global warming
gregladen | May 14, 2014NASA's instrumental data set for their Land-Ocean Temperature Index, which goes back to 1880, has updated for April, and it appears that this year's April is the second hottest on record. Also, we had one of the warmest winters on record, despite appearances to the contrary for those who live under the Polar Vortex. Paul Douglas posted the graphic above showing anomalies relative to a 1981-2010 base period for the months of December through February. Note that there is general warmth across the globe with a few cool spots, including a VERY cold region over North America.
If we do have an…
illconsidered | May 8, 2014The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 90
Table of Contents
Chapter 92
Chapter 91
Second Tour, August 30, 2060
The second tour was supposed to be primarily photographic. No stopping for samples meant it would be shorter as well, only four or five weeks.
I met my pilot in Churchill again. This time it was a taciturn fellow named Louis Lasseur. He flew the plane and kept his mouth shut. After listening to JJ go on and on about nothing for hours, I didn't mind in the least. I can live with no nonsense.
We encountered the anomaly on the 13th day. It stood out like a sore thumb as we…
pgleick | May 6, 2014Snapshots from the New National Climate Assessment
After three years of intensive effort, research, writing, and review by hundreds of climate scientists, the latest update of the U.S. National Climate Assessment was released today. It includes many long, carefully prepared sectoral and regional studies, and covers the massive range of effects of climate change on the nation, including both changes already observed and expected in the future.
There are hundreds of pages of information, observations, projections, and conclusions to absorb – almost all of it bad news. Here, in short form and in…
illconsidered | May 5, 2014This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Another Week of Climate Disruption News
Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not Wisdom
May 4, 2014
Chuckles, COP20+, Post WGx, EGU, Landslide, Energiewende
Bottom Line, Subsidies, Economics, EcoCrime, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News
Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production
Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather…
illconsidered | May 5, 2014In the video below Gavin Schmidt gives a "TED Talk" on climate models, taking us from an overview of their construction to the resulting emergent processes and their skill at reproducing much more than a global average temperature trend.
Gavin is an excellent communicator and a true hero in humanity's fight against itself over the impending and tragic disruption of our global ecosystem services. Well worth the 12 or so minutes to watch!
illconsidered | May 1, 2014The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 89
Table of Contents
Chapter 91
Chapter 90
Ecology 330 -- Extinction, July 7, 2060
I only had time for a few weeks of classes while I was back. The students were eager to hear of my exploits in the North and what I had learned about EF1. I related several tales and then brought them back to course content.
"The subject of this lecture can be disturbing. When I first started to study the patterns of life on Earth, I several times found myself unnerved at contemplating extinction --- the deaths of so many life forms.
"It is important to realize…
illconsidered | April 28, 2014(featured image taken from here)
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Information Overload is Pattern Recognition
April 27, 2014
Chuckles, COP20+, Post WG3, Earth Day, Earth Year, Energiewende
Bottom Line, Pricing Nature, Crap Detector, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies
Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Food Riots, Agro Corps, GMO Labelling, Production
Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, Forecasts, GHGs,…
illconsidered | April 24, 2014The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 88
Table of Contents
Chapter 90
Chapter 89
The Beating, June 24, 2060
I hadn't spoken to Jon for 7 weeks. Quite frankly, I wasn't looking forward to it. I didn't know what his long term reaction would be to my asking about Mai Ling, but I suspected it wouldn't be good.
I called Haverfield at the designated time and was informed that Jon was in hospital. They wouldn't say why.
I called Bergmann, but he wasn't in his office and I didn't have a personal number. I left a message and began to prepare for the last class of the day, an introduction…
illconsidered | April 22, 2014This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Sipping from the Internet Firehose...
April 20, 2014
Chuckles, Invective, Pix, COP20+, Post WG3, Wang et al., Murder, Energiewende
Bottom Line, Subsidies, World Bank, EcoCrime, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies
Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, OSSI, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production
Hurricanes, Notable Weather, GHGs, C Cycle, N Cycle, Aerosols,…
gregladen | April 22, 2014It is possible that this is the most important Earth Day. Earth Day is part of the process of broadening environmental awareness and causing positive change in how we treat our planet. We are at a juncture where we must make major changes in what we do or our Grandchildren, to the extent that they can take time away from the daunting task of survival in a post-Civilization world, will curse us.
I wrote a massive multpart blog post about Earth Day a four years ago, and here I'm giving you a slightly modified version of it, covering just a few aspects of the thing, and telling a couple of…
illconsidered | April 18, 2014The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 87
Table of Contents
Chapter 89
Chapter 88
Going North, June 15, 2060
I was worried about going North and leaving Edie alone while she was pregnant.
She had another opinion. "Don't be silly. I'm a big girl, Luc." She took my hand and held it to her barely showing stomach. "I can take care of myself, besides I have Anna and my friends to protect me. You go and do what you have to do."
She had that look about her. I knew it would be no use arguing. We compromised by arranging for Mark, the share-crop gardener, to check in when he did the garden…
gregladen | April 17, 2014I get the impression that some of my colleagues are concerned about the phrase "War on Carbon" because it is bad messaging. That is wrong. We need to carry out a War on Carbon. We need to keep the Carbon in the ground. You know why.
Meanwhile, though, we can have some fun with the idea:
The Daily ShowGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook
illconsidered | April 15, 2014So, the bad news is that it is looking increasingly likely that the world will experience a very strong El Nino event this 2014-2015 winter (winter in the N. hemisphere, summer down under). There is even talk of a super-El Nino, one to rival 1998's phenomenal event. Lots of good information on that here at P3. Some forecasters are now putting the odds at 70%.
Model ensemble predictions showing a coming El Nino
The repercussions for global and regional weather are very large, there will be winners and losers, though as with climate change impacts in general, the wins are no match for the…
illconsidered | April 14, 2014This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
skip to bottom Confronting a New Age of ConsequencesApril 13, 2014 Chuckles, COP20+, COP15, WG3 Report, WG3 Comments, WG3 Leaks, WG2 Carbon Limit, Statistics, Energiewende Bottom Line, Subsidies, World Bank, CookFukushima: Note, News, Policies Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Methane, Geopolitics, AntarcticaFood: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production Hurricanes, Notable Weather, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Aerosols,…
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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illconsidered | April 10, 2014The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 86
Table of Contents
Chapter 88
Chapter 87
The Chinese Girlfriend, April 15, 2060
At the end of an Ecology 110 lecture the other day, Carman unobtrusively entered the back of the room and sat down. I was going through the history of DNA reading devices from Sanger and the discovery of Polymerase Chain Reaction [PCR] through the first microarrays to the terahertz readers and cascades of today.
I finished up by mentioning I would be away for most of the summer trimester on my trip North to document EF1.
After the class, Carman walked up to me. "…
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…
illconsidered | April 7, 2014This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
April 6, 2014
Chuckles, COP20+, GCF, WG2 Report, WG2 Implications, WG2 Reactions
WG3, Energiewende, Bottom Line, World Bank, Cook, Shrinkology
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies
Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, GMO Labelling, Production
Hurricanes, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather
GHGs, Aerosols, Volcanoes. Weather…
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…