Planet Earth
tfk | March 13, 2007Climate Progress highlights an article in the Atlantic Monthly arguing that:
The violence in Darfur is usually attributed to ethnic hatred. But global warming may be primarily to blame.
I don't have a subscription, so I'm relying on Climate Progress's account. Apparently, the author argues that changes in sea surface temperature are likely to have weakened monsoon rains in Darfur. The ecological crisis that resulted from lower rainfall led to the conflict over land, and then to the genocide.
There is another way that climate change is involved. A major political barrier to action on Darfur…
tfk | February 28, 2007Western States Agree to Cut Greenhouse Gases:
Five Western governors agreed yesterday on a plan to cut their states' emissions of gases linked to global warming and to establish a regional carbon-trading system, though they stopped short of saying how drastically they will seek to reduce greenhouse gases.
The governors -- [from] California,… Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico and Washington -- said that within six months they will set a regional target for lower emissions. A year after that, they pledged, they will devise a regional cap-and-trade system allowing polluters to buy and sell greenhouse…
tfk | February 26, 2007
Science has a great set of articles on the problem of renewable energy production, a topic of great importance as we ponder not just global warming, but energy policy in general.
Fixing our energy generation, distribution and usage would be a critical problem even if the current system weren't making radical and potentially irreversible changes to our planet. As Roger Pielke, Jr. observed recently:
If mitigation can indeed be justified on factors other than climate change, which I think it can, then why not bring these factors more centrally into the debate?
As the figure above shows (from…
tfk | February 23, 2007The Wall Street Journal surveys where the major oil companies stand on Global Warming.
tfk | February 16, 2007Despite what feels like a very cold winter right here in Lawrence, new ScienceBlogger commonground observies that January's Heat Record Isn't Broken it's Smashed.
tfk | February 9, 2007The House Science Committee held a historic hearing on the IPCC report and the status of climate change (link to RealPlayer video of the hearing). It was especially historic because Speaker Pelosi made it the first committee she testified before as Speaker. She expressed her concerns about climate change, and the concerns she's heard from many others.
The hearing continued for over three hours, with a panel of experts occupying most of the time. The panel consisted of climate scientists who had contributed and edited portions of the IPCC report and the Summary for Policy Makers recently…
tfk | February 2, 2007
Key findings:
The understanding of anthropogenic warming and cooling influences on climate has improved since the Third Assessment Report (TAR), leading to very high confidence that the globally averaged net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming, with radiative forcing of +1.6 [+0.6 to +2.4] W m-2
In addition:
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 mean sea level.
As predicted, human actions have "more likely than…
tfk | February 1, 2007While I think it's foolish to comment too specifically on what the IPCC will say until the report is actually released, I join Chris Mooney and Roger Pielke, Jr. in finding this report interesting:
Global warming has made stronger hurricanes, including those in the Atlantic such as Katrina, an authoritative panel on climate change has concluded for the first time, participants in the deliberations said Thursday.
During marathon meetings in Paris, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change approved language that said an increase in hurricane and tropical cyclone strength since 1970 "more…
tfk | January 26, 2007The BBC's Climate Challenge game is dangerously addictive. Do not play it.
Update: Link fixed.
tfk | January 22, 2007There's little doubt that we need to move America off of its addiction to rapidly depleting fossil fuels. The challenge is that our current energy infrastructure is heavily dependent on there being a common currency of energy; cars and trucks all run on different formulations of the same product, factories and households tap into the same electrical grid.
While the electrical grid is basically agnostic to the source of the electricity, replacing petroleum products will be trickier. The reason we need them is that cars and trucks need to carry their energy source with them. While hydrogen…
tfk | January 16, 2007According to a report by the National Academies of science Cutbacks Impede Climate Studies:
The government's ability to understand and predict hurricanes, drought and climate changes of all kinds is in danger because of deep cuts facing many Earth satellite programs and major delays in launching some of its most important new instruments, a panel of experts has concluded.
The two-year study by the National Academy of Sciences, released yesterday, determined that NASA's earth science budget has declined 30 percent since 2000. It stands to fall further as funding shifts to plans for a manned…
tfk | January 5, 2007
NASA tells us Bodele Depression Dust Feeds Amazon:
By studying NASA satellite data of the spread of dust across the globe, scientists discovered that more than half of the mineral dust that fertilizes the Amazon soil comes from a single spot in the southern Sahara, a large mountain-rimmed valley called the Bodele Depression.
They have an image of the Bodélé there, and a link to the original research paper, "The Bodélé depression: a single spot in the Sahara that provides most of the mineral dust to the Amazon forest." As you can see from the image above, reproduced from that paper, there…
tfk | December 24, 2006Little known fact: Kansas is (apparently) the world's leading producer of helium, accounting for 4 billion cubic feet per year out of the world's production of 6 billion cubic feet. Alas, production problems in Algeria and Qatar are leaving global shortages, as are problems with the helium pipeline leading from Bushton, KS to Amarillo, TX:
Industry experts aren't sure exactly when the shortage will end. Balloon retailers, which use 8 percent of helium supply annually, are hoping normal production levels return in time for Valentine's Day, typically one of the busiest flower and balloon sales…
tfk | December 19, 2006Go to Participate.net and get one of 50,000 DVDs of the famed documentary. I presume this resolves whatever issues had emerged between the National Science Teachers and the film's producers.
tfk | December 18, 2006This is excellent news. The Magnuson-Stevens fisheries act which passed not long ago has a lot of measures to cut overfishing in the oceans. Many important fish species have been fished to the breaking point, and need serious efforts to allow them to recover. This isn't just a matter of protecting seafood restaurants, it's also a matter of watching out for the ecosystems that sustain life in our oceans.
Among the measures approved are cuts in fishing quotas for several species, but more importantly:
While much of the bill focuses on tightening the 30-year-old fisheries law, it also…
omnibrain | December 14, 2006Very very strange- this was so out of the ordinary I felt the need to post it here :)
The world's tallest man has saved two dolphins by using his long arms to reach into their stomachs and pull out dangerous plastic shards.
Mongolian herdsman Bao Xishun was called in after the dolphins swallowed plastic used around their pool at an aquarium in Fushun, north-east China.
Attempts to use instruments failed as the dolphins contracted their stomachs.
Guinness World Records list Mr Bao, 54, as the world's tallest living man at 2.36m (7ft 8.95in).
Here's the original story
Thanks for the heads up…
omnibrain | December 11, 2006For some reason this research sounds like it was done by that short criminal guy from the Princess Bride (you know... the one who gets poisoned?)
Check out this quote from one of the Authors:
"This required a particularly nasty experiment, in which we inoculated colonies with the most virulent disease of honeybees that is known, the dreaded American foulbrood disease," said Seeley.
See the reason for the experiment below the fold...
The reason for the experiment is actually pretty funny in itself. It seems that queen bees can be quite promiscuous - they go out looking for sperm from many…
tfk | November 30, 2006Energy Use Can Be Cut by Efficiency, Survey Says:
To take advantage of the energy-saving opportunities, some product standards would have to be tightened and some policy incentives changed. Current regulations and fuel subsidies, for example, often favor consumption over efficiency. But many steps are not taken, the report said, because energy users lack information or do not value efficiency enough to change their buying habits.
“The opportunities are huge and yet they are being left on the table,” said Diana Farrell, director of the McKinsey Global Institute, a research arm of the McKinsey…
tfk | November 30, 2006Chris Mooney finds Justice Scalia being proudly clueless as he prepares to decide whether the Clean Air Act requires the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, if it permits such regulation, or whether the state of Massachusetts has a right to even get into that argument.
JUSTICE SCALIA: your assertion is that after the pollutant leaves the air and goes up into the stratosphere it is contributing to global warming.
MR. MILKEY: Respectfully, Your Honor, it is not the stratosphere. It's the troposphere.
JUSTICE SCALIA: Troposphere, whatever. I told you before I'm not a scientist.
(Laughter…
tfk | November 17, 2006
In August we heard reports of a new island emerging from the Pacific Ocean. A boat tried to investigate, but its engine got clogged by pumice floating away from the volcano. At long last, we have art to show what a baby island looks like.
In the image reproduced here, you can see the top of the island emerging from the sea, with an infrared image in the corner, showing the head from the molten rock that formed the island. The greener areas in the ocean to the upper right of the island are areas where sediment is mixing with water, possibly from hydrothermal activity.
According to the…