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Friday, 14 May 2010

UN science chief defends IPCC-UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's work and welcomes review

AMSTERDAM, Friday 14 May – The head of the U.N. scientific body on climate change defended the work of the thousands of scientists who contribute to its reports, even as he welcomed a review of procedures that produced errors undermining the panel's public credibility.

The chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, cautioned an independent scientific committee reviewing the IPCC's work not to undermine scientists' motivation for contributing to reports on global warming.

Recently its reports have been dismissed (undermined) by climate skeptics who attribute global warming to natural cycles. The skeptics were bolstered by a series of errors in the IPCC's 2007 report.

Pachauri told the committee's first review meeting that the panel's conclusions are valid, even in areas where mistakes were discovered.

Pointing to the most glaring error, a claim that the world's glaciers will melt by 2035, Pachauri said glaciers are indeed melting, though not that fast. Nonetheless, glacial melt accounts for 28 percent of sea level rise, and the panel's assessment on glaciers contains "a lot of facts which we can ignore at our peril."

Pachauri said the panel is comprised of volunteer scientists contributing several years of their own time and who disband after issuing their report. The panel has no mechanism for responding to criticism once the reports are issued, other than the small secretariat.

"We need to develop an ability and a capacity to communicate better with the outside world," he told the 15 top scientists from around the world summoned to sit on the review committee..

He said the panel's procedures already are robust, but he welcomed any suggestion that would improve accuracy.

The review is expected to take several weeks before it issues recommendations on how to tighten the IPCC procedures.

Its up to the individual whom he chooses to believe in these issues.

He can choose between either the largest body of the worlds best and most recognised scientists and experts of all times brought together to study this most important or a relatively small number of specialist sceptics and a large number of lay persons with little or no recognised scientific or engineering training in such vast and complex fields as to the probable outcomes.

I know which group I would choose to place my faith.

Reference
en référence à :
"He said the panel's procedures already are robust, but he welcomed any suggestion that would improve accuracy. The review is expected to take several weeks before it issues recommendations on how to tighten the IPCC procedures."
- UN science chief defends work, welcomes review - Yahoo! News (afficher sur Google Sidewiki)
A few books to choose from:







Wednesday, 5 May 2010

Adrian Bejan - Constructal Theory, Fundamental and Philosophical

In order to look at some of the more fundamental and philosophical aspects in materials science and processing I have modified the Phil Trans A link list to "Fundamental and Philosophical" in order to treat subjects such as Thermodynamics: Entropy,Exergy,open and closed systems and here Adrian Bejan's Constructal theory. Two links may be found on the links list:
1.Adrian Bejan's Constructal Theory website.

2. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B - The Constructal Law of Design and Evolution in Nature_PDF

Materials and Environment-Embodied Energy of Materials

I kicked-off this link series Materials and Environment-Embodied Energy, fittingly with reference to the excellent book "Materials and Environment" by MF Ashby, M. F. Ashby, Daniel L. Schodek, Paulo J. S. G. Ferreira to which I added diverse previous blog post references. The list at present has an additional five links for menory:
1. Embodied Energy-Wikipedia-A place to start your search


2. Embodied Energy Materials Coefficients PDF_NZ source

3. Embodied Energy Steel_Australian Source

4. Energy Use & CO2 emissions:Steel Sector-PDF

5. Whole-life costs: Concrete vs steel

Hopefully this list will lengthen with time, rapidly due to the inceasing importance in todays global economy.

RELATED POSTS

Materials and Environment- Mothers of Inventions

Nanoscale,Nanomaterials_Basics_Calculate numbers of surface to volume atoms and much more.

Multiscale modelling of materials,MMM - Introduction and Explanatory Notes; Refs.,Images, on a Hot Interdisciplinary field


BOOKS from AMAZON.


Monday, 19 April 2010

Crystal Growth Detection System sought -Innocentive Challenge_Solver Teamwork encouraged

Crystal Growth Detection System

It was time that I came back to Innocentive (rewarded) Challenges as regularly as I did in the platforms early days. Much has happened there and the platform is attracting increasing attention and sponsors, I am pleased to say.

(Original backers Ely-Lilly, Dupont... Sponsors now include, Rockefeller Foundation , NASA, Nature, The Economist, and SAP, roughly in that order..?
Official history

In particular, the platform supports team work, depending on the challenge. The one that I am bringing to readers attention today is a team work supported challenge, involving a theme which will ring a few bells with metallurgists and physical chemists even if the system(s) is a water based colloids, for which it is required to detect solid crystal growth.

Check this or any of the other open challenges either for individuals or team worker. If I can be of any help on either approaches please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Introductory References:
1. Colloidal_crystals
2.  Nanoparticle Colloids

Innocentive
All open challenges

Books
Google books previews:

Emulsions, foams, and suspensions: fundamentals and applications
 Amazon look inside
Colloidal Dispersions: Suspensions, Emulsions, and Foams 
Both books deal Particle size methods and are well documented.
Amazon











Wednesday, 7 April 2010

Free Access to Maney Publishing-Publisher of IOM3-Institute of Materials Minerals and Mining Edited Journals

Quick: Please join us in
Materials Science and Engineering spotlight

Journal of the Month: Materials Science and Technology (MST)
RSS feed link for the latest issue of MST

Top 10 papers for materials science and engineering journals freely available online, chose from any or all of 11 journals, marked with an asterisk * in the list of 24 journals with free content
LINK
scroll down to full list.

Share your impression with questions,comments and suggestions to this blog and/or the publishers.

This and more.
en référence à : Maney Publishing - Material Science & Engineering Spotlight (afficher sur Google Sidewiki)

This-Above-All: Climate Studies-Small Steps Toward Rules for Geoengineering following 'Asilomar 2' Conference

This-Above-All: Climate Studies-Small Steps Toward Rules for Geoengineering following 'Asilomar 2' Conference

High Purity Cr sources for Superalloys

Energy for th Future:Phil.Trans.A-Vol. 365, N° 1853 / April 15, 2007, curtesy The Royal Soc. London

Engineered foams and porous materials: Phil Trans A. Vol 364, N° 1838 / 06 curtesy_The R Soc. Lond