January 29, 2015
I've recently written about the Serengeti Strategy, a coin termed by climate scientist Michael Mann to describe the anti-science strategy of personal attacks against individual scientists in an attempt to discredit valid scientific research one might find inconvenient. Science Careers (from…
January 28, 2015
What happened to the Blizzard of 2015? Well, it happened. Despite breathless complaining about how the forecasters got it all wrong, they didn't. As the storm was predicted, there should have been close to about two feet of snow in the New York City metropolitan area, but as it turns out, there…
January 28, 2015
Suddenly and for the first time I saw Amanda as a little child wide eyed with both awe and fear, among other children some sitting on the floor, some in chairs, some standing behind desks, eyes trained on a TV monitor and their teacher as the sudden realization dawned on all of them that the Space…
January 27, 2015
A new early human fossil has been reported, recovered from the seabed near Taiwan. We are calling it Penghu 1.
Simply put, it is the lower right jaw of a hominid (hominine) that most resembles either a form of Homo erectus or Archaic Homo sapiens (kin to, but not, Neanderthal). Teeth are fairly…
January 27, 2015
The Blizzard continues. The center of the low pressure system moved to the northeast more than expected, so the maximum snowfall amounts have also moved deeper into New England, and it the storm may end up dropping the largest amounts Downeast, in Maine, rather than around New York and southern…
January 26, 2015
About 20 million people are currently under a blizzard warning, and double that under a winter weather advisory, for a storm moving into the Northeast today and tomorrow, with snow falling though Wednesday. Thousands of flights have been cancelled. Wind will be at tropical storm force, and…
January 26, 2015
A video by Kevin Cowtan about Christopher Booker's accusations of data tampering.
A quick response to an article by Christopher Booker in the Telegraph.
The video features a prototype tool for investigating the global temperature record. This tool will be made available with the upcoming MOOC,…
January 23, 2015
Since it is Caturday, and I don' think I've posted these before.
A King Cheetah (a rather large form of cat) in South Africa:
King Cheetah (cat)
Closer in on the King Cheetah, South Africa
Picture Of Cat On Top Photo Credit: Gatto Mimmo via Compfight cc
January 22, 2015
Arctic sea ice decline happened faster than expected. This has the effect of accelerating global warming because less of the Sun's energy is reflected back into space by ice.
Northern Hemisphere snow also sends some of that energy back into space. The amount of snow cover we have is also…
January 22, 2015
Andrew Revkin has this commentary at the New York Times: How ‘Warmest Ever’ Headlines and Debates Can Obscure What Matters About Climate Change.
I will argue below that Revkin has, inadvertently or not, linked a science denialist trope to the important scientific finding that 2014 is the warmest…
January 21, 2015
What is the Serengeti Strategy?
"The Serengeti Strategy" is a term coined by climate scientist Michael Mann in which "special interests faced with adverse scientific evidence ... target individual scientists rather than take on an entire scientific field at once." His invention of the analogy must…
January 21, 2015
Gas prices have fallen to nearly half (or more depending on your starting point) in recent months. Therefore, according to Jevons Paradox, which does indeed appear to exist sans apostrophe, use of gas should have gone up.
It did, but only by 1%.
So, we are not impressed with Jevons paradox.
January 21, 2015
... with graphics, provided by the White House:
January 20, 2015
I watched the State of the Union Address, and it was great. Not nearly enough on climate change, but otherwise it was great. I did not watch the response. I heard it was not great.
But then Clara Jeffery of Mother Jones asked on twitter if they, the responses, are ever great. So I went and…
January 20, 2015
The title of this post is the beginning of a more extensive comment, as follows:
Few things threaten America’s future prosperity more than climate change.
But there is growing hope. Every 2.5 minutes of every single day, the U.S. solar industry is helping to fight this battle by flipping the switch…
January 20, 2015
Background and context is here.
Video is here:
January 20, 2015
NextGen Climate is putting an ad up, in at least some markets, during the State of the Union Address. Not sure how that works exactly. During halftime? Anyway, here it is:
January 20, 2015
You'll recall that a while back, Greenpeace activists entered a restricted zone in Peru, where the Nasca Lines are preserved, and messed with that important archaeological site. I wrote about it here.
At the time, the individuals who had carried out this unthinkable act managed to drift off into…
January 20, 2015
Officially, 2014 closed without an official El Nino. Probably. If you went back in a time machine to the spring, and told El Nino watchers that, they would be a little surprised, but they would also say something like, "Yeah, well, you know, we keep saying this is hard to predict."
Despite the fact…
January 19, 2015
Matt Ridley has written an opinion piece for The Times (not the New York Times, the other one) which is a response to his critics, specifically, to those who openly disagree with him about climate change. Ridley’s commentary is jaw dropping, and for most of you, those who are not of Royal Blood and…
January 19, 2015
Just a note to celebrate the life and times of Hedy Lamarr, who died on this day, 2000, at the age of 85.
Lamarr had a very interesting career that involved major acting accomplishments, milestone acting events, and direct involvement in the invention of the technology that now forms the basis of…
January 17, 2015
Did you ever notice that you can smell rain? Usually, you smell it better after the rain, but if you are a highly trained naturalist, or Aragorn son of Arathorn, Elessar, the Elfstone, Dúnadain, the heir of Isildur Elendil's son of Gondor, or something, you can smell it before it rains. During the…
January 17, 2015
The New York Times put the news of 2014 being the warmest year on their front page, in the precious space known as "Above The Fold." But, the venerable paper of record continues to give credence to science denialists by calling them "skeptics," and continues to imply that there really is a debate…
January 17, 2015
I will assume you are paying some attention to the discussion of racism vis-a-vis Charlie Hebdo, Muslim bashing, obnoxious religious (in this case Islamic) rules of behavior, freedom of speech and expression, etc. If you were thinking that this situation is simple you better check your thought…
January 16, 2015
NOAA will announce today that 2014 was the warmest year during the instrumental record, which begins in 1880. The announcement, which addresses findings of both NOAA and NASA, will be made today at 11:00 Eastern. Below is the press release from NOAA.
I talked about this and other climate matters…
January 16, 2015
A new documentary you'll want to see.
An eye-opening documentary exploring the tactics of climate change deniers.
An overwhelming majority of scientists agree that global warming caused by human activity is one of the most critical dangers our planet faces. But a well-organised band of…
January 15, 2015
I just did an interview on Green Diva Radio, and talked about a lot of climate change science news. For those who want to see the sources, here is a quick summary:
On Friday, NASA and NOAA are expected to announce that 2014 was the hottest year on record. I had been planning to write an…
January 10, 2015
This is serious. A highly regarded and widely recognized planetery physicist put together the most dangerous scientific ingredients that exist: skepticism of the established science, a comprehensive list of hypotheses that stood in opposition to that established science, a huge amount of data, a…
January 9, 2015
I did an interview on Green Diva, which you can tune into and enjoy HERE or here:
My part starts just after 30:40 into the show, but do feel free to listen to the whole thing!
January 7, 2015
I did a thing called the "Green Round Table" in which I addressed a number of questions about climate change and global warming.
HAVE A LOOK
