Climate and weather
Category archives for Climate and weather
How high can the sea level rise if all the glacial ice melted?
Posted by Greg Laden on June 18, 2013 
There have been times in the past when there was very little ice trapped in glaciers. During this time, sea levels were higher because that water was in the ocean (most of it, anyway). It has been a long time since then. However, with global warming, more and more glacial ice is returning to the…
Is Global Warming Causing More and Bigger Fires in Colorado?
Posted by Greg Laden on June 13, 2013 
High temperatures and dry conditions have caused the outbreak, increased intensity, and rapid spread of numerous wildfires in Colorado. Again. Fires happen, but the number, size, and intensity of wildfires in the western United States has been very high in recent years, and this is caused by global warming. Global warming causes more rain and…
TV Weathermen and Climate Scientists Kiss and Make Up
Posted by Greg Laden on June 12, 2013 This is a long but excellent presentation of The Climate Desk, originally posted HERE where there is a blog post by Chris Mooney giving more details. climatenexus on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free A recent post of mine on the topic is HERE.
Climate Change News and Notes
Posted by Greg Laden on June 12, 2013 
This is what came across my desk this morning. A bit more activity than usual, but not by much. Enjoy. Or, rather, Be Afraid. Congressman Demands Obama Apologize To Oklahoma For Investing In Climate Change Research Just as extreme weather season kicks off, freshman Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) demanded that President Obama apologize to Oklahoma…
The Ice Cap is Melting and You Can Help
Posted by Greg Laden on June 12, 2013 
Obviously, you don’t want to help melt the ice cap. But you can help scientists figure out how and why it is happening and to learn important details of what might be one of the most important effects of global warming happening right now. First, a word on why this is important. Look out the…
Weatherman Bob and the Green Screen
Posted by Greg Laden on June 7, 2013 Weatherman Bob disappeared today. He was consumed, or maybe absorbed, by his Green Screen. A Green Screen is a screen, green in color, with special properties. A TV studio camera and the equipment it is hooked to replace the green screen with an imaginary background. So, a person who is not green can stand in…
Right Wing Science
Posted by Greg Laden on June 6, 2013 
I have two items for you. First is a video produced by Media Matters on Right Wing Science. I especially love Bill Nye’s facial expressions as he is assailed with unbelievable stupidity: And now, also from Media Matters, this fun infographic. Share it around!
The Science of Melting Ice Sheets: New review in Nature
Posted by Greg Laden on June 6, 2013 
A paper came out in today’s Nature about glacial melting and its contribution to sea level rise. This paper does not present new research, but rather summarizes and evaluates the last several years of research on modeling and measuring contiental glaciers and their dynamics. From the Abstract: Since the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…
Andrea
Posted by Greg Laden on June 6, 2013 
The first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season has developed. Tropical Storm Andrea formed over the last several hours, and now exhibits winds of 63 knots at 5000 feet, with a surface intensity of about 50 knots, though these winds are only found in the “right hand” side of the storm, now sitting in…
What’s going on with the Arctic Sea ice?
Posted by Greg Laden on June 5, 2013 Since 2001 the amount of Arctic Sea ice that has melted during the summer has generally increased. There may have been a long term trend in melting of ice in the northern hemisphere generally, including mountain glaciers, the Greenland glaciers, and seasonally, Arctic Sea Ice. But the seasonal melting of Arctic Sea ice seems to…
The 1970s Ice Age Myth and Time Magazine Covers – by David Kirtley
Posted by Greg Laden on June 4, 2013 This is a guest post by David Kirtley. David originally posted this as a Google Doc, and I’m reproducing his work here with his permission. Just the other day I was speaking to a climate change skeptic who made mention of an old Time or Newsweek (he was not sure) article that talked about fears…
Why are we having such bad weather?
Posted by Greg Laden on June 3, 2013 
I think most people will agree that in North America (and other places) we’ve been having some bad weather. Some of the weather is not necessarily intrinsically bad … so what if it is a little cooler or a little warmer than you expect. Aridity? Deserts are nice! Extra rainfall? Great for the plants. But…
How three storm chasers died, and what to do about it
Posted by Greg Laden on June 3, 2013 If you want to walk down Main Street, in downtown America, you can do that, because it is America. This is a free country and public space is public. But if the Acme Office Building, on Main Street, is on fire, broken glass is blowing out of windows and fire trucks and other emergency vehicles…
Three Famous Storm Chasers Were Killed in Oklahoma #twistex
Posted by Greg Laden on June 2, 2013 
Tim Samaras, his son Paul Samaras and their colleague Carl Young were killed yesterday when their research vehicle was crushed almost beyond recognition by a Tornado they were “chasing” in Oklahoma. If you ever watched Storm Chasers, the show on Discovery Channel (it is on Netflix) you may know of these guys. Tim Samaras’s team…
The Takedown Of A Novel’s Page By Facebook Bullies
Posted by Greg Laden on May 31, 2013 
A friend of mine, Gareth Renowden, wrote a novel called The Aviator (The Burning World). It is a post-climate change story, set in the future, and it is a good one. I highly recommend it. Gareth is also an activist who puts considerable effort into climate change. Some time in the last few hours, the…
Cosmic Bombardment of the Earth ca 2.2 Million Years Ago?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 24, 2013 
There are bacteria that use Iron (and other elements) to make tiny magnets that they carry around so they don’t get lost. (I anthropomorphize slightly.) There are isotopes of Iron that are not of the Earth, but are found only elsewhere in the universe. Suppose an event happened elsewhere and spewed some of that cosmic…
Understanding Storms and Global Warming: A Quaint Parable
Posted by Greg Laden on May 21, 2013 
A quaint New England rocky creek Imagine standing next to Parable Creek, an imaginary rocky brook in New England. The water is rushing past you from left to right, around the rocks that emerge tall above the surface of the stream, mounding over the top of those that are lower down. The deepest parts of…
Are there more tornadoes because of global warming?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 21, 2013 
There are good reasons to believe that global warming leads to more storminess, but the exact nature of that transition is unclear and hard to measure. Part of the reason for this difficulty is that a given type of storm may become more likely under certain conditions caused by climate change, while a different kind…
Why Global Warming’s Effects Will Be Worse Than You Were Thinking
Posted by Greg Laden on May 20, 2013 
The story of climate change has always been more of worst-case, or at least, worser-case scenarios developing and less about good news showing up out of nowhere and making us unexpectedly happy. A few decades ago, it became clear that the release of fossil Carbon into the atmosphere primarily as CO2 was going to cause…
The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania
Posted by Greg Laden on May 20, 2013 
There is a book called “The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania” produced by the Heartland Institute. The Heartland Institute is famous for doing all that work to prove that smoking is not bad for you, and more recently, that climate change is not real or is not important or…
Correcting BBC’s Lousy Journalism
Posted by Greg Laden on May 18, 2013 Again and again. Do you have to take a stupid pill every day to be a reporter? Or are reporters like this one speaking down to their audience. Either way, it’s shocking.
Did the Keystone XL Environmental Contractor and the State Department Act Inappropriately or Illegally?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 18, 2013 
Several environmental advocacy groups are asking the US State Department to launch an investigation over the State Department’s handling of the Keystone XL review. This is a bit nuanced but important, and I want to make clear what is going on here. Normally, environmental impact assessments are done by private contractors ultimately hired by the…
Investing in fossil fuel free portfolios
Posted by Greg Laden on May 17, 2013 Apparently that is a thing: NEW YORK and COLORADO SPRINGS, May 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Over half of sustainable, responsible, impact (SRI) investment industry professionals say that retail investors (65 percent) and institutional investors (53 percent) are currently expressing interest in fossil fuel-free portfolios in the face of growing signs of climate change, according to…
Will God Allow Us To Ruin Our Planet?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 16, 2013 It is being debated in the US Senate! (Unofficially.) Here’s Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on the issue: See also: Sen. Whitehouse destroys colleague who said God won’t allow climate change And this: Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Global Warming Consensus: We can haz it!
Posted by Greg Laden on May 16, 2013 
An important study has just been published1 examining the level of consensus among scientists about climate change. The issue at hand is this: What is the level of agreement in the scientific community about the reality of climate change and about the human role in climate change? The new paper, Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic…
Dark Snow Project on The Weather Channel
Posted by Greg Laden on May 16, 2013 The melting of the Greenland ice sheet is a problem, and it seems to be happening faster than scientists had originally thought it might. This is probably because of soot darkening the snow, which collects solar heat and melts the ice. Some, perhaps much, of this soot may come from the extensive fires we are…
Can Obama’s Organizing For Action (OFA) help save the planet? The jury is out.
Posted by Greg Laden on May 15, 2013 You’ve gotta love South Minneapolis. My friend Sharon Sund passed me an email this morning about an Organizing for Action meeting in South Minneapolis to discuss climate change activism. Sharon and I had been talking about local climate change activism earlier in the week so she thought I’d liked to go to this meeting and…
Blockading A Coal Plant in Massachusetts (Breaking news)
Posted by Greg Laden on May 15, 2013 
Environmental activists have just taken up a position off shore of the Brayton Point coal plant, near Fall River Massachusetts, in an effort to block access by a ship attempting to deliver coal there. THIS is their web site, where there is a live Ustream. One of the activists, Jay O’Hara, is tweeting from here:…
Crowdfunding the Dark Snow Project
Posted by Greg Laden on May 14, 2013 New research indicates that the reflectivity of the surface of the Greenland Glacier is decreasing due to the deposition of dark particles from fires on the surface of the ice. This phenomenon is contributing to unprecedented melting of the ice sheet. This is a huge concern. One of the most significant outcomes of global warming…
Climate Scientist Mann on 400 ppm CO2
Posted by Greg Laden on May 13, 2013 Climate Scientists Michael Mann, author of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines, interviewed on Democracy Now:
, which is now available for the 
