global warming
gregladen | February 11, 2014Everything is about ice these days, what with the Winter Olympics in full swing. Concerns that the temperatures at the mountain venue of Sochi would be problematically high have panned out; the lower parts of the downhill slopes are slushy and the bottom of the half-pipe is all bumbly wumply. Injuries and lost medal opportunities are mounting up every day, in part caused by the unusual "Spring" conditions.
We all know the Arctic Vortex has been sitting on the middle of North America, and this has caused near zero F temperatures, often as low as -20F, here in central Minnesota. The same…
illconsidered | February 4, 2014Some remarkable weather in North America recently as most of you probably know. Check out Jeff Masters for some of the details.
Record warmth and precipitation in Alaska
As of January 26, 13.83" of precipitation had fallen in Valdez during the month of January. This is more than 8" above average for this point in the month, and close to the all-time record for January precipitation of 15.18", set in 2001 (records go back to 1972.) With more rain on the way Monday and Tuesday, this record could easily fall. Numerous locations in Southeast Alaska have beaten their rainiest January day on…
illconsidered | February 3, 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
Another Week in the Ecological Crisis
Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not Wisdom
February 2, 2014
Chuckles, COP20+, NSA at Copenhagen, Triumvirate, Potash, Warnings
Seeger, Energiewende, Bottom Line, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies, Related Papers
Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production
Hurricanes, Notable Weather, Abrupt CC…
illconsidered | February 1, 2014The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 76
Table of Contents
Chapter 78
Chapter 77
Unburdening, November 12, 2059
I was in a state by the time I arrived at Centre City. I half expected the eco-cops to tap me on the shoulder at any moment.
Edie met me at the door. "I didn't expect you until tomorrow," she said with a big smile. "I just happened to see you walk past the front window."
Then she caught my mood. "What's the matter?"
"Do you know how to upload to FabNet?"
"Yeah... I used to do that for Matt every once in a while."
"Good. I have something I want you to distribute." I…
illconsidered | January 30, 2014The good Lord Monckton, self parody at its absolute finest:
This charming and lively man, with a soul and a wit that are eternal youth personified, is the latest victim of the vicious hate campaign sedulously waged by the canting profiteers of doom against anyone who dares to speak out against the now-discredited notion that the West should be shut down at once so as to Save The Planet from global-warming Thermageddon.
Bowing to extreme pressure from a handful of mad scientists (mad, that is, at the loss of income and prestige that the inexorable collapse of the Great Lie entails), the…
illconsidered | January 27, 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
Information Overload is Pattern Recognition
January 26, 2014
Chuckles, EU Climate Goals, WEF, WFES, POGO, Potash, Smog, Energiewende
Bottom Line, Subsidies, Cook, Shrinkology
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies
Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Tele-connections, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production
Hurricanes, Notable Weather, Abrupt CC, Extreme Weather, New Weather
GHGs, Carbon Cycle, Solar,…
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…
illconsidered | January 22, 2014The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 74
Table of Contents
Chapter 76
Chapter 75
Ottawa, November 7, 2059
Over the next month I watched and waited from my vantage point in UNGETF for some Solar Radiation Management [SRM] scheme to take the place of the sunshield. None was forthcoming. There was talk about restarting the Japanese Group 2 effort, even funding Baumgarten, but there was also opposition. The long and short of it was... no other SRM technique was forthcoming.
Finally I felt compelled to act. I was still worried about the unknown actors involved in Matt's death, so I…
milhayser | January 20, 2014The anti-scientific M.O. of some political conservatives was in full swing during the 'polar vortex,' as frigid weather brought south from the Arctic led many commentators to scoff, "look how cold it is, can you believe anyone thinks the Earth is getting warmer?" Coby Beck adds some perspective from climate historian Christopher C. Burt on A Few Things Ill-Considered, writing "cold snaps like this past week’s used to occur every couple of years in the 1800′s," and more like every 5-10 years in the 1900's. Meanwhile the last time it got so cold in the U.S. was twenty years ago. Coby says "what…
illconsidered | January 16, 2014The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 73
Table of Contents
Chapter 75
Chapter 74
Waiting, September 18, 2059
I went back to the university and sat in my office. Luckily I didn't have any more classes that day. I tried to work, but it was no use. I ended up scanning half a dozen news channels looking for information about the sunshield and the rockets.
Finally I felt so useless, I headed back home. That meant I was offline for 35 or 40 minutes while I walked. I could have monitored the net with my padd, but I have always tried to pay attention to the real world around me: Be here…
illconsidered | January 14, 2014The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 72
Table of Contents
Chapter 74
Chapter 73
Sabotage, September 15, 2059
Anna was coming up on her fourth birthday when the rumblings of discontent from the Asian Union began to get louder. A mid-August snow in Japan had laid waste much of their fall crop. China was complaining about a loss of solar photovoltaic power.
Shortly after the Japanese snowstorm, Carillon admitted that there were some kinks in the system that needed to be worked out. The idea had been to keep the sunshields shading the northern hemisphere and have them switch…
illconsidered | January 10, 2014The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 71
Table of Contents
Chapter 73
Chapter 72
No Miracles, April 30, 2059
All that winter and spring, the sunshield count slowly increased. We passed 3,000, but nothing changed on Earth. Methane levels were still rising. Drought, flood and fire were constant. Grain reserves were less than a week, and some challenged those statistics, claiming they were just to make us feel good.
The demand went out for more sunshields. Brahmaputra got more money. That meant more factories and railguns to be built on the moon. Some 150 people in Hipparcus were…
illconsidered | January 10, 2014[Update: it seems clear that records were broken after all as has been pointed out in the comments. So we are only left with Fox's reaction and youtube fog-pee videos. And let's face it, Fox's reaction was pretty predictable...]
The recent cold snap was indeed remarkable and the media was buzzing about it for days. But it was not remarkable for the extreme cold, which in fact set no records, it was remarkable because it has become so unusual.
Unlike the recent heat waves in the US, Australia, Russia and Europe, this cold snap did not, repeat did not set any all time monthly or daily minimum…
illconsidered | January 8, 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
Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not Wisdom
January 5, 2014
Chuckles, COP20+, COP19, Sherwood, Post-2013, Pre-2014
Bottom Line, Global Legal Framework, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News
Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Food vs. Biofuel, Land Grabs, GMOs, Production
Hurricanes, Notable Weather, New Weather
GHGs, Aerosols, Volcanoes Ozone, Temperatures
Paleoclimate, Oceans, Biosphere…
gregladen | January 7, 2014Extreme weather events of all kinds seem to be more common now than they were then. By now I mean the last five to ten years, approximately, and by then I mean ... well, before that. This is because of global warming.
The current Colding caused by a wandering Polar Vortex (which I've heard Rush Limbaugh has declared to be a liberal plot ... thanks Obama!) is probably a result of changes in the nature and configuration of the jet streams and related air masses, as discussed here. Warming caused by the release of fossil carbon, mainly as Carbon Dioxide, has affected the Arctic more than most…
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…
illconsidered | December 31, 2013Happy New Year!!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
skip to bottom
Information Overload is Pattern Recognition
December 29, 2013
Chuckles, COP20, Brulle, Retrospectives
Potash, Accountability, Pricing Nature, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies
Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, GMOs, Production
Hurricanes, Notable Weather, Abrupt CC, Extreme Weather, New Weather
Solar, Climate Sensitivity, Temperatures, Satellites
Oceans, Ocean…