A Few Things Ill Considered

A layman's take on the science of Global Warming featuring a guide on How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic.

Monday, January 22, 2007

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Another week of GW news - January 21, 2007

Courtesy of H.E.Taylor, here is this week's GW news roundup
(skip to bottom)

Speculation and leaks are the order of the day with the upcoming [Feb 2nd] release of the 2007 IPCC report looming large:

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists changed the doomsday clock:

The rate at which the CO2 concentration is increasing is increasing:

New islands are appearing as Greenland's glaciers melt:

  • 2007/01/20: ClimateArk: Islands appear off Greenland as polar ice melts away - An ominous discovery
  • 2007/01/16: NYT: The Warming of Greenland
    All over Greenland and the Arctic, rising temperatures are not simply melting ice; they are changing the very geography of coastlines. Nunataks -- "lonely mountains" in Inuit -- that were encased in the margins of Greenland’s ice sheet are being freed of their age-old bonds, exposing a new chain of islands, and a new opportunity for Arctic explorers to write their names on the landscape.
    [...]
    The abrupt acceleration of melting in Greenland has taken climate scientists by surprise. Tidewater glaciers, which discharge ice into the oceans as they break up in the process called calving, have doubled and tripled in speed all over Greenland. Ice shelves are breaking up, and summertime "glacial earthquakes" have been detected within the ice sheet.
    "The general thinking until very recently was that ice sheets don’t react very quickly to climate," said Martin Truffer, a glaciologist at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. "But that thinking is changing right now, because we’re seeing things that people have thought are impossible."
  • 2007/01/20: CDreams: ProvidenceJournal: The World's Largest Mineshaft Canary

Coral proxy records have shown a relationship between ENSO, monsoons and the Indian Ocean Dipole:

  • 2007/01/19: PhysOrg: Corals show Aussie drought link to Asian monsoon
  • 2007/01/17: PhysOrg: Asian monsoons might become more intense
    British scientists have found an unexpected link between Asian monsoons and an oscillating pattern of Indian Ocean sea surface temperatures. Nerilie Abram and colleagues at the British Antarctic Survey say their findings suggest the consequences of future Asian monsoons will be more widespread and intense than previously forecast. The recently discovered Indian Ocean Dipole, as it is known, has profound impacts on rainfall across the tropical Indian Ocean region. But its interactions with the Asian monsoon system and El Nino/ Southern Oscillation -- which are themselves forecast to change -- have been unclear. Abram and his colleagues used coral records to reconstruct the interaction for the past 6,500 year -- including times when the Asian monsoon season behaved very differently from how it does today. The results, the scientists say, show the dipole does not act in isolation but is influenced by the Asian monsoon, which appears to extend dipole-related droughts and sea-surface cooling.
  • 2007/01/18: PlanetArk: Indian Ocean Shift Seen Stoking Indonesia Droughts

wmc is watching for sea level rise malarkey:

Meanwhile [not] in near earth orbit:

The Stern Review is still getting kicked around:

And more impacts of GW are arising:

And then there are the tropical rainforests:

Everyone is talking about the wacky weather:

The conflict between biofuel and food persists:

And the troubling matter of falling food production is not going away:

Elsewhere on the mitigation front:

Large scale geo-engineering keeps popping up:

Wallace Broecker has won the Craaford Prize:

Stephen Schneider spoke at Stanford this week:

  • 2007/01/19: BSD: Notes on Stephen Schneider presentation, Jan. 17th at Stanford
    On Kyoto:
    -The most important accomplishment of Kyoto isn't controlling emissions, it's setting up an ongoing process for countries to work together to manage climate change.
    US politics and climate change:
    -Climatologists like him used to have a contentious and negative relationship with previous Republican administrations (Reagan and Bush I). With Bush II, there's no relationship at all - this administration doesn't even want to talk to climatologists.

Meanwhile in the journals:

Before we get into politics, there was some science done:

ASEAN held a conference this week:

And the World Economic Forum at Davos is upcoming:

Meanwhile on the Kyoto front:

And on the Kyoto-2 front:

While on the emissions trading front:

As Ross Gelbspan once remarked, GW controversy begins & ends at the American border:

And on the American political front:

In a belated attempt to spin the Democratic congress, major US energy players are embracing change:

There has been some stir looking forward to the upcoming SOTUA:

The E.O.Wilson campaign to matchmake science & religion may be bearing fruit:

Now here is a harsh truth:

Just when you think US politics can't get any stranger:

Dr. Heidi Cullen kicked off the howler monkeys by suggesting AMS weathermen stop making incorrect statements and get informed:

The Gore-apalooza is still bopping along:

And the NSTA & AIC debacle is still unfolding:

Okay, so we have a problem. What do we do about it?:

Meanwhile on the UK political front:

The BBC and ClimatePredictionNet have generated their first results:

Meanwhile in Europe:

Meanwhile in Australia, it's getting biblical with fire, flood, drought and snakes:

And in Canada, minority neocon PM Harper is greenwashing for all he's worth:

And what are the Liberals up to?:

Apocalypso anyone?:

Here is something for your library:

And for your film & video enjoyment:

Developing a new energy infrastructure is the fundamental challenge of the current generation:

Automakers, lawyers and activists argue over the future of the car:

The reaction of business to climate change will be critical:

Insurance and re-insurance companies are feeling the heat:

The carbon lobby are up to the usual:

Exxon comes in for extra scrutiny:

Then there was the usual news and commentary:

And here are a couple of sites you may find interesting and/or useful:

--regards--

-het

PS. You can access the previous postings of this series here

--

"Climate is an ill-tempered beast, and we are poking it with sticks."
-W.S. Broecker

Global Warming: http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/enviro/globalwarming.html
GW News: http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/enviro/gwnews.html
GW News Archive: http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/enviro/gwna.html
H.E. Taylor http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/

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posted by coby @ 1/22/2007 11:20:00 AM  

1 Comments:

  • At January 24, 2007 2:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Check out www.eurocontrol.int/environment and then click one of the links to e-learning

     

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