Climate Letter #1217

Officially, we are now living in the Meghalayan Age, but not the Anthropocene.  That is the decision of the people who have the authority to make such decisions, with geology foremost in their minds.  Meanwhile, the end of the ice-ridden Pleistocene has now been recognized, given a date identical to the time the Holocene began, or 12,000 years ago.  The Meghalayan is one of three subdivisions composing the Holocene and is already 4200 years old.  The Holocene itself, which can no longer be thought of as an interglacial period if there are no more glaciers coming, has been promoted to full partner of the Pleistocene within the broader category known as the Quaternary, which is still very much alive.  There will always be some diehards who want their Anthropocene to be recognized because of the marks it is leaving on the Earth, which they will no doubt be comparing with the less substantial marks used to demonstrate the existence of the Meghalayan Age.

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Jerry Mitrovica is the world’s leading authority about what happens when ice sheets and glaciers melt down and sea level rises.  Much of the effect is counter-intuitive and full of surprises, but the physics is impossible to get away from.
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A new type of flow battery shows great promise.  In theory, flow batteries are an ideal answer to the need for low-cost, large-scale energy storage for electric grid systems subject to intermittent sources of supply, but a variety of drawbacks have hindered development.  Now a group of researchers at Stanford is reporting substantial progress, saying that while there is still more work to do, “this is a new type of flow battery that could affordably enable much higher use of solar and wind power using Earth-abundant materials.”
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A new report from the IEA on the global trend of new energy investments.  Investment in coal power continues to decline, a very good thing, but that was offset by an uptick in oil and gas spending.  Renewable power generation fell by 7% in 2917, a major disappointment.  That leaves the big picture looking like this:  “Fossil fuels’ share of energy investment needs to drop to 40% by 2030 to meet climate targets but instead rose fractionally to 59% in 2017.”  All in all, we are living in a world where humans are in fact not very serious about making the changes that are necessary to protect the planet from its current catastrophic trajectory.
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Climate science:  New information about the workings of the biological “carbon pump.”  This story, first of all, is a good explainer of what the term means, how the process works and the importance of its role as a participant in the full global carbon cycle.  More to the point, new research has found that the strength of the pump can vary considerably, may be weaker than assumed, and is subject to evolving in major ways that will affect the amount of CO2 oceans can absorb from the atmosphere—and thus the climate..
Carl

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