global warming
cmooney | November 29, 2007My latest Science Progress column just went online--I look at the issue of geoengineering, and reluctantly conclude that given our current predicament, the case for at least studying possible options makes a lot of sense. Research isn't the same as implementation, but it could give us a fallback. It could give us choices. To wit:
Sure, research might make ultimate meddling more likely. But then, isn't the climate situation forcing our hand anyway? What if a rogue government, or a crazy billionaire, decides to unilaterally execute one of these geoengineering proposals regardless of what the…
tlambert | November 27, 2007After Matt Drudge linked this Christopher Booker column in London's Daily Telegraph, the usual dupes are declaring global warming a myth. Booker claims:
the latest US satellite figures showing temperatures having fallen since 1998, declining in 2007 to a 1983 level - not to mention the newly revised figures for US surface temperatures showing that the 1930s had four of the 10 warmest years of the past century, with the hottest year of all being not 1998, as was previously claimed, but 1934.
A quick look at a graph of the satellite-measured temperatures exposes Booker's cherry picking:…
tlambert | November 22, 2007Andrew Dessler contacted Steve Milloy's demanddebate.com to see if they could provide a global warming skeptic for debate. Alas, Milloy could not come up with one.
scientificactivist | November 22, 2007From today's (well, technically, tomorrow's) New Zealand Herald:
Creature from hell promises salvation
by Errol Kiong
Scientists have discovered a methane-eating bacterium at Hell's Gate in Rotorua which may offer hope for global warming.
Researchers at GNS Science hope their discovery of the bacterium could one day be used to cut down methane gas emissions from landfills and geothermal power stations.
The bug is part of a group of methane-eating micro-organisms known as methanotrophs, but this one is able to live in hotter and much more acidic conditions.
This article--sporting a wildly…
cmooney | November 19, 2007[Note: I had originally planned to publish this post last week, but Cyclone Sidr soon began to consume all of our attention--and rightly so. We will continue to track the storm and its consequences; but starting now, I'm also going to leaven things a bit with blogging on other issues. So, here goes...]
My latest Science Progress piece is up--it's about the intriguing new study (PDF) by Max Boykoff showing that the U.S. media is no longer engaging in phony media balance on global warming. Or as I put it, summarizing Boykoff's findings:
The years 2005 and 2006, in particular, saw not only a…
tlambert | November 18, 2007Ray Pierrehumbert takes apart two French global warming skeptics, Claude Allègre and Vincent Courtillot. My favourite bit:
This flub is nothing compared to the trouble Courtillot's collaborator Le Mouël got into during the debates, when he was trying to show that the 1 Watt per square meter variation in the Solar irradiance over the solar cycle is fully half the greenhouse gas forcing. Well, there is the little matter that Le Mouël forgot to take into account the sphericity of the Earth (which means divide the solar irradiance by 4) or its reflectivity (which means take 70% of the result…
mikethemadbiologist | November 18, 2007More from the dog bites man files: political interference in a Smithsonian exhibit--about climate change. Having viewed the exhibit, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this Washington Post story (italics mine):
Some government scientists have complained that officials at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History took steps to downplay global warming in a 2006 exhibit on the Arctic to avoid a political backlash, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
The museum's director, Cristián Samper, ordered last-minute changes to the exhibit's script to add "scientific…
tlambert | November 17, 2007US delegates tried to water down the latest IPCC report:
US delegates in particular said references to "irreversible" climate change and impacts were imprecise.
They argued, for example, that the melting of glaciers or ice sheets -- which could raise ocean levels by several meters (a dozen feet) -- was not "irreversible" as ice could eventually reform.
And also the loss of species was not irreversible because new ones would evolve in a few million years.
And instead of saying that half of all species becoming extinct, the report should say that half of all species will be "just fine".
Via…
tlambert | November 17, 2007The IPCC Forth Assessment Synthesis Report has been released. The Summary for Policy Makers is in Microsft Word format, so I've made a PDF version for easier reading.
A few extracts:
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level (Figure SPM.1).
Average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely higher than during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely the…
tlambert | November 15, 2007Gareth Renowden reports:
On Thursday morning, TVNZ's Breakfast Business programme included an interview with Baron Lawson of Blaby. It's available here. Nigel's opening statement is a shocker:
"There's no global warming happening at the present time. That's clear, accepted on all sides of the argument."
...
I'm particularly disappointed with the TV interviewer, who gave him an incredibly soft ride. You'd think even TV NZ business journalists might be expected know enough to spot blatant rubbish when it's being spouted.
Meanwhile, the Herald (via NZPA) reports him as saying: "We appear to…
tlambert | November 14, 2007Richard Black continues his excellent series on climate scepticism with a look at the question of whether science journals are biased against warming skeptics. It turns out that they are not.
And he also examines the claims that the sun is the cause of current warming. Nope..
Hat tip: Vagueofgodalming.
cmooney | November 14, 2007As many of you folks know already, I give a lot of public talks. Generally, for each new presentation, I tinker with and add to (or subtract from) the material depending upon the circumstances. So while every presentation is very different, and while my various speeches are continually evolving and pulling in new information, it's relatively rare that I write an entirely new talk from scratch.
But I did write an entirely new presentation, entitled "All Global Warming is Local," when I gave the keynote address on November 3 at the San Diego Coastkeeper group's 12th Annual Ocean Gala. There…
tlambert | November 14, 2007Andrew Revkin is normally a great reporter, so it is particularly disappointing when he turns in a shocker. He's fallen again for the attraction of a middle ground (see Middle Muddle for the previous occasion). If the IPCC says 2+2=4 and the CEI says 2+2=6, well Revkin reckons that Lomborg saying 2+2=5 sounds nice and sensible. But just because Lomborg is in the centre between the scientists and the think-tankers, doesn't mean that he is right. To see if Lomborg is right, you need to look at the scientific evidence, and Lomborg always cherry picks and misrepresents the science. For…
cmooney | November 12, 2007Folks: The latest issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is now on newsstands, and online you can also read, in PDF, my cover story. Entitled "An Inconvenient Assessment," it's about the biggest Bush administration climate science scandal that you've never heard of. Let me repaste the opening paragraphs to get you into the story:
Global warming is definitely happening. That's the easy part. But it's no cinch to dramatize the phenomenon, or to personalize it. As scientists repeatedly caution, climate change can't be cited as the direct cause of any individual weather event, no matter…
tlambert | November 12, 2007The BBC has a nice piece listing and refuting the top 10 arguments used by global warming skeptics, while Richard Black has surveyed the 61 "scientists" who signed a letter opposing action to prevent warming.
sheril | November 12, 2007I'm undoubtedly a big proponent of changing our actions to combat global warming, but you can bet I'm more than wary of ideas to experiment with our home Terra. Namely, because I plan to stick around here for a little while. Someone my age better damn well provide representation at the table and speak up because we're the ones inheriting the mess that's being made.
I wonder whether the scientists involved understand the big picture. We can't expect to fix our global fever piecemeal when the underlying causes are being ignored. Since we don't know enough about thresholds and complex systems…
tlambert | November 11, 2007Daniel Cressey summarizes the story of the spoof paper that pretended to prove that global warming was caused by benthic bacteria rather than humans. He also has an interview with the author of the spoof. David Thorpe, who helped set it up, explains why he did it on his blog.
Fooled were such folks as Benny Peiser, Ron Bailey and Rush Limbaugh.
Global warming skeptics have offered excuses for those fooled. Roy Spencer said:
Even though the hoax was quite elaborate, and the paper looked genuine, a little digging revealed that the authors, research center, and even the scientific journal the…
cmooney | November 10, 2007I just read this scoop from my friend Eli Kintisch in Science. Scary stuff. Seems Eli attended a high level meeting of climate scientists in Cambridge, MA on the subject of geoengineering--i.e., artificially altering the planet in some way to help stave off global warming (think Frank Herbert's Dune). And to Eli's surprise, he found the scientists pretty darn open to at least studying the idea. As he writes:
Harvard geochemist Daniel Schrag and physicist David Keith of the University of Calgary thought that geoengineering deserved a closer look (Science, 26 October, p. 551). In an opening…
sheril | November 8, 2007Have you seen this paper making the rounds in cyberland?
Carbon dioxide production by benthic bacteria: the death of manmade global warming theory? Journal of Geoclimatic Studies (2007) 13:3. 223-231.
As suspected, it appears to be a hoax. And you thought the Halloween trickery was over...
Details from Pielke.
mikethemadbiologist | November 4, 2007A while ago, I stumbled across this amazing article about a car mechanic, who never even graduated high school, and who has developed a diesel engine that is cleaner (biodiesel based), more fuel efficient, and more powerful than the standard engine produced by car companies (italics mine):
This is the sort of work that's making Goodwin famous in the world of underground car modders. He is a virtuoso of fuel economy. He takes the hugest American cars on the road and rejiggers them to get up to quadruple their normal mileage and burn low-emission renewable fuels grown on U.S. soil--all while…