gregladen | April 14, 2014First, as I've mentioned before, there is a Reddit "As Me Anything" (AMA) going on right now with Stephan Lewandowsky, and if you are into Reddit AMA's and climate change related issues you should check it out. Lewandowsky is a co-author of the famous Frontiers Retracted paper, though the subjects being discussed at the AMA range far beyond that particular issue.
Second, there is new paper out that looks very interesting. I'm still trying to absorb it and I've asked the author for some clarifications on some issues, but already the Global Warming Deialosphere is all over it, so it must have…
gregladen | April 13, 2014This Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego website provides daily updates, analysis, and information on the state of climate. Follow @Keeling_curve to get daily updates of the CO2 value. Through this site, the public can also help support the continuation of the iconic Keeling Curve and of complementary measurements of atmospheric oxygen made at Scripps. These measurements enable society to witness climate change and inform strategies to address it.
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gregladen | April 11, 2014The last hurricane season in the Atlantic was anemic, being one of least active periods on record. This was attributed to extra dust blown off the Sahara which inhibits hurricane development.
Right now, the various forecasting agencies around the world are agreeing that there is a greater than 50% chance, perhaps a 70% chance of an El Nino event happening this year, starting in the Summer or Fall. Traditionally, we think of El Nino events as inhibiting tropical storm and hurricane formation in the Atlantic. Today, a group that predicts hurricane activity in the Atlantic every year has used…
gregladen | April 10, 2014This is a post I wrote elsewhere, a while ago, and just realized was never put on this blog, so here it is. I thought of this post and the topic because of the recent data of the Ms Jesus Scroll, which does indeed appear to be old. But they are still arguing about it, of course. Post is slightly revised.
A while ago I asked on my Facebook page whether anyone had seen the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota. As one might expect, a couple of people, who possibly thought I was joking, noted that the Dead Sea scrolls were part of the Bible, and all that stuff was…
gregladen | April 10, 2014On April 14th, 1912, the RMS Titanic collided with an iceberg during her maiden voyage. The collision occurred at 11:40 PM ships time, and by 2:20 AM the ship broke apart and foundered with over a thousand people still on board. Of the 2,224 people on board just over 700 were rescued.
There have been a number of theories about the iceberg; where did it come from, why were there so many icebergs in the area at the time, how big was it, and so on. It has become general belief that the number of ice bergs in the area was exceptionally large. However, a new paper released a few minutes ago…
gregladen | April 9, 2014Stephan is a cognitive scientist who has done a lot of important work related to climate change. He's doing a reddit "Ask Me Anything" on Monday, April 14th from 7:30AM EST onwards. Which, conveniently for him, is 7:30PM in Australia, if I have my time zones right.
There are two topics he mentioned to me that he'd like to address, which I will describe to you by citing blog posts:
The climate change uncertainty monster – more uncertainty means more urgency to tackle global warming
-and-
In Who's Hands is the Future?
But this is an AMA so I suppose you can ask him anything.
gregladen | April 9, 2014I needed a copy of the "False Hope Graph" that Michael Mann painstakingly created for his Scientific American piece "Earth Will Cross the Climate Danger Threshold by 2036" for a presentation I'm doing, but it had to be simpler, leave some stuff off, and be readable across the room on a screen. The original graphic looks like this:
It is a major contribution showing the relationship between climate sensitivity and climate change in the future depending on various important factors. The graphic I made from it is here (click on it to get the big giant version):
You'll notice I left only one…
gregladen | April 9, 2014Yesterday, Ugo Bardi resigned his editorship at Frontiers Journal over the Recursive Fury Fiasco. Today, a second editor has done so as well.
You should go read the original post, but here's a key part of it:
Frontiers retracted a perfectly fine (according to their own investigation) psychology paper due to financial risks for themselves. It can only be seen as at best a rather lame excuse or at worst rather patronizing, if Frontiers were to claim to be protecting their authors from lawsuits by removing the ‘offending’ article. This is absolutely no way to “empower researchers in their daily…
gregladen | April 8, 2014Ugo Bardi is a scientist who until a few moments ago served as Chief Specialty Editor at the journal Frontiers. As you know, Frontiers has recently retracted a perfectly good paper, initially indicating that the retraction was due to pressure from the climate science denialist community, who did not like the paper because it was about them. Later, Frontiers changed its tune and claimed that the paper was retracted because of ethical violations of the authors, even though the journal had earlier clearly stated that there were no issues, ethical or otherwise, with the paper. I talk about…
gregladen | April 8, 2014It is said that global warming has taken a break over the last decade or so. This is not true. Surface temperatures (air, sea surface, and ice) have increased over this period of time, though less so than previous years. Also, there are various indicators that the coming year or so may be extra warm, depending on what happens in the Pacific Ocean. Perhaps more importantly, deep sea temperatures seem to have gone up, and since most of the effects of anthropogenic global warming are seen in the ocean (over 90% of the extra heat goes there), changes in the rate of global warming at the surface…
gregladen | April 8, 2014From NBC:
... Mohammad Musa Khan appeared in court in the city of Lahore last week, charged with attempted murder along with his father and grandfather after a mob protesting against gas cuts and price increases stoned police and gas company workers trying to collect overdue bills.
"Police are vindictive. Now they are trying to settle the issue on personal grounds, that's why I sent my grandson to Faisalabad for protection," the baby's grandfather, Muhammad Yasin, told Reuters, referring to a central Pakistani city.
The baby is on bail and due to appear at the next hearing on April 12 but…
gregladen | April 8, 2014Hey, wait! Ubuntu One was the next big thing. It was better than dropbox and iTunes and everything! I never personally got it to work for me, though I did sign up for it. Just now, I got an email from The Ubuntu One team telling me the file service system would be gone effective June 1, 2014.
Ubuntu has this blog post about it. This news is a few days old, so you probably already knew about it, but just in case, have a look: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services.
Today we are announcing plans to shut down the Ubuntu One file services. This is a tough decision, particularly when our…
gregladen | April 8, 2014Paul Douglas's overview of current wether and climate effects.
Published on Apr 7, 2014
WeatherNationTV Chief Meteorologist Paul Douglas goes over the continuing dangerous drought occurring across the western US. Some places need over a foot of rain just to break even! Is there any relief in sight?
gregladen | April 7, 2014The latest, updated, Arctic Death Spiral graphic from Andy Lee Robinson ...
gregladen | April 7, 2014Earth’s northern ice cap is heating up and melting down at an alarming, not previously predicted, rate. A paper just out in Wiley Interndisciplary Reviews: Climate Change, by Josefino Comiso and Dorothy Hall looks at recent historic transformations in the Arctic using satellite imagery, mainly from 1979 to the present. The decline of Arctic ice is so extreme that ice thought to have existed for over 1450 years is melting now. (None of the sea ice is really ancient, even the “old” ice recycles over geologically short time periods. But in the near future there will be virtually no “old” ice…
gregladen | April 7, 2014I made this huge giant meme for you. Click on it to see it in your browser all by itself, might be easier to read:
gregladen | April 7, 2014The title of this post is actually the title of a post I want to point you to. It is HERE.
The post is the outcome of a bit of a competition a couple of us have going to make an effective meme (in this case, the girl with the thermometer in her hair) to underscore the fact that "global warming" is different than "surface warming" (or at least, that's how I'd put it). The former includes the oceans, sea surface, air, ice. The latter includes all that but not the deeper oceans. Since the VAST majority of the excess heat building up because of AGW is in the deeper oceans (below the SST),…
gregladen | April 7, 2014An Open Letter on the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline from Scientists and Economists
April 7 , 2014
President Barack Obama
The White House 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Secretary John Kerry
U. S . Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
Dear President Obama and Secretary Kerry,
As scientists and economists, we are concerned about climate change and its impacts. We urge you to reject the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline as a project that will contribute to climate change at a time when we should be doing all we can to put clean energy alternatives in…
gregladen | April 6, 2014Recently, the OpenAccess journal Frontiers retracted a paper written by Stephan Lewandowsky, John Cook, Klaus Oberauer, and Michael Marriot Hubble called “Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation.” The paper discussed conspiracist ideation as implicated in the rejection of scientific work …
A recent study involving visitors to climate blogs found that conspiracist ideation was associated with the rejection of climate science and the rejection of other scientic propositions such as the link between lung cancer and smoking, and…
gregladen | April 6, 2014This is an amazing series of nine episodes looking at climate change. Here's an FAQ on the series by Joe Romm.
It’s the biggest story of our time. Hollywood’s brightest stars and today’s most respected journalists explore the issues of climate change and bring you intimate accounts of triumph and tragedy. YEARS OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY takes you directly to the heart of the matter in this awe-inspiring and cinematic documentary series event from Executive Producers James Cameron, Jerry Weintraub and Arnold Schwarzenegger. YEARS OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY premieres Sunday, April 13 at 10PM ET/PT –…