Global Warming
gregladen | February 13, 2014First, let me note that if you are not a regular reader of Peter Sinclair's "Climate Denial Crock of the Week" you should be.
Peter's latest video is "Abrupt Climate Change, and the Expected Unexpected"
Senior Scientists discuss the potential for sudden disruptions of human and natural systems as a consequence of climate change.
gregladen | February 13, 2014For the first time in weeks we are experiencing warm weather in central Minnesota (it is now 21 degrees F) with a bit of snow off and on. But elsewhere there are interesting things happening. First, in far northern California and the Pacific Northwest there will be rain. A LOT of rain. That's great because it will help a little with the drought. But, it will also probably cause some severe flooding.
Also, everywhere on the east coast from Atlanta up to New England is experiencing some kind of bad.
Snomageddonapocalypse. On fire.
A friend of mine in the Raleigh-Durham area told me…
gregladen | January 26, 2014I had heard it was warm in Alaska, but holy moly, I didn't know it was THIS warm. Above is an anomaly map showing the Drunken Arctic Air in central and eastern Canada and the US in contrast with the very (relatively) warm air over western Canada and Alaska. Remember, these are anomalies, not absolute temperatures. But still, it is warm enough in at least parts of Alaska that lakes that are normally well frozen by now are not frozen at all and may not even freeze this winter.
Here are photographs taken by A.M.Mueller on January 25th 2014 in Skilak Lake, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, and passed…
gregladen | January 26, 2014First, there is no hiatus. Climate science skeptics claim that warming stopped in 1998. It didn't. Stefan Rahmstorf has a nice post placing 2013 in context with the most recent data, HERE. Just click the "translate" button to read it in your favorite language.
UPDATE: Stefan's post is now HERE on Real Climate, in English.
Stefan has a bunch of great graphics that you will enjoy. Following his lead I've decided to make a graphic or two myself.
First, the data. NASA has this data to which people often refer when discussing global warming. I took that database and fixed it up a bit. I…
gregladen | January 15, 2014During the northern Winter, much of the Arctic is covered with sea ice. Some of this ice melts during the summer, then it regrows. Over recent years, the amount of ice loss in the summer has tended to increase, almost every year, year after year. In 2012 the loss of sea ice was extreme, falling for much of the melting and re-freezing cycle below any year seen before.
The year 2013 was also extreme, with more ice melting away in the summer than almost every previous year, but not to the extent seen in 2012.
Climate science denialist used this fact to make up a story. In this case, the word…
gregladen | January 13, 2014Tonight, at 7:00 PM, I'll be giving a talk at the Stillwater Critical Thinking Club on climate change, focusing on sea level rise and weather whiplash. We'll be discussing the Arctic Vortex as part of that.
The Global and Local Impacts of Climate Change
Anthropogenic Climate Change, also misleadingly known as "Global Warming," has emerged as a significant reality affecting societies and economies around the world and at home. In this talk we'll examine the contentious questions of changes in weather patterns and sea level rise. Both of these effects of warming have already had impacts and…
gregladen | January 7, 2014Everyone laughed ... earlier today ... when Rush Limbaugh claimed that the Polar Vortex, the ginormous weather phenomenon that brought so much cold to Canada and the United States over the last few days, was created by Liberals.
If Liberals can indeed create a planetary-level weather phenomenon like the Polar Vortex, then Liberals are very powerful indeed and should not be messed with. Just sayin'
Anyway, people made fun of Rush Limbaugh for saying this. Peter Gleick, who blogs here, went so far as to tweet a Google ngram he did showing that the peak of use of the term "Polar Vortex"…
gregladen | January 5, 2014If global warming is real, then why is it so cold?
We are hearing this question quite often today and it will be asked many times by many people over the next few days as record low temperatures are set in many parts of the United States. Here in Minnesota, for example, we have a good chance of setting a record low daily high beating the previous record of 14 degrees below zero F. We may or may not beat the record daily low but we are going to get close. (Donald trump is probably the most famous person to have gotten this wrong over the last few days.)
Global warming is real. The apparent…
gregladen | December 14, 2013The best way to not look like an idiot is to shut up. Works every time. Why just a few minutes ago I said something really stupid because I confused UPS and USPS. Should have just kept my mouth shut, but I didn't.
This time of year a lot of people start sounding like idiots, quite possibly because they are idiots (but see below for alternative explanations), when it comes to global warming. For example, someone who may or may not be a "global warming denier" (i.e. a person who does not believe in physics) sent me, out of the blue, this string of tweets:
First he tells me that the ice…
gregladen | December 14, 2013Surface temperatures are only one way to measure global warming, but it is a sort of standard and it is meaningful because surface temperatures have a lot to so with weather and such. Data for NASA's GLOBAL Land-Ocean Temperature Index in 0.01 degrees Celsius using a base period of 1951-1980 can be found HERE. Climate Communicator ThingsBreak put a graph on the internet based on those data for November. Here's a copy of it:
Earth’s surface temperature in °C for each November since 1880 (compared to base period, 1951-1980). Stefan Rahmstorf, creator of the graphic, used the SSAtrend…
gregladen | December 5, 2013I've noted this before. Here is Peter Sinclair's video on the topic:
The most sobering evidence of the planet's response to greenhouse gases comes from the fossil record. New evidence scientists are collecting suggests that ice sheets may be more vulnerable than previously believed, which has huge implications for sea level rise.
gregladen | December 5, 2013Are there more tornadoes because of global warming? Are they stronger? Do they occur more frequently outside of the usual tornado season, or are they more common in areas that formerly had few tornadoes?
There are problems with all of these questions, and the main problem is the fact that the tornado data isn't very informative.
Here's the raw data from the NOAA tornado database, showing the number of tornadoes per year of all intensities greater than one mile long on the ground:
(Click on the graph to see the whole thing in case it isn't showing for you.)
This looks like more tornadoes…
gregladen | November 26, 2013Published on Nov 21, 2013
The IPCC has produced a video on its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). The first part on the Working Group I contribution to AR5 is now available. The other parts will be released with the successive approvals of the other two Working Group contributions and the Synthesis Report in the course of 2014.
gregladen | November 26, 2013This just in:
New Oil Change International interactive graphic shows growing fossil fuel reserves in contrast to shrinking global carbon budget
WASHINGTON, DC – New analysis by Oil Change International shows that global fossil fuel reserves continue to expand while the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other scientific and industry analysts repeatedly show that our remaining budget for burning fossil fuels has shrunk to less than one third of existing reserves.
The Oil Change analysis shows that fossil fuel companies gained access to more than twice as much in fossil fuels as they…
gregladen | November 25, 2013One Hiroshima, Two Hiroshimas, Three Hirosimas, Four
On August 6th, 1945, the United States military detonated what was to date the largest and most terrible bomb ever created by humanity in the city of Hiroshima Japan. Since that time, the word "Hiroshima" has come to mean awesome power. In fact, the energy released by this bomb is beyond comprehension by the average person. Aside from the unbelievable power associated with that one human made machine, we also think, when we think of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, of horrible consequences arising from human activity. It does not matter what…
gregladen | November 23, 2013“Simply assuming that this is an interesting controversy that we should check in on occasionally is not correct. The survival of human civilization is at risk. The news media should be making this existential crisis the No. 1 topic they cover.”
That was Vice President Al Gore being quoted in a New York Times piece by the newspaper's public editor, Margaret Sullivan. Sullivan's article, "After Changes, How Green Is The Times?" examines environmental reporting since the Times dismantled its environmental reporting facility last January. Sullivan's analysis, which seems fair, actually shows…
gregladen | November 19, 2013Update on Haiyan/Yolanda Death Toll
The final figures are not likely in but the numbers have stabilized and we can now probably put a number to the human toll of this storm that will not change dramatically in the future, at least in terms of orders of magnitude. The current “official” death toll in the Philippines from Typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan is 6,009 with 1,779 missing and 27,022 injured, with the largest concentration of casualties in Eastern Visayas. This comes from a December 13th report of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, which you can (probably) download here…
gregladen | November 13, 2013If I want to measure how much business a shopping mall gets, I can stand by an entrance way and count the number of people who go into the mall. If I stop every tenth person on the way out and frisk them for their receipts, I can estimate the per-person amount of money spent, and multiply that by ten to get an idea of how much business is represented by the particular entrance way I am sampling. This would work. I wouldn't know how much money was spent in the mall because I have no information about other entrance ways, but I could track changes over time in business, and I'd probably be…
gregladen | November 11, 2013Trigger warning: Truth and pain.
Published on Nov 11, 2013
Philippines delegate Naderev (Yeb) Saño, announces his decision to go on hunger strike on the first day of the COP19 Climate Change Summit in Poland, 11 November 2013.
Making an impassioned plea for action by the conference, he said that he would be fasting in solidarity with his country-folk until action to prevent climate change is forthcoming.
Saño received a standing ovation after describing the hardship suffered by Filipino's, including members of his own family, due to the "colossal" typhoon Haiyan which recently hit his…
gregladen | November 9, 2013At this moment, there is a guest post over at WUWT blog downplaying the size, strength, wind speeds, overall effects, and even the death toll of Super Typhoon Haiyan. Even as the monster storm steams across the sea to it's next landfall (probably as a huge wet tropical storm, in northern Vietnam and southern China), Anthony Watts and his crew are trying to pretend this monster storm didn't happen, and instead, that it was a run of the mill typhoon.
At the moment, nobody is really saying that Haiyan's strength, size, power, or even existence is specifically the direct result of global warming…