into the structure and its Neolithic builders’ technical abilities.

The dolmen pre-dates the main stone circle at Stonehenge in the United Kingdom by about 1,000 years, but the construction process described in the study would have involved similar techniques and demanded a similar level of engineering.

“These people had no blueprints to work with, nor, as far as we know, any previous experience at building something like this,” says study co-author Leonardo García Sanjuán, an archaeologist at the University of Seville in Spain. “And yet, they understood how to fit together huge blocks of stone” with “a precision that would keep the monument intact for nearly 6,000 years”.

“There’s no way you could do that without at least a basic working knowledge of science,” he adds.

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CO2 Has Been Indicted by Consensus, Not Real Science or Critical Thinking

When asking those who believe that CO2 is a major climate antagonist to make their strongest argument, their most common response is: “CO2 has been identified as the primary Climate culprit by the majority of experts (e.g., climatologists) and scientific organizations (e.g., the IPCC).” This is clearly a consensus claim.

I’ve repeatedly warned that one of the major fights we are in, is to defend genuine Science, as its enemies are actively trying to replace it with political science. This situation is a dead giveaway, as consensus is the currency of politics, NOT Science!

Put another way, the claim of consensus is deference to authority. They are saying don’t ask any questions! Just be quiet as others know a lot more about this matter than you do. Further, they continue, it’s not possible that all those experts would be lying to us!

Both of these are very reasonable viewpoints. However, whether or not they should end the conversation is the question. Let’s look at a recent very close Science parallel for enlightenment. Here is a layperson’s history of what happened…

There are roughly 8 Billion people on the planet who periodically experience stomach ailments (i.e., gastrointestinal distress). The concern often is: will these common human pains turn into something much more major — like an ulcer?

An ulcer is a perforation of the stomach lining, which is a serious matter, and there are about 4 Million cases of these in the US, every year — so it is relatively common.

For nearly 200 years the medical establishment believed that stomach ulcers (technically peptic ulcers) were caused by stress. The hypothesis was that stress produced excess (gastric) acid in the stomach, which (in turn) eventually ate away some of the stomach’s lining. (The first connection between these was made in 1822.)

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Under The Skin: The Internet Of Bio-NanoThings

The Internet of Things (IoT) has become an important research topic in the last decade, where things refer to interconnected machines and objects with embedded computing capabilities employed to extend the Internet to many application domains. While research and development continue for general IoT devices, there are many application domains where very tiny, concealable, and non-intrusive Things are needed.

The properties of recently studied nanomaterials, such as graphene, have inspired the concept of Internet of NanoThings (IoNT), based on the interconnection of nanoscale devices. Despite being an enabler for many applications, the artificial nature of IoNT devices can be detrimental where the deployment of NanoThings could result in unwanted effects on health or pollution. The novel paradigm of the Internet of Bio-Nano Things (IoBNT) is introduced in this paper by stemming from synthetic biology and nanotechnology tools that allow the engineering of biological embedded computing devices.

Based on biological cells, and their functionalities in the biochemical domain, Bio-NanoThings promise to enable applications such as intra-body sensing and actuation networks, and environmental control of toxic agents and pollution. The IoBNT stands as a paradigm-shifting concept for communication and network engineering, where novel challenges are faced to develop efficient and safe techniques for the exchange of information, interaction, and networking within the biochemical domain, while enabling an interface to the electrical domain of the Internet.

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47-Year-Old ‘Wow! Signal’ Mystery Solved? Arecibo Observatory Scientists Think They Have an Answer

A team of scientists from the Planetary Habitability Laboratory (PHL) at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo believe they may have finally solved the 47-year-old mystery of the infamous “Wow! Signal.”

Detected by the Ohio State University Big Ear Telescope on August 15th, 1977, the Wow! Signal got its name because astronomer Jerry R. Ehman was so impressed he wrote “WOW” in the signal printout’s margins. Since then, the signal has continued to fascinate the scientific community, including the possibility that it may have been sent by an extraterrestrial civilization light years from Earth due to its high power, strong signal-to-noise ratio, and narrow bandwidth.

Unfortunately, various efforts to detect a repeat of the signal, which had a frequency and duration that didn’t match any known natural phenomenon, have come up empty, leaving the exact nature and origin of the potentially artificial signal unsolved. Several efforts in the ensuing decades have tried to offer potentially natural explanations for the signal. However, those attempts have also come up short of providing a definitive solution, leaving scientists to wonder if the Wow! Signal was indeed of extraterrestrial origin.

Now, the PHL’s lead researcher, Professor Abel Méndez, and his colleagues say that the vast amount of data they collected with the Arecibo’s iconic 305-meter telescope before it collapsed in 2020, as well as additional data collected by the facility’s 12-meter telescope since 2023, has led them to a potentially ‘astronomical’ solution to this enduring mystery.

“The Wow! Signal may have been caused by a unique astrophysical event: the sudden brightening of a cold hydrogen cloud due to stimulated emission from a transient strong radiation source, such as a magnetar flare or a soft gamma repeater (SGR),” Méndez told The Debrief. “These rare events might cause hydrogen clouds to momentarily shine much brighter, potentially explaining the fleeting nature of the Wow! Signal.”

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The Top Five Climate Science Scandals

Science is science because it is self-correcting. That means that when researchers go down a dead end path they turn around and look for another route. However, science in highly politicized situations can face obstacles to self-correction, meaning that it can be more difficult to change course when science gets off track. This is especially so when bad science becomes politically important.

That’s where climate science finds itself in 2024. Long time readers here at THB will know that climate change is real and poses risks. At the same time, the climate science community appears to have lost its collective ability to call out bad science and get things back on track. Today, particularly for the many new readers that THB has gained this year, I summarize the top 5 climate science scandals covered here at THB over the past few years.

I define a scandal as a situation of objectively flawed science — in substance and/or procedure — that the community has been unable to make right, but should.

Let’s jump right in . . .

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Olympic Committee Chairman Complains There is ‘No Scientifically Solid System’ to Identify Men From Women

The head of the International Olympic Committee has complained that there is “no scientifically solid system” of identifying a man from a woman.

IOC Chairman Thomas Bach made the comments after being asked about recent controversy surrounding a female boxing match in which one of the fighters had abnormally elevated testosterone levels.

“We have said from the very beginning, if somebody is presenting us a scientifically solid system how to identify men and women, we are the first ones to do it,” Bach said. “We do not like this uncertainty. We do not like it for the overall situation for nobody.

“So, we would be more than pleased to look into it,” he continued. “But what is not possible is that somebody is saying, you know, ‘this is not a woman’ just by looking at somebody or by falling prey to a defamation campaign by not a credible organization.” 

Bach’s remarks come amid controversy at the Paris games surrounding two allegedly female boxers, Imane Khelif of Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan, were at the center of these debates.

Both athletes were reportedly born as biological women and were cleared to compete in the Olympics. However, they had previously been excluded from other competitions due to their high testosterone levels.

On Friday evening, Khelif took the gold medal in women’s boxing after defeating China’s Yang Liu, a victory that will inevitably spark further debate about fairness in women’s sports.

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Scientists are getting serious about UFOs. Here’s why

For millennia, humans have seen inexplicable things in the sky. Some have been beautiful, some have been terrifying, and some — like auroras and solar eclipses before they were understood scientifically — have been both. Today’s aircraft, balloons, drones, satellites and more only increase the chances of spotting something confounding overhead.

In the United States, unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, came into the national spotlight in the late 1940s and early ’50s. A series of incidents, including a supposedly crashed alien spaceship near Roswell, N.M., generated something of an American obsession. The Roswell UFO turned out to be part of a classified program, the remnants of a balloon monitoring the atmosphere for signs of clandestine Russian nuclear tests. But it and other reported sightings prompted the U.S. government to launch various projects and panels to investigate such claims, as Science News reported in 1966 (SN: 10/22/66), as well as kicking off hobby groups and conspiracy theories.

In the decades since, UFOs have often come to be dismissed by scientists as the province of wackos and thus unworthy of study. The term UFO has a smirk factor to it, says Iain Boyd, an aerospace engineer at the University of Colorado Boulder and director of the school’s Center for National Security Initiatives.

But government agencies and officials are trying to change that attitude. Among the biggest concerns is that the stigma associated with reporting a sighting has the side effect of stifling reports from pilots or citizens who might have valuable information about potential threats in U.S. air space — such as the Chinese spy balloon that traversed North America and made headlines last year.

“If there’s something interfering with flights, people or cargo, that’s a problem,” Boyd says.

To help reduce the stigma, many serious investigators now refer to UFOs as “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” or UAPs, coined by the U.S. Department of Defense in 2022. “The term UAP brings science to the issue,” Boyd says. It also rightly broadens the view to include natural atmospheric phenomena as well as things outside the atmosphere, such as satellites and particularly bright planets such as Venus.

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