Climate
hrynyshyn | December 12, 2007Get ready for the climate change pseudoskeptics to exploit to their own disingenuous ends the inevitable disagreement among climatologists over just where the latest 12 months falls in the list of warmest years on record. See? they'll argue, the science can't be trusted. Depending on the record, 2007 is either...
the sixth warmest year on record (Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia) or the second warmest (Goddard Institute of Space Studies).
What those in denial probably won't want to focus on is the fact that two natural cycles that have nothing to do with anthropogenic climate…
hrynyshyn | December 11, 2007I don't know how many hours and dollars were spent by this hot-off-the-presses official government duplication of what Chris Mooney laid out two years ago in The Republican War on Science, but I suppose it's always good to have confirmation that:
the Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming.
The entire PDF is here. It ends with another stunning piece of old but "inescapable" news:
The Committee's 16-month investigation reveals a systematic White House effort to censor…
hrynyshyn | December 10, 2007Today we hear about a new study suggesting the north pole's summer ice will be gone within seven years. Not, 40, not 30, not even 13, but seven. I can't find any information from the actual study. All that we know comes from a brief mention in Al Gore's Nobel Prize acceptance speech, so this should be filed under "wait until further confirmation before getting excited and/or alarmed." But it does fit a trend of increasing temporal proximity.
Here's what Gore said:
Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the…
hrynyshyn | December 7, 2007"In order to stay below 2 °C, global emissions must peak and decline in the next 10 to 15 years, so there is no time to lose. -- Bali Climate Declaration
Item 1: The U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has come up with a bill that "calls for a roughly 70 percent cut from 2005 levels by 2050 in the production of carbon dioxide and other climate-altering pollutants." (New York Times, Dec. 6, 2007)
Item 2: The mainstream environmental movement, including the likes of Bill McKibben and the Step it Up gang, has widely agreed on a goal of an 80 percent cut in greenhouse gases by 2050…
hrynyshyn | December 4, 2007There is almost no chance the Bali round of negotiations, which get underway this week, will actually accomplish anything of consequence. Mostly because the United States has no stomach for mandatory greenhouse gas emission caps, but also because too many people still can't get their minds around the numbers involved in climate change.
CNN predicts "lengthy and contentious negotiations on how best to combat global warming." That's putting it mildly.
For example, take this sentence from the just-released United Nations Development Program's 2007 Human Development Report: "On the basis of…
chaoticutopia | December 3, 2007Roots Camp turned out to be pretty fun; I enjoyed talking to people about the causes and effects of climate change, and showing them how to defend the science when dealing with denialists. (A link to the presentation can be found at the end of this post.) Over a dozen people showed up in the brightly lit chapel room at the Unitarian Church to hear me speak and to discuss climate science. The big stained glass window on one end of the room was absolutely gorgeous, but sort of drowned out my presentation, projected on the opposite wall. Nonetheless, my slides were mostly visible and the…
chaoticutopia | December 1, 2007I've been trying to find a snowflake to photograph for this week's fractal, but our skies are clear. Maybe this is it:
Via Kevin & Kell by Bill Holbrook.
chaoticutopia | December 1, 2007
If you’re in the Denver area this weekend, with nothing better to do, then come check out the Rocky Mountain Roots Camp. I'll be giving a presentation on climate change and defending predictive science today at 1:30 pm in the chapel room of the First Unitarian Church in Denver (at 14th & Lafayette.) It should be fun!
If you can't make it (I know this is a little last minute) just check back soon; I'll post my presentation later.
In the meantime, I'll try to get this week's fractal up...
hrynyshyn | November 30, 2007"It" is the great geoengineering debate. And the stakes have never been higher.
The basics are ably described by Chris Mooney and his blog partner Sheril Kirshenbaum has already supplied a less-than-appreciative response. Even though there are still a good number of misinformed folks out there who can't accept the reality of climate change, some sectors of the scientific community have already given up on the hope of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and moved on to thinking about ways to counteract the resulting warming.
What we're talking about is fiddling with the atmospheric and oceanic…
hrynyshyn | November 28, 2007Coal is turning out to be one of those political litmus-test issues for those worried about climate change. And as usual, the country is polarized. The Iowa Utilities Board is the on the side of angels. Holding the fort with Satan are Arkansas and Indiana, among others. It splits on predictable party lines when it comes to presidential politics, too. But leading the fight against coal isn't a White House hopeful. It's someone who's supposed to stay out of politics. None other than NASA climate guru James Hansen.
First, some context. Iowa recently rejected an application to build a coal-fired…
chaoticutopia | November 27, 2007I last left this blog on an ambiguous note. Followed by another unannounced absence, this might have seemed strangely ironic. It was for me--that post was written the day before my Thanksgiving break, and I had absolutely nothing planned--except to write. That, as you might have guessed, is exactly what I didn’t do. Hence the ironic part: I’ve been obsessing over prediction lately (that’s what I had intended to write about) yet I can’t seem to even predict my own behavior. Can we hope to predict anything, let alone global changes? That’s the big question.
Now, while I didn’t exactly write, I…
hrynyshyn | November 19, 2007My favorite Sunday morning NPR radio host , Liane Hansen, introduced a story about the release of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change synthesis report by describing its contents as "terrifying." Later in the day I came across an AFP report on a study from Australia's Climate Institute, from which we learn that "greenhouse gas emissions are rising faster than worst-case predictions" from the IPCC. So reality is worse than terrifying? Hold on a sec.
It is true that the Australian report does make for more worrisome reading than the IPCC synthesis. For one thing, the latter is…
hrynyshyn | November 17, 2007Our observer of all things antipodean, Deltoid Tim, reminds us that there are still some pseudoskeptics out there of some stature who not only cling to the notion that humans aren't to blame for climate change, but also continue to insist the world isn't warming at all. Nigel Lawson, a member of that bizarre and elite club known as the British House of Lords, was on a New Zealand television morning show the other day, fielding softballs on the subject, when he actually said:
"There's no global warming happening at the present time. That is clear. That's accepted on all sides."
But I suppose…
hrynyshyn | November 15, 2007Nature's editors have written an excellent summary of the state of climate politics in anticipation of the Bali negotiations on a post-Kyoto regime. Despite recapping all the daunting challenges, including the technological hurdles facing those interested in carbon capture and sequestration, the editorial manages to strike an optimistic tone ;;;;; except for the penultimate observation:
The outlook for the US delegation is less promising. Its negotiators will include ideologues who will stop at nothing to derail the humble progress the rest of the world has managed to make through the Kyoto…
hrynyshyn | November 12, 2007Forget efficient, clean, renewable technologies. Never mind grandiose geo-engineering schemes. No need to choose between carbon taxes and emissions caps. Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue has a cheaper, simpler alternative to the climate change conundrum: prayer.
Perdue's state-wide day of prayer, scheduled for this Tuesday, isn't an answer to climate change in general, just the crazy drought that's taken hold in much of the US Southeast. Atlanta has maybe 70 days worth of drinkable water left in the one reservoir that city engineers assumed would be forever sufficient.
Up here in the southeaster…
hrynyshyn | November 12, 2007Begin your week with a dose of hilarity at the expense of the editor of the Ely Times, a modest little publication for some of the very few readers in Nevada who don't live in Vegas or Reno. If you have time you can then let the story drag you in a more substantive issue.
In an attempt to make sense of the role of carbon dioxide in climate change -- the somewhat inaccurate but useful metaphor of the greenhouse effect -- editor Kent Harper ends up mired in a war of words with climatologist Michael Mann over just how cold the Earth would be without atmospheric CO2. Of course, Harper loses, and…
hrynyshyn | November 8, 2007By now you may of heard of a fictional paper in a fictional peer-reviewed journal that claims to prove that bacteria, not humans, are to blame for climate change. Here's a link to "Carbon dioxide production by benthic bacteria: the death of manmade global warming theory?" (Journal of Geoclimatic Studies (2007) 13:3. 223-231) in case you're wondering what it's actually all about. Already some observers are depressed that the hoax was revealed before more gullible denialists got taken in, which only a few did, such as this poor chump.
Earlier this morning, Reuters ran a story, "Hoax bacteria…
hrynyshyn | November 8, 2007So Hillary has finally joined the bandwagon and called for an 80 percent cut, from 1990 levels, in fossil-fuel emissions by 2050, joining Edwards and Obama, Bill McKibben and most of the environmental movement. William "Stoat" McConnelly is skeptical. As well we should be. I am, of course, highly skeptical as well. But is that response sufficient and appropriate?
There are lots of reasons to treat such a goal as wildly unrealistic. According to the latest report from the International Energy Association, "if governments around the world stick with current policies ... the world's energy needs…
chaoticutopia | November 3, 2007It’s time to set clocks back an hour again, if you are in an area that practices daylight savings time. I sometimes wish we didn’t use it here in Colorado; it always manages to confuse my schedule somehow. At any rate, I figured I’d honor the turning of the wheel of time, and the changing seasons with an abstract fractal:
Seasonal Cycles and Fractal Concentric Circles
It might not seem too recognizable, but I used the same sort of formula to create this fractal as I did these fractal trees earlier in the year. Since I’ve been messing around with animations lately, it may actually be easier…
hrynyshyn | November 2, 2007Yet another study undermines the seemingly obvious concept that trees are inherently good for what ails the planet, climate-wise. Carbon-offset vendors take note: you could be making things worse. They're still needed in the Amazon, of course, but not so much in Ontario.
Tom Gower et al write in Nature that forest fires in northern boreal zones are helping turn forests into net carbon emitters instead of the sponges most people think they are. The paper, "Fire as the dominant driver of central Canadian boreal forest carbon balance," also puts the blame for the change in fire patterns on…