Volkswagen is the latest automaker to embrace Tesla's North American Charging Standard (NACS) in electric vehicles. Subsidiaries Audi, Porsche and Scout Motors will implement the NACS in their North American EVs starting in 2025 as well.
The VW brands are also looking into providing owners of existing models with adapters so they can tap into Tesla's Supercharger network. There are more than 15,000 Supercharger stations in North America. VW's EVs will be able to charge at those in addition to more than 3,800 DC fast charging outlets run by Electrify America and Electrify Canada.
With so many carmakers adopting the NACS, Tesla's charging solution is becoming a de facto standard. GM, Volvo, Polestar, Mercedes, Honda, BMW, Lucid and others have all pledged to support NACS charging within the next couple of years.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/volkswagen-finally-confirms-itll-switch-its-evs-to-teslas-charging-standard-101517391.html?src=rss
Earlier today, Scottish adventurers Chris and Julie Ramsey were finally able to announce their completion of the nine-month, 17,000-mile "Pole To Pole EV" expedition, the world's first drive from the 1823 Magnetic North Pole to South Pole — on an electric car, no less. The couple actually reached their destination on December 15 (Friday), but they could only share the news after re-establishing satellite connection later. This feat was achieved using a Nissan Ariya e-4ORCE electric vehicle, which was modified by Icelandic specialist Arctic Trucks — mainly with larger 39-inch tires plus matching wheel arches, along with some ice-friendly gear and body reinforcement work. The powertrain and suspension were mostly stock — just with a lifted height, according to Electrek.
All that extra load on the electric vehicle meant it had to make do with a reduced range of just 150 to 200 miles — a drop from the original 272-mile mark. During the Arctic and Antarctic parts of the trip, the Ramseys picked up tricks on keeping the car battery warm for improved efficiency. Most notably, they would pile up a snow wall to shield the car's underside and front radiator from the cold wind, or they would even use a dedicated tent to cover up the entire car, when it wasn't not too windy.
Depending on the weather, the duo would use either a 5kW wind turbine or a prototype solar hybrid charging solution to juice up their Ariya. Failing that, there were moments when they had to fall back to their petrol generator — a mandatory equipment for traversing the Arctic regions. Likewise with their diesel support vehicles, as no electric version of those exist. Chris explained to Expedition Portal that the purpose of "Pole To Pole EV" is to prove that electric vehicles make a viable replacement for existing diesel-powered expedition vehicles in the polar regions.
In between the poles, the Ramseys traveled through the Americas, with the northern part being relatively easy thanks to the readily-available chargers along the way. It was a different story down south, but "Pole To Pole EV" collaborated with EV charging solutions provider, Enel X Way, to install chargers along their route through Central and South America — especially the Peru leg of the expedition. Better yet, Enel X Way has promised to keep these new chargers available to the public afterwards, thus extending its electric Pan-American charging corridor.
This isn't the first time Chris and Julie Ramsey made headlines involving electric vehicles. Back in 2017, the Scottish couple became the first to enter and complete the Mongol Rally in an electric car — a modified Nissan Leaf Acenta. Charging was relatively easy between the UK and Turkey, but from there onwards, they had to rely on domestic plug sockets and would end up with many memorable encounters with locals. The two drove 10,000 miles in 56 days — quite a challenge given the modified Leaf's 90-mile range. "But we are pleased that a huge charging network has sprung up across the route since we completed the rally in 2017," Chris added, in case anyone else is up for the EV challenge.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/an-electric-car-completed-the-worlds-first-ever-drive-from-the-north-to-the-south-pole-073155506.html?src=rss
The UN has set out a pathway to avoiding the very worst effects of climate change. Earlier this week, delegates from around the world ratified a document setting out what we need to do, and when. Even better, the text finally ended the decades-long omerta of never talking about the impact fossil fuels have had on our environment. It’s a landmark moment in history and one that means we can have hope for the future of humanity. Unless, that is, you spend any time examining the substance of the deal to see if the expectations meet the reality. Because then you’ll see that while it’s not all doom and gloom, it’s certainly not the bold action we really need.
Context
All of this took place at the Conference of the Parties (COP) an annual, UN-backed conference to build international consensus on climate change. Delegates from all UN member states, as well as bodies like the EU, all meet at a host city for two weeks to speedrun something that looks a lot like a treaty. The 28th such event was hosted in Dubai, which attracted plenty of criticism given the emirate’s fossil fuel wealth. Its president was Sultan Al Jaber, UAE minister of industry and, uh, the head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil company.
The perception that the event would be a fossil fuel industry stitch-up wasn’t helped when BBC News reported the UAE secretly planned to use the event to strike new oil and gas deals. Or that Al Jaber was quoted by The Guardian saying there was “no science” supporting the idea that a phase out of fossil fuels was necessary to prevent further warming. He later said his comment had been taken out of context and that he supported work to reduce fossil fuel use.
For all the light and heat around COP, it’s not as powerful as you might hope or think, since there is no real enforcement mechanism. The parties (should) negotiate in good faith but if nations don’t actually follow through on their promises, there’s no mechanism to address it. Diplomacy is a delicate art, especially with so many moving pieces, so maybe we should all learn to appreciate the subtleties. That’s the positive case.
The negative one being that COP28 has been more theater than politics. Anne Rasmussen, representing the Alliance of Small Island States, pointed out her group wasn’t even in the room when the declaration was ratified. Ironic, given that the event was dubbed as “the most inclusive COP to-date, ensuring all voices could participate in the process.” During the plenary, Rasmussen said the text, approved in her absence, doesn’t go far enough in several ways and carries a “litany of loopholes” for wealthy nations to delay, or avoid their responsibilities.
TL;DR
The text opens with a long introductory section admitting that humanity as a whole hasn’t been doing a good enough job. It admits humans are responsible for raising the Earth’s temperature by at least 1.1 degrees celsius, and we’re on the hook to fix it. And the 1.5 degrees celsius limit agreed in Paris in 2015 isn’t going to happen unless we really start putting the work in right now. It adds that while the technology is there, we haven’t made enough use of it, and that plenty of small island nations and countries in the developing world will bear the brunt of our inaction.
1: The Task at Hand
Because we’ve dragged our feet for so long, the extent of action needed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees celsius will be stark. (And 1.5 degrees isn’t maintaining the status quo but the limit that keeps the slew of natural disasters it precipitates from becoming biblical.) Humanity needs to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 42 percent by 2030, and 60 percent by 2035. To get a sense of that task, we emitted around 60 gigatonnes of CO2 in 2019, and now we’ve got a decade to cut it by more than a half. Should we reach that ambitious target, we then need to repeat the same feat even faster to ensure we reach net zero emissions by 2050. Even though most climate scientists I’ve spoken to feel that the 2050 deadline is far too late.
2: The Loopholes
Rasmussen already highlighted that the goals laid out in the text are hazy, more guidelines than real processes. They’re written with the caveat that nations should contribute to the overall goal in a “nationally determined manner.” On one hand, that respects “their different national circumstances, pathways and approaches.” On the other, it allows some nations to pass off insufficient work as them doing their part without consequence.
3: Tripling global renewable energy capacity by 2030
One of the biggest pledges in the document is to triple renewable energy generation capacity by 2030. Data from the International Renewable Energy Agency says that in 2022 that figure stood at 3,371,793 MW. So, we’ve got six years or so to manufacture and build 6,743,586 MW of renewable energy, from wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear and the rest. Simple, right?
Not so much. Not to denigrate the work that’s already been going on, but we’re nowhere near that level. Between 2021 and 2022, the world got a little under 300,000 MW of new renewable generation up and running. To lay even one finger on the target COP28 has set down, the world needs to be averaging closer to 1.2 million MW every single year.
But, and here’s the thing – these figures don’t actually feature in the ratified version of the text at all. I’ve done the math from the 2022 figures because that seems relevant but the text itself has no baseline, or any frame of reference at all. It’s conceivable a bad actor could say they’ve tripled domestic renewables work from an earlier date, or start their count from zero.
4: Transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems
You’ll have seen plenty of the headlines out of COP28 commenting this is the first declaration to explicitly mention fossil fuels in its text. It’s wild to think we’ve had nearly three decades of these summits and everyone has chosen to just look the other way until now. You can see how tightly these points have been massaged and lawyered to make sure while the elephant in the room has been pointed out, it’s still very welcome to stay. It can continue to knock over the furniture and drop big piles of dung, too, so long as certain folks keep making money.
One clause pledges to speed up efforts to “phase down unabated coal power,” which means plants that gesture toward carbon capture aren’t targeted. The fact that the deal doesn’t call for a near-instantaneous blanket ban on coal burning boggles the mind given the science at hand. After all, coal isn’t just the worst fossil fuel, it’s the most environmentally harmful: if you burn one ton of coal, you’ll actually create more than twice that amount of CO2. Earlier this year, the International Energy Agency said that global CO2 emissions from coal power increased by two percent, reaching “a new high in 2022.”
Another clause pledges an acceleration toward “net zero emission energy systems” that use “zero and low carbon fuels” before 2050. And then there's the big one — a clause talking about a transition away from “fossil fuels in energy systems” in a “just, orderly and equitable manner.” I’m enough of a cynic to think those phrases can be bent miles out of shape, and the fact there’s no benchmarks or enforcement mechanisms means that, for now, it’s all just cheap, sweet words.
Then we’ve got a push for other low-emission technologies which, alongside renewables and nuclear, include “abatement and removal” like carbon capture and low-carbon hydrogen. It’s fair to say that those last two should be treated like the mythical unicorns they really are. After all, abundant, low-carbon hydrogen created with renewable energy is a technological cul-de-sac. And while it’s fair to say (mechanical) carbon capture is still relatively new, data from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis suggests it’s a non-starter.
It’s hard not to be cynical watching entities with a vested interest in the status quo gesture toward these projects when they're likely to use them as license to stick with business as usual. If there’s one good point in this part, it’s that there’s a pledge to “substantially” reduce the volume of non carbon dioxide emissions. It specifically namechecks methane, a greenhouse gas that is significantly more damaging than CO2 in the short term. There’s also a reference to cutting emissions in road transport by pushing infrastructure for low and zero-emission vehicles.
As notable as the mention of fossil fuels was, the declaration also “recognizes that transition fuels can play a role in facilitating the energy transition while ensuring energy security.” To you and me, that means countries can continue to exploit and burn fossil fuels like natural gas. Now, gas is better than coal for greenhouse gas emissions, but it’s a bit like saying you’ll only burn down the ground floor of your home rather than the whole thing. Not to mention that natural gas is predominantly made up of methane, that thing we’re also meant to be reducing.
5: The rest
Much of the work at COP28 was focused on broader issues, including making sure the financial gravity of the situation was addressed. There was a lot of negotiation around various monetary tools and funds that could be used to incentivize responsible emissions reduction. There were also pledges made for international co-operation, knowledge sharing and protecting economic growth. One clause that did leap out was a pledge to phase out “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies that “do not address energy poverty or just transitions,” which is similarly weak in its definition. And while there are gestures toward halting deforestation and restoring the natural environment, there’s little substance. One section invites — invites! — parties to “preserve and restore oceans and coastal ecosystems.”
Reactions
Dr Phil Williamson, Honorary Associate Professor in Environmental Science at the University at East Anglia said that COP28’s declaration “represents modest political process, recognising what has been scientifically obvious for at least 30 years.” And it’s this point that probably needs highlighting given how many Very Serious People will likely hail COP28 as a landmark. Yes, it’s a massive achievement to finally mention that fossil fuels are the reason we’re in this mess. But the fact it’s taken so long for us to even be confident enough talking about the problem means we now have almost no time to do the work to get us out of it.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/time-to-get-miserable-about-the-cop28-declaration-174527863.html?src=rss
As a controversial COP28 continues in Dubai, a new report emphasizes that "the world is on a disastrous trajectory." The Global Tipping Points report emphasized the need for an immediate phasing out of fossil fuels and a commitment to beneficial solutions. Tipping points are small thresholds that, when crossed, spark a series of events, including the passage of other tipping points.
The report, led by the University of Exeter and the Global Systems Institute, looked at 26 negative tipping points and the Earth's chances of breaching them as it heads towards a global warming of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Scientists from the European Union have declared 2023 as the hottest year on record. As things stand, researchers found five tipping points are currently at risk of being hit, such as major ice sheets collapsing and warm-water coral reefs dying off. Another three are possible in the 2030s (when that 2.7 F marker is crossed).
The Global Tipping Points report bluntly states: "The existence of tipping points means that 'business as usual' is now over. Rapid changes to nature and society are occurring, and more are coming. If we don't revise our governance approach, these changes could overwhelm societies as the natural world rapidly comes apart." It also emphasizes the importance of pursuing positive tipping points, such as the massive rollout of EVs.
The report lays out six key recommendations to avoid negative tipping points and pursue positive ones:
Phase our fossil fuels and land use emissions now, certainly way before 2050
Strengthen adaptation and loss-and-damage governance, with a particular focus on vulnerable communities
Include tipping point risks, positive tipping point possibilities and related action in the Global Stocktake and Nationally Determined Contributions
Coordinate policy efforts on activating positive tipping points, especially ones that could create a beneficial domino effect
Have the UN Secretary General convene a meeting on tipping point risks and activating positive tipping points
Invest in deepening the scientific knowledge of tipping points and helpful actions
The controversies surrounding the ongoing COP28 are one of the barriers to implementing these initiatives. Reports have indicated that the United Arab Emirates planned to use the conference to make deals for its oil and gas companies with other countries. In fact, at least 2,456 fossil fuel lobbyists have access to COP28's climate negotiations, the Guardian reports. This number is larger than any country's delegation other than Brazil and UAE and more than those traveling from the top ten most climate vulnerable countries.
Then there's Sultan Al Jaber, COP28's president and the chief executive of Adnoc, UAE's state oil company, who added fire to his already controversial opinion. In a livestream conversation with Mary Robinson, the chair of the Elders group and a former UN special envoy for climate change, Al Jaber stated, "There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what's going to achieve 1.5C." His comment came after Robinson told Al Jaber that he had the "credibility" as head of Adnoc to work towards ending fossil fuel use.
Robinson then questioned Al Jaber about reports that Adnoc is increasing its fossil fuel use, which he denied. "Please help me, show me the roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves," Al Jaber added and told her to stop pointing fingers. He later called out the press for misinterpreting his statements.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/new-report-says-the-world-is-on-a-disastrous-trajectory-due-to-climate-change-132508138.html?src=rss
Researchers at the AI startup Hugging Face collaborated with Carnegie Mellon University and discovered that generating an image using artificial intelligence, whether it's to create stock images or realistic ID photos, has a carbon footprint equivalent to charging a smartphone. However, researchers discern that generating text, whether it be to create a conversation with a chatbot or clean up an essay, requires much less energy than generating photos. The researchers quantify that AI-generated text takes up as much energy as charging a smartphone to only 16 percent of a full charge.
The study didn't just look into image and text generation by machine learning programs. The researchers examined a total of 13 tasks, ranging from summarization to text classification, and measured the amount of carbon dioxide produced per every 1000 grams. For the sake of keeping the study fair and the datasets diverse, the researchers said they ran the experiments on 88 different models using 30 datasets. For each task, the researchers ran 1,000 prompts while gathering the “carbon code” to measure both the energy consumed and the carbon emitted during an exchange.
Hugging Face/Carnegie Mellon
The findings highlight that the most energy-intensive tasks are those that ask an AI model to generate new content, whether it be text generation, summarization, image captioning, or image generation. Image generation ranked highest in the amount of emissions it produced and text classification was classified as the least energy-intensive task.
The researchers urge machine learning scientists and practitioners to “practice transparency regarding the nature and impacts of their models, to enable better understanding of their environmental impacts.” While the energy consumption associated with charging a smartphone per AI image generated may not seem dire, the volume of emissions can easily stack up when considering how popular and public AI models have become. Take ChatGPT for instance – the authors of the study point out that at its peak, OpenAI’s chatbot had upward of 10 million users per day and 100 million monthly active users today.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/researchers-quantify-the-carbon-footprint-of-generating-ai-images-173538174.html?src=rss
NASA and IBM have teamed up to build an AI foundation model for weather and climate applications. They’re combining their respective knowledge and skills in the Earth science and AI fields, respectively, for the model, which they say should offer “significant advantages over existing technology.”
Current AI models such as GraphCast and Fourcastnet are already generating weather forecasts more quickly than traditional meteorological models. However, IBM notes those are AI emulators rather than foundation models. As the name suggests, foundation models are the base technologies that power generative AI applications. AI emulators can make weather predictions based on sets of training data, but they don’t have applications beyond that. Nor can they encode the physics at the core of weather forecasting, IBM says.
NASA and IBM have several goals for their foundational model. Compared with current models, they hope for it to have expanded accessibility, faster inference times and greater diversity of data. Another key aim is to improve forecasting accuracy for other climate applications. The expected capabilities of the model include predicting meteorological phenomena, inferring high-res information based on low-res data and "identifying conditions conducive to everything from airplane turbulence to wildfires."
This follows another foundational model that NASA and IBM deployed in May. It harnesses data from NASA satellites for geospatial intelligence, and it's the largest geospatial model on open-source AI platform Hugging Face, according to IBM. So far, this model has been used to track and visualize tree planting and growing activities in water tower areas (forest landscapes that retain water) in Kenya. The aim is to plant more trees and tackle water scarcity issues. The model is also being used to analyze urban heat islands in the United Arab Emirates.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nasa-and-ibm-are-building-an-ai-for-weather-and-climate-applications-050141545.html?src=rss
Consumer Reports has published an extensive ranking of vehicle reliability, and the results pour cold water on the dependability of EVs and plug-in hybrids. The survey says electric vehicles suffer from 79 percent more maintenance issues than gas- or diesel-powered ones, while plug-in hybrids have 146 percent more problems. The troubles portray the industry’s growing pains with the relatively new technology as the planet sets record temperatures, and scientists warn of rapidly approaching deadlines to thwart global climate catastrophe.
The survey polled CR’s members about issues with their rides from the past year, gathering data on 330,000 vehicles. The publication’s data included models from 2000 to 2023, alongside a few (early launched) 2024 models. CR studied 20 “trouble areas,” including relatively minor issues like squeaky brakes or a broken interior trim and more problematic ones related to the transmission, engine or EV battery. The number of potential trouble areas varies by type: internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles have 17, EVs have 12, traditional hybrids have 19 and plug-in hybrids have all 20.
The publication combined the data with its own track testing, owner satisfaction survey results and safety info. It then averaged it to assign each brand a numerical score (out of 100).
The Lexus UX, a rare plug-in hybrid that scored well in the survey.
Lexus
Non-plugin hybrids scored well, with the survey indicating they suffer from 26 percent fewer issues than gas- and diesel-powered vehicles. CR highlighted the most reliable brands in that space, including the Lexus’ UX and NX Hybrid and Toyota’s Camry Hybrid, Highlander Hybrid and RAV4 Hybrid.
If only plug-in hybrids (PHEV) could enjoy those ratings. Instead, their longer list of trouble spots led to 146 percent more problems than traditional gas-powered vehicles. Lowlights include the Chrysler Pacifica, which scored an abysmal 14 out of 100, and Audi Q5. However, several PHEVs defied the category’s expectations, including “standouts” like the Toyota RAV4 Prime and Kia Sportage. Several others, including the BMW X5, Hyundai Tucson and Ford Escape, scored “average” in reliability.
Fully electric cars and SUVs, the vehicles many automakers aim to fill their dealership lots with by 2030, have mediocre average scores: 44 and 43, respectively. Electric pickups, the newest technology in the bunch, perhaps unsurprisingly scored worse with an average of 30.
Lexus came out on top among EV brands. All but one of its models scored above average or better in CR’s ratings. And the lone exception, the NX, still had an average score. Toyota also did well, including the 4Runner SUV, which CR describes as “among the most reliable models in the survey.” However, its electric Tundra pickup scored poorly. Other EVs with above-average scores include Acura’s RDX and TLX.
Photo by Roberto Baldwin / Engadget
Once practically synonymous with electric vehicles, Tesla had overall scores in the middle of the pack (alongside brands like Chevrolet, Buick, Ram, Cadillac and Dodge). CR says the Elon Musk-led company’s EV powertrains tend to fare better than those from traditional automakers. However, Ars Technicanotes the company’s reliability scores struggled more with things like bodywork, paint / trim and climate systems.
Regionally speaking, Asian automakers enjoyed the highest average scores in the survey at a healthy 63. European companies were second with an average of 46, while US brands slumped with a somewhat disappointing score of 39.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/evs-are-way-more-unreliable-than-gas-powered-cars-consumer-reports-data-indicates-212216581.html?src=rss
Google says a first-of-its-kind geothermal energy project is now feeding carbon-free electricity (CFE) into the Nevada grid that powers its data centers in the area. The company says that the enhanced geothermal system (EGS) is delivering a round-the-clock supply of CFE to the grid. It's a step toward Google's goal of entirely powering its data centers and offices on CFE by 2030.
Google teamed up with clean energy startup Fervo Energy in 2021 to work on an EGS. Unlike other sources of CFE such as solar and wind, geothermal projects can operate at any time (solar projects, for instance, can only capture energy during the day).
Fervo Energy achieved a geothermal breakthrough earlier this year when its system achieved flow and power output records for an EGS. It was capable of producing 3.5 megawatts of electricity — enough to power around 2,600 homes. That test result was said to be the first time an energy company proved an EGS is capable of working on a commercial scale.
Scientists have been trying to make an EGS work since the 1970s. A natural geothermal system requires a blend of heat, rock permeability and fluid to generate electricity. In areas where there's sufficient heat but not enough permeability, an EGS creates the latter by drilling deep into the earth and injecting fluid to create fractures in the rock.
At its Nevada site, Fervo drilled 8,000 feet into the ground, then extended the well horizontally to reach more of the hot reservoir. It drilled a second horizontal well to intersect the fractures in the rock. The company pumps cold water from the first well through the fractures into the second well. The water absorbs heat from the surrounding rock. This is used to generate steam and that produces CFE.
The Department of Energy has acknowledged that, unlike with gas and oil fracking, EGS poses a low risk of water contamination. EGS reservoirs are typically much deeper in the ground than oil and gas reservoirs and aren't close to groundwater or near-surface drinking water supplies. Geothermal power plants don't release any water on the surface either.
A 2019 report by the DOE found that — through advancements in technology as well as in policy and procurement — EGS could generate up to 120 gigawatts of clean energy by 2050. That would be enough to cover over 16 percent of the US' expected electricity needs.
Google says it's working to accelerate adoption of EGS as a clean energy solution. To that end, it recently teamed up with Project InnerSpace, a non-profit organization that's focused on removing barriers that are limiting the global development of geothermal energy. Fervo, meanwhile, is building an EGS site in Utah that it expects to deliver 400 megawatts of 24/7 carbon-free electricity — enough to power as many as 300,000 homes. Fervo says that site will start delivering power to the grid in 2026 and reach full-scale production two years later.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/googles-first-geothermal-energy-project-is-up-and-running-162630603.html?src=rss
A machine learning-based weather prediction program developed by DeepMind researchers called “GraphCast” can predict weather variables over the span of 10 days, in under one minute. In a report, scientists highlight that GraphCast has outperformed traditional weather pattern prediction technologies at a 90% verification rate.
The AI-powered weather prediction program works by taking in “the two most recent states of Earth’s weather,” which includes the variables from the time of the test and six hours prior. Using that data, GraphCast can predict what the state of the weather will be in six hours.
In practice, AI has already showcased its applicability in the real world. The tool predicted the landfall of Hurricane Lee in Long Island 10 days before it happened, while the traditional weather prediction technologies being used by meteorologists at the time lagged behind. Forecasts made by standard weather simulations can take longer because traditionally, models have to account for complicated physics and fluid dynamics to make accurate predictions.
Not only does the weather prediction algorithm outperform traditional technologies to forecast weather patterns in terms of pace and scale, GraphCast can also predict severe weather events, which includes tropical cyclones and waves of extreme temperatures over regions. And because the algorithm can be re-trained with recent data, scientists believe that the tool will only get better at predicting oscillations in weather patterns that coincide with grander changes that align with climate change.
Soon, GraphCast, or at least the basis of the AI algorithm that powers its predictions, might pop up into more mainstream services. According to Wired, Google might be exploring how to integrate GraphCast into its products. The call for better storm modeling has already paved a path for supercomputers in the space. The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) says it has been working to develop models that will provide more accurate readings on when severe weather events might occur and importantly, the intensity forecasts for hurricanes.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai-is-starting-to-outperform-meteorologists-173616631.html?src=rss
The man made flood that miraculously saved our heroes at the end of O Brother Where Art Thou were an actual occurrence in the 19th and 20th century — and a fairly common one at that — as river valleys across the American West were dammed up and drowned out at the altar of economic progress and electrification. Such was the case with Washington State's Elwha river in the 1910s. Its dam provided the economic impetus to develop the Olympic Peninsula but also blocked off nearly 40 miles of river from the open ocean, preventing native salmon species from making their annual spawning trek. However, after decades of legal wrangling by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, the biggest dams on the river today are the kind made by beavers.
In this week's Hitting the Books selection, Eat, Poop, Die: How Animals Make Our World, University of Vermont conservation biologist Joe Roman recounts how quickly nature can recover when a 108-foot tall migration barrier is removed from the local ecosystem. This excerpt discusses the naturalists and biologists who strive to understand how nutrients flow through the Pacific Northwest's food web, and the myriad ways it's impacted by migratory salmon. The book as a whole takes a fascinating look at how the most basic of biological functions (yup, poopin!) of even just a few species can potentially impact life in every corner of the planet.
When construction began in 1910, the Elwha Dam was designed to attract economic development to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, supplying the growing community of Port Angeles with electric power. It was one of the first high-head dams in the region, with water moving more than a hundred yards from the reservoir to the river below. Before the dam was built, the river hosted ten anadromous fish runs. All five species of Pacific salmon — pink, chum, sockeye, Chinook, and coho — were found in the river, along with bull trout and steelhead. In a good year, hundreds of thousands of salmon ascended the Elwha to spawn. But the contractors never finished the promised fish ladders. As a result, the Elwha cut off most of the watershed from the ocean and 90 percent of migratory salmon habitat.
Thousands of dams block the rivers of the world, decimating fish populations and clogging nutrient arteries from sea to mountain spring. Some have fish ladders. Others ship fish across concrete walls. Many act as permanent barriers to migration for thousands of species.
By the 1980s, there was growing concern about the effect of the Elwha on native salmon. Populations had declined by 95 per cent, devastating local wildlife and Indigenous communities. River salmon are essential to the culture and economy of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. In 1986, the tribe filed a motion through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to stop the relicensing of the Elwha Dam and the Glines Canyon Dam, an upstream impoundment that was even taller than the Elwha. By blocking salmon migration, the dams violated the 1855 Treaty of Point No Point, in which the Klallam ceded a vast amount of the Olympic Peninsula on the stipulation that they and all their descendants would have “the right of taking fish at usual and accustomed grounds.” The tribe partnered with environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and the Seattle Audubon Society, to pressure local and federal officials to remove the dams. In 1992, Congress passed the Elwha River Ecosystem and Fisheries Restoration Act, which authorized the dismantling of the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams.
The demolition of the Elwha Dam was the largest dam-removal project in history; it cost $350 million and took about three years. Beginning in September 2011, coffer dams shunted water to one side as the Elwha Dam was decommissioned and destroyed. The Glines Canyon was more challenging. According to Pess, a “glorified jackhammer on a floating barge” was required to dismantle the two-hundred-foot impoundment. The barge didn’t work when the water got low, so new equipment was helicoptered in. By 2014, most of the dam had come down, but rockfall still blocked fish passage. It took another year of moving rocks and concrete before the fish had full access to the river.
The response of the fish was quick, satisfying, and sometimes surprising. Elwha River bull trout, landlocked for more than a century, started swimming back to the ocean. The Chinook salmon in the watershed increased from an average of about two thousand to four thousand. Many of the Chinook were descendants of hatchery fish, Pess told me over dinner at Nerka. “If ninety percent of your population prior to dam removal is from a hatchery, you can’t just assume that a totally natural population will show up right away.” Steelhead trout, which had been down to a few hundred, now numbered more than two thousand.
Within a few years, a larger mix of wild and local hatchery fish had moved back to the Elwha watershed. And the surrounding wildlife responded too. The American dipper, a river bird, fed on salmon eggs and insects infused with the new marine-derived nutrients. Their survival rates went up, and the females who had access to fish became healthier than those without. They started having multiple broods and didn’t have to travel so far for their food, a return, perhaps, to how life was before the dam. A study in nearby British Columbia showed that songbird abundance and diversity increased with the number of salmon. They weren’t eating the fish — in fact, they weren’t even present during salmon migration. But they were benefiting from the increase in insects and other invertebrates.
Just as exciting, the removal of the dams rekindled migratory patterns that had gone dormant. Pacific lamprey started traveling up the river to breed. Bull trout that had spent generations in the reservoir above the dam began migrating out to sea. Rainbow trout swam up and down the river for the first time in decades. Over the years, the river started to look almost natural as the sediments that had built up behind the dams washed downstream.
The success on the Elwha could be the start of something big, encouraging the removal of other aging dams. There are plans to remove the Enloe Dam, a fifty-four-foot concrete wall in northern Washington, which would open up two hundred miles of river habitat for steelhead and Chinook salmon. Critically endangered killer whales, downstream off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, would benefit from this boost in salmon, and as there are only seventy individuals remaining, they need every fish they can get.
The spring Chinook salmon run on the Klamath River in Northern California is down 98 percent since eight dams were constructed in the twentieth century. Coho salmon have also been in steep decline. In the next few years, four dams are scheduled to come down with the goal of restoring salmon migration. Farther north, the Snake River dams could be breached to save the endangered salmon of Washington State. If that happens, historic numbers of salmon could come back — along with the many species that depended on the energy and nutrients they carry upstream.
Other dams are going up in the West — dams of sticks and stones and mud. Beaver dams help salmon by creating new slow-water habitats, critical for juvenile salmon. In Washington, beaver ponds cool the streams, making them more productive for salmon. In Alaska, the ponds are warmer, and the salmon use them to help metabolize what they eat. Unlike the enormous concrete impoundments, designed for stability, beaver dams are dynamic, heterogeneous landscapes that salmon can easily travel through. Beavers eat, they build dams, they poop, they move on. We humans might want things to be stable, but Earth and its creatures are dynamic.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hitting-the-books-eat-poop-die-joe-roman-hatchette-books-153032502.html?src=rss