Climate

There's no getting around it: the climate is just too damn complex, and computer models, "no matter how powerful, can never give a precise prediction of how greenhouse gases will warm the Earth, according to a new study" (New Scientist) So say a couple of guys who have published their mathematical musing in Science. But this changes nothing. Those who refuse to accept the reality of anthropogenic climate change will continue to insist we can't act without better data, and those who understand the science will continue to argue that we have enough information to justify acting now. But for…

Eighteen years ago British journalist/historian James Burke wrote and starred in a TV documentary on climate change. After the Warming (downloadable version available at Google Video) was presented in the guise of a future historian's review of the events leading up to a time, in 2050, when the world had come to grips with the consequences of global warming. I gave my copy to a friend in 1994, and have been trying to find another since. This week I finally did. And watching it now is positively eerie. And depressing. Eerie because it begins by describing things like the "full-scale…

No, I don't mean that the idea the world's oil production has peaked and is now declining has been discredited. Anything but. Rather a seemingly respectable group of parliamentarians and scientists has concluded that the peak has already happened. Last year, to be precise, according to the Energy Watch Group. (PDF here) The major result from this analysis is that world oil production has peaked in 2006. Production will start to decline at a rate of several percent per year. By 2020, and even more by 2030, global oil supply will be dramatically lower. This will create a supply gap which can…

It's funny, 'cause it's true. Well, metaphorically speaking...

I've never met Bjorn Lomborg. Never exchanged emails or shared a public forum with him. Although I have seen him speak twice, and I have to concede he's a compelling character, one who's almost impossble to ignore. Until now, I just couldn't figure out how someone as obviously bright and dedicated could be so very wrong. But thanks to the Guardian's Juliette Jowit, it's now clear that guy just doesn't care whether he's right or wrong. In Sunday's Observer, Jowit tried to find out why Lomborg believes most of the world's polar bear populations aren't facing any threats, despite a clear trend…

Instead of celebrating the news that my man Al Gore is sharing the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the thousands of scientists who supplied the raw material for the slide show that made him "the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding" of climate change, I am compelled to address a list of alleged errors in said slide show. Thank you High Court Justice Michael Burton. No really. Thanks. As a member of Gore's Climate Project, the team our new Nobel laureate has entrusted to present his slide show, I could take umbrage at the mere notion of inaccuracies therein…

It was only three years ago that an environmentalist, Wangari Muta Maathai, won the Nobel Peace Prize. Is the Nobel committee prepared to award this year's prize to another champion of the environment? Betsafe.com, a live-betting site, is giving the best odds to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (3.25 to 1) and Al Gore (3.35 to 1). In third place at 4 to 1 is Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a Canadian Inuit who has made drawing the world's attention to the effects of climate change on the Arctic her raison d'être for the last few years. The best bet on someone who is actually involved in…

Getting around the problem of a lack of precise temperature measurements from anything but the most recent past is one of the most fascinating aspects of climatology. Today I came across yet another study that supports the notion that the earth, and more specifically the oceans, are warming at the rate climate change models predict, and it's so... cool... I just have to write about it. Most anyone who has even made a cursory attempt to understand the scientific underpinnings of the consensus on global warming -- by watching An Inconvenient Truth, say -- will be familiar with ice-core data,…

They call it "climate porn," for lack of a more sophisticated vocabulary. Sensationalist. Alarmist. Hyperbolic. You pick the term. But the criticism is only valid if the media coverage of climate change is based on something other than a fair representation of the science of climate change. So is it? This week's edition of the BBC's radio program(me) One Planet takes a poorly-aimed stab at the question. Instead of even trying to provide an answer, the producers merely reiterate the claim that the coverage is alarmist. Excuse me, but we already knew that. The real question is, is the alarmism…

Look what the French are up to on the climate change front. According to Nature, a wide coalition of government, business, labor and environmental advocates have agreed on the following: All newly built homes to produce more energy than they consume by 2020. Renovate all existing buildings to save energy. Ban incandescent light bulbs by 2010. Reduce greenhouse-gas emission by 20% by 2020. Increase renewable energy from 9% to 20-25% of total energy consumption by 2020. Bring transport emissions back to 1990 levels. Reduce vehicle speed limits by 10 kilometres per hour. Taxes and incentives to…

Freeman Dyson is one of those important scientists it's impossible to ignore, even when he's dead wrong. In an interview with Salon, he says lots of silly things -- don't worry about the polar bear, religion and science are compatible, and "we have no reason to think that climate change is harmful." But you gotta love the guy anyway... You gotta love him for two reasons. First, because he came up with the very cool idea of the Dyson sphere, a mammoth shell surrounding a star that supplies the inhabitants of the interior with the maximum amount of solar energy. Second, because he's humble…

The right-wing elements of the blogosphere have long despised Jim Hansen, he of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, for repeatedly undermining their thesis that all climatologists are either idiots or communists. But the one thing they really can't stand is someone who has the nerve to change his mind. Having run out of distortions and exaggerations to nail to Hansen's proverbial posterior, they have turned to complete fiction. Tim "Deltoid" Lambert has all the details, but I want to explore the bizarre notion that scientists should never change their minds, which is implicit in this…

No, there's no revolutionary finding that maybe the world isn't warming. At least, not yet. But a group of researchers has at least come across evidence that one of the dreaded feedback mechanisms that could accelerate the temperature rise beyond our ability to cope may not be such a threat after all. And just in time -- after all the fuss about record sea ice minima in the Arctic, we could use some good news. The ecosystems in question are also in the Arctic. It's the not-so-permanent permafrost of the northern peatlands, terrain that has over the milennia sequestered oodles carbon, that has…

Allow me to be among the first bloggers to take advantage of the end of the New York Times Select subscription-only firewall, by pointing to Thomas Friedman's explanation of "why I remain a climate skeptic -- not a skeptic about climate change, but a skeptic that we're going to be able to mitigate it." I say he's a surrender monkey. Not because he's wrong about the Herculean hurdles facing any society that tries to put an end to our climate-changing ways. He's right about that, as he describes the incredibly rapid pace of industrialization and modernization taking place in Doha, Qatar, and…

What sort effects will temperature change have on our planet? Sure, the melting of the ice caps and the raising coastlines seem like important issues to address, as do hurricanes, droughts, and the management of fossil fuels. But what about the little things? Wouldn’t temperature change have an effect on smaller, more sensitive organisms prior to affecting large organisms like ourselves? A degree or two difference may not mean very much to you or I... that’s not even the difference between a sweater day and a t-shirt day. Yet, what if you were a cold-blooded insect? How about a single-celled…

The best line from the Emmy's on Sunday night was Stephen Colbert, replying to Jon Stewart's suggestion that award ceremonies might bewasteful and bad for the environment: Colbert: Jon. If entertainers stop publicly congratulating each other, then the earth wins. Of course, I didn't actually watch the entire Emmy Awards show, so I suppose someone else could have said something wittier. But I doubt it.

Remember the ol’ Bush compound on Walker’s Point, in Kennebunkport, Maine? Check out this map, indicating the effects of sea level rise: A one meter rise of sea level is shown in red, while the yellow indicates a six meter rise. That might make the storm they had in 1991 look like a mild shower: Debris and rubble left by 20-foot waves striking Walker’s Point on November 2, 1991 Shouldn’t the president be a little worried about the house his family has occupied for more than 100 years? Oh... wait... that’s right. He prefers to spend his vacations in Crawford, Texas. I wonder why? View…

Last week it was the disappearing polar ice cap. This week it's the melting permafrost, which contains a heap big quantity of greenhouse gases, which, if released to the atmosphere, "the Kyoto Protocol will seem like childish prattle," according to one expert. But how worried should be really be about melting tundra? The new warning comes from one Sergei Zimov, chief scientist at the Russian Academy of Science's North Eastern Scientific station, which Reuters describes as "three plane rides and eight times zones away from Moscow." Here's the essence of his scary scenario: For millenniums [sic…

About a century and a half too late for John Franklin, I'm afraid. The fact that the sea ice is melting in and around the NW Passage is not news; scientists have been following that progression for many years now, which according to this PR from ScienceDaily has been measured at a average rate of 100,000 square kilometers lost per year. The big news here is that the very latest results are in: the Passage has lost one million square kilometers of sea ice cover just last year. It is currently at its lowest level since the original satellite assessment in the 1970's. According to a spokesman…

Forget about framing for a second. What about the messengers? Speaking to the BBC's World Service, Jim Hansen bemoans the dearth of good science communicators. Given the context of the interview, I think he's referring specifically to climate science communicators. The entire interview is online, but here's the most interesting comment, which I have transcribed for your immediate edification: The interviewer,Carrie Gracie, refers to the long history of conflict between science and the political establishment, and asks Hansen: "Do you see yourself as being along a frontline that;s always been…