When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, it sent a tsunami racing around the world and set off a sonic boom that circled the globe twice. The underwater eruption in the South Pacific Ocean also blasted an enormous plume of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere – enough to fill more than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. The sheer amount of water vapor could be enough to temporarily affect Earth’s global average temperature.

“We’ve never seen anything like it,” said Luis Millán, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. He led a new study examining the amount of water vapor that the Tonga volcano injected into the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere between about 8 and 33 miles (12 and 53 kilometers) above Earth’s surface.

In the study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, Millán and his colleagues estimate that the Tonga eruption sent around 146 teragrams (1 teragram equals a trillion grams) of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere – equal to 10% of the water already present in that atmospheric layer. That’s nearly four times the amount of water vapor that scientists estimate the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines lofted into the stratosphere.

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Volcanic eruptions rarely inject much water into the stratosphere. In the 18 years that NASA has been taking measurements, only two other eruptions – the 2008 Kasatochi event in Alaska and the 2015 Calbuco eruption in Chile – sent appreciable amounts of water vapor to such high altitudes. But those were mere blips compared to the Tonga event, and the water vapor from both previous eruptions dissipated quickly. The excess water vapor injected by the Tonga volcano, on the other hand, could remain in the stratosphere for several years.

This extra water vapor could influence atmospheric chemistry, boosting certain chemical reactions that could temporarily worsen depletion of the ozone layer. It could also influence surface temperatures. Massive volcanic eruptions like Krakatoa and Mount Pinatubo typically cool Earth’s surface by ejecting gases, dust, and ash that reflect sunlight back into space. In contrast, the Tonga volcano didn’t inject large amounts of aerosols into the stratosphere, and the huge amounts of water vapor from the eruption may have a small, temporary warming effect, since water vapor traps heat. The effect would dissipate when the extra water vapor cycles out of the stratosphere and would not be enough to noticeably exacerbate climate change effects.

Vir: NASA

The EU’s Russian asset sequestration scheme is the only device that is left for the EU to fund Ukraine for the next two years, now that Trump has taken the US out of the picture. At first sight, the European Commission’s special purpose vehicle sounds too good to be true, a bit like the repackaged subprime mortgage bonds in the early 2000s. What this episode taught us is that the purpose of structured finance, always and everywhere, is to hide risk and to circumvent laws. The EU’s Russian asset sequestration scheme is destined to blow up. The political reality in the EU is that the governments in Germany, France, Spain, Italy or the UK are not ready to make the political and financial sacrifes for Ukraine.

Stvari, ki bi jih radi danes pozabili, kot da se niso nikoli zgodile:

1. Ruski predsednik Vladimir Putin je leta 2007 svaril pred širjenjem Nata proti ruskim mejam v nasprotju z obljubami leta 1990:

10 Feb 2007: Vladimir Putin was invited to speak at the Munich Security Conference. He questioned NATO’s eastward expansion and its role in promoting tension and distrust between Russia and the West. Putin: “It turns out that NATO has put its frontline forces on our borders…”

“I think it’s obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary,” Putin added, “it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust.”

Putin asked, “Against whom is this expansion intended? What happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact?”

Putin reminded the audience what German Diplomat Manfred Wörner, then serving as NATO General Secretary, said on 17 May 1990 in Brussels: “The fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee.” Where are these guarantees?

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V isto kategorijo vrhunske človeške neumnosti spada tudi spodnja novica. Ukrajina je prepredena z ruskimi plinovodi, skozi katere teče najcenejši plin na svetu. Toda zaprla je pipe in se odločila, da bo raje kupovala 4-krat dražji ameriški utekočinjen plin in ga prek Grčije po transbalkanskem plinovodu prek Bolgarije, Romunije in Moldavije prenašala do Ukrajine. Zelenski se ob tem veselo smehlja, kajti (tudi) račun za plin bodo na koncu plačevali evropski davkoplačevalci. Other peoples money.

Robert Skidelsky je legenda med ekonomskimi zgodovinarji. Med drugim avtor fantastične 3-delne biografije Johna M. Maynarda. In seveda redek glas razuma med intelektualci v aktualni kakofoniji. Njegova nappved je, da bo po koncu sedanje ere globalizacije nujno prišel val protekcionizma in z njim fašizacija v notranji politični situaciji držav. Naslednja možna faza je vojna.