The Adverse Weather thread.

johntheexpat

Was this a record breaking gap between record breaking weather?  Or is that just pushing things too far?!!

Well, France news is being fairly vague about the specifics, but apparently we are having a record breaking hot spell here, especially down on the mediterranean coast.  Mid 20's here for the last fortnight, but 30 regularly down south and a friend who went to the Ile de Re during the week reported 'suffering' 36C.

Not good news for anyone who wanted to get some late skiing in.

johntheexpat

...and now they are starting to soften us up with stories about possible drought, resulting in poor harvests and rising prices.

And its not even Easter yet.

124mm of rain so far this year, chez moi.

johntheexpat

So, the drought continues.  April was a full 3C warmer than average, rainfall in the west of France is 70-90% below average, so far this year.  There is talk about power restrictions as a possibility, because so many French Nuclear Power Stations are located by rivers rather than the sea, and the rivers are low.  La Loire normally has a flow rate at this time of year of 400 M3 per second and is down to 165 M3/sec.  Round here we had our first rain for nearly 8 weeks.  But not even enough to cover a paving stone, so that won't make any difference.

And now we are apparently in for more dry weather as the Azores high pressure area amalgamates with the Russian high pressure area and we have a huge anti-cyclone that will sit over Europe, possibly for months.

johntheexpat

Just noticed on my weather e-mail from MeteoFrance, that the highest temperature yesterday ( 45C in Kiffa, mauritania) was over 100C higher than the lowest (-56C recorded at the University of Wisconsin base in Antartica).  Its by no means rare but I think its interesting when it happens.

johntheexpat

And today the difference is 103C
Matam (Senegal)  45C and Univ of Wisconsin research Station, Antartica, -58C

johntheexpat

103C difference again today, Tessali in Mali and Benni Abbes in Algeria are both   43C, while the Univ of Wisconsin site is at a cool -60C.

I have often wondered (and assumed the answer is no) if there was any way of removing CO2 form the atmosphere by using a combination of these low temperatures along with high pressures, to physically remove it.

                                                                                                                                               

It may be that there has to be an element of concentration of the gas before but surely tha's not beyond the wit of man?  Possibly along the lines of the oxygen concentrator that uses zeoilites.



The Oxygen Concentrator

Then of course any number of things could be done with it.  It is a very useful industrial commodity in itself, it could be buried, perhaps even used as a coolant, if it could be easily transported somewhere useful.

johntheexpat

Whey-hey,  55 records all in one go, can't be bad.  Add to that 60 records tied, I guess the current American heatwave can't go without comment.

This from CNN

[url=/proxy.php?link=http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/07/22/heat.wave/index.html&hash=e54862f17a0e51a41c4d2efbe383c15b][/url]

johntheexpat

Just to confirm, the warmest July on record for many Sothern US states.  Map here

MikeTV

Isn't this called carbon sequestration? Perhaps an easier way is to grow more trees? Another way is to turn the product into fuel, ironically.

johntheexpat

I was thinking more along the lines of having a power station in a very cold climate.  If you burnt the fuel with relatively pure oxygen you should get relatively pure CO2.  Cool the CO2 to say -30C using the cold environment and then apply pressure (30 to 40 atms) and you should end up with liquid CO2.
I as understand Carbon capture technology, you react the CO2 with chemicals in the stack or where-ever and then release it in a controlled environment to remove it from the system.  This presumably uses enormous amounts of energy, as reversing chemical reactions is usually quite energy intensive.  If you could condense CO2 into a liquid with just pressure I would think its much more efficient.