Climate Change
gregladen | February 10, 2013Climate experts have pointed out that Nemo, the very bad nor’easter that just hit the Northeastern US and Maritimes, is partly an effect of global warming. Some meteorologists have responded with an incorrect response, a recitation of a now tired and useless mumbling retort that I’m afraid may even have it origin among scientists who should know better, and at the very least was kept alive by them for far too long: “Well, you can’t really attribute any given weather event to climate change.” Some regular people who are not climate scientists have repeated that faleshood as well. Then there…
gregladen | February 9, 2013Climate change has had a big impact in Africa. We can certainly talk about that some time. But when a David Attenborough BBC special mentioned one aspect of climate change impact they got the facts wrong. Leo Hickman of The Environment Blog at The Guardian noticed the error and wrote a very interesting blog post tracking down how this happened. The BBC, in response, has removed the specific reference from the special.
This is important because it is important to get it right, but it is also important because it demonstrates that those whom climate science denialists incorrectly call "…
gregladen | February 8, 2013This graph shows the extremes in one-day precipitation in a given month relative to the amount of precip in that month for the Northeastern US. So, if the green bar is at 30%, that means that that 30% of month's precip fell in one event. The way this is computed is a little complicated because it is hard to define an "event" in time and space in relation to the time and space coordinates (as it were) we normally use. Check the source of the graph for a more detailed explanation. The point of this graph is that the opposite is true from what many expect: It isn't the case that the snow was…
gregladen | February 8, 2013Here's a graph from the USDA:
This comes from a post by Peter Sinclair: USDA: Warming Will Devastate Agriculture.
Also from that post, this interview with Phil Robertson of Michigan State University related to the question of C02 as "plant food."
gregladen | February 7, 2013... but this can change, according to a report from Media Matters.
CNN founder Ted Turner said in 2011 that climate change is "probably the most serious ... problem that humanity has ever faced," adding that we need to "increase the amount of the debate" to motivate people to take action.
Unfortunately, the network he created has often failed to live up to that goal, devoting minimal time to the issue even while reporting on its consequences. A recent study by the Project for Improved Environmental Coverage found that environmental stories accounted for only 0.36% of CNN's news headlines…
gregladen | February 7, 2013It seems that people "believe" in climate change (really, global warming in particular) when it it hot out more than at other times. And by "people" I mean the population in general. It turns out that Democrats don't change their position on climate change as the temperature outside changes (they already know it is real) and Republicans do a little (because it is true and a small number of them will put reality before politics). Meanwhile, those darn Independent voters who have somehow taken over our democracy for some very poor reasons (IMHO) wildly change their beliefs literally on the…
gregladen | February 6, 2013... at any serious level, and then, only if enough Republicans get thrown out of the House to allow committee work and legislation to happen. From The Hill:
House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans have rebuffed Democrats’ bid to require the high-profile panel to hold hearings on links between climate change, extreme weather and threats to coastal areas.
On Wednesday the Committee, along party lines, voted down Democratic amendments to its formal oversight plan for the 113th Congress.
One defeated amendment, from Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), would have required hearings on the role of…
gregladen | February 6, 2013Minnesota has two populations of moose, one in the northwestern part of the state, one in the northeastern part of the state. Both are in decline. The decline seems to be mainly due to disease, which in turn, seems to be exacerbated by the occurrence of shorter, warmer winters and longer summers.
Today, the Minnesota DNR is announcing an indefinite halt to the annual moose hunt, because the latest surveys show that the population is in very serious decline. From a brief preliminary report in the Star Tribune:
Based on the aerial survey conducted in January, the new population estimate is…
gregladen | February 6, 2013According to some estimates, if sea levels rose one meter, Boston would lose 3% of it’s land surface, Washington DC a mere 1%. Tampa and Miami would lose 18% and 15% respectively. New Orleans would lose 91%.
A six meter rise would result in much larger losses. Norfolk, Virginia and Miami Florida would be essentially gone.
These estimates use the assumption that the sea level rises in those areas vertically, and the corresponding topographical level in the coastal city becomes the shoreline. They don’t account for the fact that the ocean does not work that way. (see Sea Level Rise…Extreme…
gregladen | February 4, 2013Media Matters takes Fox News to Task. Watch the reasonable person talk, then watch the Republican climate science denialist lie:
Here is a graph from Media Matters that you should post on your Facebook page and elsewhere:
From Media Matters: "The American Geophysical Union and several other scientific bodies including the National Academy of Sciences have acknowledged manmade climate change based on a strong and growing body of evidence.Despite all of this, Fox News has continually and falsely claimed the consensus on climate change does not exist -- yet another example of the network's…
gregladen | February 3, 2013Here's a graph showing the extent of arctic sea ice as measured directly and indirectly for the last several hundred years:
Solid red line is the reconstructed 40 year smoothed, late-summer Arctic sea ice extent from Kinnard et al. (2011). Shaded area shows 95% confidence interval. Blue dashed line shows modern observations.
This graphic is from Skeptical Science, where you can also download a higher res version and learn more about the background for these data. Also, on that page is a link to a large number of useful graphics related to climate change.
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gregladen | February 2, 2013... what political party you are a member of...
Climate scientist Anthony Leiserowitz drops some serious knowledge on "Moyers & Company". In two bullet points, he describes exactly what Obama needs to say about global warming and what we can do to stop climate change. Let's hope Obama watches Bill Moyers videos.
From here.
gregladen | February 2, 2013From the AGU fall meeting, 2012
Land area burned by fires has increased in the United States over the past 25 years, consistent
with a trend toward climate conditions more conducive to fire. In contrast, fires for agricultural
and forest management show declining trends in the western U.S. despite overall increases in
wildfire activity and associated carbon emissions. Looking ahead, new IPCC climate projections
offer insight into potential changes to U.S. fire activity over the next 30-50 years based on the
climate sensitivity of fires in recent decades. Scientists will present new data on…
gregladen | February 2, 2013Skeptical Science is a great source for information about climate change. One of the coolest things they've got over there is a moving GIF demonstrating how the folks in the climate science denialism industry try to convince people that global warming isn't real. This involves cherry picking data to show small segments of time with either flat lines (no warming) or decreasing lines (cooling), and ignoring that the longer term pattern is one of a distinct increase.
Here's the graphic:
How to make it look like global warming is a hoax!
For more information about this graphic, and other…
gregladen | February 1, 2013Anthropogenic global warming is a long term phenomenon that is caused by the release of Carbon, in the form of Carbon Dioxide, from fossil deposits, though burning of fuels such as oil, natural gas, and coal. There are other human causes as well, but some of those relate to the use of fossil fuels (such as the leakage of methane gas from oil extraction operations, or from delivery pipelines).
The evidence for warming comes from a variety of sources, but mainly from land based thermometer stations from about the mid 19th century and later, higher tech measurements such as satellites.
The…
gregladen | January 30, 2013I'm not sure about the NUMBER of fires. That might be hard to count. If five small fires emerge and are put out, there are five fires. If five fires emerge, join into one configuration, and wipe out a handful of mountain villages in the Rockies, that's one fire. It might be better to look at acreage burned per year.
My friend John Abraham has used the data supplied by National Interagency Fire Center to make a graph of acreage burned per year since 1960. The graph is a 10-year running mean of millions of acres burned in the US.
Here is the graph:
The annual rate of acreage burned in…
gregladen | January 29, 2013Whispers from the Ghosting Trees
A guest post by Gail Zawacki, who blogs at Wit's End.
While we hustle busily through the necessities of our lives, wrapped up in our daily preoccupations - our obligations to our families, our jobs, and our dreams - at the same time all around the world, trees are silently expiring. For those who take the time to look, we can see that the forests are being transformed before our helpless and incredulous gaze into spectral mausoleums, as even the most ancient living wood is consumed by a raging tsunami of pathogens unprecedented in scale and virulence. What has…
gregladen | January 27, 2013Published on Jan 25, 2013
Session 6: Dr. Jennifer Francis - Rutgers University
Topic: Wacky Weather and Disappearing Arctic Sea Ice: Are They Connected?
gregladen | January 25, 2013With Masters, Mann, Hayhoe and Douglass. From Climate Denial Crock of the Week.
gregladen | January 24, 2013Michael Mann is one of the key climate scientists of the day. History will crown Mann as one of the great heroes who defended the freedom to do science rationally despite constant attacks from mean spirited and ignorant, self interested, politically motivated, oil-money-soaked climate science denialists. You know of Michael Mann as the coiner of the term "hockey stick" to refer to the alarming uptick in temperature and related measures connected to the human caused release of copious quantities of fossil Carbon into the Earth's atmosphere, causing one of the greatest disasters this planet…