Sunday, May 13, 2012

Chris Landsea Dumps Heartland

As readers might know, I have been contacting scientists/academics on the Heartland Institute Expert list and asking if, in light of the Institute's billboard fiasco, they intend to remain on said list.  This afternoon I received the following response from research meteorologist Chris Landsea:


Dear M.J. Murphy,
 
I recall that several years ago that Heartland had asked if i could
be listed as an expert in the issue of hurricanes and climate variability
and change.  I haven't had any direct interaction with Heartland
in any other capacity.  The billboard campaign that they are displaying
is not in good taste nor is furthering the advancement of better
understanding of how our climate fluctuates and changes.  I will
ask them to remove my name from their listing of Experts.
 
Sincerely,
Chris Landsea
And here is e-mail to HI:


Dear Heartland Institute,
 
I am currently listed on your website as an expert in the issue of
hurricanes and climate variability and change:
 
http://heartland.org/christopher-landsea
 
The billboard campaign that you all have recently been displaying
is not in good taste nor is it furthering the advancement of better
understanding of how our climate fluctuates and changes.  Please
remove my name from your list of Experts.
 
Sincerely,
Chris Landsea


So there you have it.

3 comments:

sassy said...

Well done.

Lorne said...

Excellent work. Congratulations.

the Keystone Garter said...

Made progress in using peat moss to sequester wood. An idea would be to cut down trees or tree farms or GMO (fast growing) tree farms, near a peat bog. Find a nearby ground depression, ideally a deep aspect ratio. Wait for lots of rain, pump, I've seen a $1.25M farm pump on the Prairie Farm Report used to drain bogs, some excess water, onto the trees. Hopefully is phenolic rich water. Phenolics being molecular strings of the peat bog that prevent decomposition when wet by stymying the phenol oxidase enzyme. In addition, strips of the top layer of peat bogs, the acrotelm, can be sustainably harvested. Pile enough acrotelm on until you have a peat bog. If it works, a median rough calculation is 250GT of carbon sequestered as wood, or about 25 yrs of emissions, 40% of existing carbon in fuscum peat bogs.
It might not work because:
1) Acrotelm is aereated. If it doesn't compress fast or if there are air-pockets in the mix, the wood will decay.
2) Wood might float.
3) Wood might emit too much methane. Some of the wood will decay, but maybe less than 20%.
4) Wood might not soak up the phenol-rich water.

A water-well experiment might suffice. Most peat bogs flow downhill into ocean, so hard to find deep terrain upstream (presumably) nearby. I can start the experiments but can't make measurements by myself. Could use peat itself, but only renews at 1mm/yr as opposed to 1cm/yr acrotelm. And the harvested peat (catotelm), with acrotelm replaced, will transfer water less efficiently; L.Rochefort thinks this is because of hysteresis (shape of remaining peat surface doesn't match acrotelm after a middle chunk of peat is removed). Oil sands fund Price's fen restoration research, they could fund peat afforestation. Russia and Canada, and Scandinavia, and Alaska need a carbon tax/cap. Finland needs to stop burning peat.