OMG -- More Smoke!
Kudos to a reader who pointed this one out to me from the Mail online. It is a favorite topic of mine, the use by the more-scientific-than-thou media of steam to illustrate articles on smoke and pollution.
Check out the captions - smoke is billowing out. Of course, what they are likely referring to -- the white plumes from the 8 funnel-shaped towers -- is almost certainly pure water. These are cooling towers, which cool water through evaporative cooling. These towers are often associated with nuclear plants (you can see that in the comments) but are used for fossil fuel plants as well. There does appear to be a bit of smoke in the picture, but you have to look all the way in the upper left from the two tall thin towers, and one can see a hint of emissions. Even in this case, the plume from the nearer and smaller of the two stacks appears to contain a lot of water vapor as well. My guess is the nasty stuff, to the extent it exists, is coming from the tallest stack, and it is barely in the picture and surely not the focus of the caption.
The article itself is worth a read, arguing that figures from the UK Met office show there has not been any global warming for 16 years. This is not an insight for most folks who follow the field, so I did not make a big deal about it, but it is interesting that a government body would admit it.
