Climate Change
gregladen | October 29, 2013This from The Big E at MPP:
The LA Times recently instituted a policy change: they no longer print letters to the editor from climate change deniers. The LA Times believes that peer-reviewed work by established scientists have overwhelmingly proven that our planet is warming and this is leading to significant climate change.
And those scientists have provided ample evidence that human activity is indeed linked to climate change. Just last month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a body made up of the world’s top climate scientists — said it was 95% certain that we fossil-fuel-…
gregladen | October 5, 2013Over the last 48 hours or so a weather system slowly moved across the southern Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota. It was in part shaped and positioned by the jet stream, and it was so slow moving because of the unusually curved nature of the jet stream. This is very much like what happened a few weeks ago in Colorado, but with less of an effect. Nonetheless, there was a damage and injury causing tornado in Nebraska and Iowa, and nine inches of rain in Winona, where there was some very inconvenient flooding. The huge multi-foot snow storm in the Dakotas was part of this system. People…
gregladen | September 30, 2013Paul Douglas from Weather Nation (and elsewhere):
For the 5th time in 23 years, the world's leading climate scientists have released an update on the state of the climate. WeatherNation Chief Meteorologist reviews the highlights plus shares the panel's predictions for the rest of the century.
gregladen | September 29, 2013The fifth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just come out, and Greg Laden joins us this Sunday to tell us what it means. What do over 800 representatives of 85 countries have to say about the state of consensus in scientific literature? More importantly, what do we need to do about it?
Additionally, various memes denying the science of climate change have popped up again in anticipation of this report. What might you have been hearing about climate change recently, and why is it wrong?
CLICK HERE to access the podcast.
gregladen | September 28, 2013We call it "weather whiplash." This is not just meteorologists being funny. It is a phenomenon that perhaps has always been with us to some degree, but that has recently become much more common, apparently. If you were under the impression that there is a lot of strange weather going on out there, you may be right, and weather whiplash may be the phenomenon you've noticed. Importantly, there is good reason to believe that weather whiplash is the result of anthropogenic global warming. In other words, it's your fault, so please do pay attention.
Weather patterns tend to move…
gregladen | September 27, 2013Each of these graphs from the IPCC policy summary shows the global surface temperature relative to a 1961-1990 arbitrary baseline. The upper graph shows the annual average, and thus captures a sense of variation reflecting a wide range of causes, but with a general trend from the early 20th century to the preset of increasing temperatures. The second graph shows the same data but using a decadal average. Notice that when you squint your eyes, turn your head sideways, and take some LSD you can see a highly significant decline, hiatus, pause, or even cooling in global temperatures that, if…
gregladen | September 27, 2013Eight hundred and thirty or more authors and editors representing eighty five countries wrote this thing. It is about climate change, and reflects pretty much all of the current (except the most most current of course) peer reviewed literature on climate change, with the intention of providing the basis for governmental policy related to this topic.
The most important conclusion of this report is that humans have caused the warming of the planet that has been observed over the last several decades. More exactly, human activity has led to both cooling and warming effects, with the net…
gregladen | September 22, 2013342
That's, like, twelve years.
So if you are 28 years old or younger, you've never experienced a cooler than average month. If you live on Earth.
Paul Douglas has the skinny:
gregladen | September 21, 2013Recently, formerly respected writer Matt Ridley has been making a fool of himself with absurd and scientifically unsupported commentary on climate change. Recently he wrote something for the Wall Street Journal, "Dialing Back the Alarm on Climate Change," that serves as an example of this.
Professor John Abraham has also provided an item for the Wall Street Journal that addresses Ridley's goof. As Abraham puts it, "Matt Ridley states that a forthcoming major climate change report will lower the expected temperature rise we will experience in the future ("A Reprieve From Climate Doom,"…
gregladen | September 19, 2013There is a strong argument to be made that the recent flooding in Colorado is the result of global warming. Here are three things one could say about the flooding. Think of these as alternative hypotheses to explain that event:
1) Weather has extremes. Sometimes, instead of raining just a bit, it rains a hella lot and you get a big giant flood.
2) Weather has extremes etc. etc. but global warming tends to make some of the extremes more extremes, so instead of getting just a big flood, you get a big giant flood.
3) The storm that brought well over a foot of rain to one mountainous area was…
gregladen | September 14, 2013The EPA is providing free climate change related content material for middle school kids.
You can get the material HERE.
In my opinion, even though this material is aimed at middle school audiences, it is all potentially useful in high school as well depending on the class you are running. For instance, if you have a climate change related module in your 10th grade biology class, some of this material will make excellent handouts.
I would like to recommend an exercise, perhaps for extra credit. FOX News went apoplectic about the idea that a federal agency full of expertise on climate and…
gregladen | September 11, 2013Learning is easy. Getting it right is harder. Expunging falsehoods is hardest, but most rewarding.
There is a "meme" (using the definition of a meme as something most people in a certain community think whether it is true or not) that to produce one gallon of Ethanol for fuel you have to use some larger number (I've heard two, and I've heard five) gallons of gasoline.
In an ideal world there would be farms with giant solar collectors and wind generators. These devices would produce electricity to run distilling machines and hybrid tractors and such. On the farm would be grown GMO plants…
gregladen | September 11, 2013From Paul Douglas:
Much of the Upper Midwest could use a good soaking. Hard to believe when we started July, most of the Midwest was drought free. WeatherNation Chief Meteorologist Paul Douglas says in 35 years in the weather business, he's never seen such sudden changes. Hence the term: "Flash Drought"
gregladen | September 7, 2013Joe Kernen is a business finance talking head who co-hosts CNBC's Squawk Box. I don't know if he actually knows much about Wall Street, but I can prove he doesn't know squawk about Climate Science. Have a look (warning: Might make you dizzy):
Something about a low participation rate because people are getting older. But that's kind of unclear. Obviously, what is needed is a nice clear analogy from .... climate science!
So, the warmest period ever was in the 1930s when there were much lower CO2 levels. I did not know that.
Then the glaciers retreat and there are big forests. Arm…
gregladen | September 4, 2013Over the last decade the surface temperatures of the earth have increased. During the previous decades, the surface temperatures of the earth increased at a somewhat higher rate. Meanwhile, over the last decade there seems to be some extra heat gain in the deeper ocean. Also, some of the surface heat is busy melting the planet's glaciers and the Arctic Sea ice. That heat does not contribute to the surface heat measurement. So, global warming has not slowed down.
This is what we know.
Here is a nice video that explains some of this from the Yale Climate Forum, made by Peter Sinclair.
gregladen | September 4, 2013I love it when controversy develops in climate science. It demonstrates that climate science is a science, not dogma. Also, it is interesting. And, ultimately, it is important because we need to reduce uncertainty and addressing controversy eventually does so.
There is a new controversy in climate science about a vitally important issue. Last year, Hurricane Sandy (aka Superstorm Sandy aka Frankenstorm Sandy) devastated coastal New Jersey and flooded the Battery in Manhattan. This was a highly unlikely event. Estimates of how likely it is for a major hurricane to follow the path Sandy…
gregladen | September 2, 2013Here is a press release for an upcoming event:
At the culminating event on the 66 mile Energy Exodus march, over 150 ralliers will call for the Town of Barnstable to withdraw its lawsuit against the Cape Wind offshore wind farm and begin negotiating in good faith with Cape Wind and federal and state agencies. They will demand that the Town stop taking money from local oil billionaire Bill Koch, who has put over $1.5 million into efforts to delay the wind farm.
Rally speakers will also highlight upcoming opportunities in New England for the marchers to continue advancing the global and…
gregladen | September 1, 2013Andrew Revkin thinks so:
It is hard to interpret this as meaning anything other than the crisis of Arctic Sea ice melting too much and too fast is over. This is an important thing, because the rapid and widespread melting of sea ice in the Arctic seems to be causing a thing called Arctic Amplification, which means in normal human terms that the Arctic is warmer (amplified) than normal. This causes a decrease in the differential between equatorial heat and polar heat in the Northern Hemisphere which seems to change the way the Jet Streams operate which in turn causes Weather Whiplash, where…
gregladen | August 28, 2013A few items of interest from the intertubes:
Mann: Reality and threats of climate change are clear
This is a guest column in the Times Dispatch by climate scientist Michael Mann discussing ongoing legal issues.
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli certainly has some odd characters coming to his defense in this paper for his attempts to go after climate scientists like myself.
First came Charlie Battig, who sought to defend Cuccinelli’s 2009 attempt to subpoena my personal U.Va. emails ...
Most recently the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley of Edinburgh, Scotland, used offensive personal attacks and…