Global cooling: Wind up the wurlitzer and let her rip!

There’s no doubt the earth has undergone periods of relatively abrupt warming and cooling in the distant past. We know it defines the onset of the Pleistocene for example, marking the beginning of classic ice ages. I doubt you can find a biologist who thinks either one could happen without affecting ecosystems far and wide. But how long before the usual suspects strip out the paleo-climate and atmospheric context of this and enlist it to confuse the laypublic on climate change? [Read more…]

Heartland Institute revisionism corrected by Chinese

The Boulder Glacier retreated 450 m (1,480 ft) from 1987 to 2003. Click for more info on receding glaciers

The Boulder Glacier retreated 450 m (1,480 ft) from 1987 to 2003. Click for more info on receding glaciers

 

The Heartland Institute is a fossil-fuel front tasked with convincing as many people as possible to ignore their lying eyes. They were originally cooked up in 1984 to downplay the dangers of tobacco use. When last we heard from Heartland, they were for online theft before they were against it and comparing climate scientists to serial killers on public billboards. Recently Heartland bragged the Chinese were shying away from an environmental treaty because the science did not support global warming. This was so egregiously false the Chinese issued a stern correction reading in part: [Read more…]

NASA finds high CO2 & methane levels over Arctic permafrost

Permian-Triassic extinction event in context with other such events

Permian-Triassic extinction event in context with other such events

Carbon dioxide gets most of the climate change press. But methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas. Climate scientists have long studied it as an indicator of CO2 levels and a possible co-conspirator in a number of dramatic extinction events correlated to a sharp increase in global temperatures, most notably the Permian-Triassic event. Recent data suggests there is reason to be concerned: [Read more…]

Slaying the Zombies of Climate Science

Via my colleague at Daily Kos — Both bad news and some not-quite-so-bad news about carbon dioxide emissions can be found in the 126-page report released Monday by the International World Energy Outlook: Redrawing the Energy Climate Map. The report notes that global, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rose 1.4 percent in 2012, 31.6 billion tons, the highest ever. The United States reduced its CO2 emissions by 200 million tons since 2011, Europe by 50 million tons and, while China increased its emissions by 300 million tons, it was the lowest annual increase in a decade as the country upped its investment in renewable sources of energy and efficiency measures.

A rise is still a rise, however, and if no action is taken, there is no way to keep the world from exceeding an accompanying temperature rise of 2°C (3.6°F), the internationally accepted target that scientists say will present problems, but ones that we can adapt to. Without action, we’re headed for a 5.3°C rise (that’s 9°F). Catastrophic.

Not too late to limit climate change, group says

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The Hockey Stick graph — a paleoclimate reconstruction of global temperatures for the last millennium courtesy of Mann et al

Fossil fuel funded groups have stymied efforts in the US to make any headway at all on carbon emissions. But a Paris based group, the International Energy Agency (IEA), says we can limit the damage to a relatively manageable rise of 2° C (3.6° F) by the end of this century, if we wake the fuck up: [Read more…]

Christi ready to flip-flop on climate change?

New Jersey Governor Chris Christi has ticked off movement conservatives in a lot of ways. One of them was recognizing the role climate change can play in tropical cyclones. It’s hard to say for sure from a single off the cuff comment, but he may now be considering a run for the wingnut vote:

MotherJones — (August 2011) Chris Christie, the combative Republican governor of New Jersey, thinks that climate change is a problem and humans are causing it. “Climate change is real…[and] impacting our state,” he said in August 2011. “Human activity plays a role in these changes.” … in simply acknowledging that climate change is not some liberal conspiracy, Christie is standing out from the GOP pack.

(May 2013) —  And so we circle back now to Christie on the boardwalk. Should New Jersey have prepared with climate change in mind? No, the governor said, “’cause I don’t think there’s been any proof thus far that Sandy was caused by climate change.”

That’s a subtle statement, it could be taken in several ways. His actual record on the issue, though, pulling out of agreements and whacking clean energy funding, is mediocre at best. Regardless, Christi picked a bad time to limber up for the obligatory flip-flop, if that’s what it was, his remark came right before Oklahoma was pummeled by a slew of tornadoes sure to reignite the issue.

Tornado forms and devastates Oklahoma on cue

 I moved the video under the fold because it was annoying readers — DS

Like something out of The Day After Tomorrow, a massive EF5 twister formed while cable news stations covered it live and swept through neighborhoods and schools in and around Oklahoma City this afternoon. Death and destruction is just now starting to emerge and if there any readers in that region, please, let us know you are OK.

I’ll now dispense with the usual dice roll analogy: this is exactly what some consequences of climate change are predicted to look like. More at Weatherdude’s Diary and Jeff Masters. Masters sent me this prerelease on what he’s working on for later tonight which included this: [Read more…]