Posts
April 08, 2013
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11:00 PM | My list of lists
By Kelly Procrastination comes in many guises and with my approaching deadline, that is defying all previously understood linear timeframes, it has become my nemesis. To combat this productivity vacuum I have employed certain tactics; like banning myself from the … Continue reading →
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Maybe you’ve always know you’ve wanted to be a research professor in wildlife ecology. Perhaps you’ve just taken a course on fungi and stumbled into a whole new world of career possibilities. Either way, getting past the first step– your undergraduate degree– and onto the academic path isn’t easy. Academic culture isn’t always intuitive. Many undergraduates aren’t … Continue reading »
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A new paper published in Geophysical Research Letters, Independent confirmation of global land warming without the use of station temperatures by Compo et al. (2013) takes a new approach at confirming the accuracy of the instrumental surface temperature record.
Their study seeks to bypass all criticisms of the thermometers themselves by creating a surface temperature record that does not include land thermometer station data. The results are shown in Figure 1 with their surface land
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3:37 AM | 2013 SkS Weekly Digest #14
SkS Highlights
Dana's The Fool's Gold of Current Climate generated the most comments of articles posted this past week. Agnostic's Food Security - What Security? came in second and Dana's Trillions of Dollars are Pumped into our Fossil Fuel Addiction Every Year was third.
Toon of the Week
Quote of the Week
“Should we still debate whether the Earth is flat?” Maher demanded. “That’s not how science works. At some point, you reach
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April 07, 2013
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11:00 PM | Bill McKibben is coming!
By Claire I quite often refer to an organisation by the name of 350.org, which advocates to limit (and as is the case now), to return carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to 350ppm. 350.org was founded by Bill McKibben … Continue reading →
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2:24 PM | I don’t know what to say
about the latest from James Delingpole at the U.K. Telegraph: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100210866/an-english-class-for-trolls-professional-offence-takers-and-climate-activists/
April 06, 2013
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11:16 PM | Who You Gonna Believe?
It seems that Anthony Watts politely disagrees with my post about the connection between oil and gas production and earthquake activity. Actually that’s not a fair portrayal of his post. It’s a hatchet job against me personally. What a nice … Continue reading →
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10:34 PM | Sampling Rate
A reader recently asked: T, from my mechanical engineering world we have strict rules on sampling rates vs. signal frequency rates. Ie you cannot reliably measure a 60hz ac sine wave with a 5hz analog sampling device. The result ends … Continue reading →
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By Kelly I’ll admit it, perhaps the science (and art) of beer is not directly related to the Earth sciences. One could argue however, that beer is so dear to many geologists that it does indeed, deserve a mention on … Continue reading →
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6:43 AM | 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #14
7 misused science words
A glorious winter, but the Alps face a warmer world
Earth-cooling schemes need global sign-off
Global warming mystery
India seeks return on energy efficiency
James Hansen quits to fight global warming
Kiwi scientists rally against climate change sceptic
Let's not bet the farm
One weird trick for getting Republicans to care about climate
Threats to new coal ports in the U.S. Northwest
Propaganda, self-censorship and climate change
UK locks up people who want to
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2:51 AM | The most astounding fact
By Kelly When you look up at the night sky do you feel big or small? I’ve written about the awe I felt looking up at the Aurora Australis from the Southern Ocean and feeling so insignificant in the universe. … Continue reading →
April 05, 2013
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10:12 PM | Does Fracking Cause Earthquakes?
Mother Jones reports on recent earthquakes in regions not accustomed to much seismic activity, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Ohio. Much of their story consists of anecdotal evidence, particularly the strongest earthquake in Oklahoma history at magnitude 5.6 in November 2011, which … Continue reading →
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7:33 PM | I’m Mad as Hell
This post has nothing to do with climate change, or any aspect of science or mathematics. It’s about politics. It’s about why, even though I think the democratic party in the USA is generally incompetent, I’m still a staunch supporter. … Continue reading →
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It is already 19 years from the Rwandan Genocide and United Nations failure. In this post I will not talk about the international failure about the event; I'd rather prefer to introduce the use of online geographic information systems (GIS) to create global awareness about different topics.Internet changed the way we communicate and socialize. It allows to intantly share information with the whole world, reaching more people than any other social media. In turn, GIS mapping is an interesting
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We are in April and finally a hot sunny day after a long winter. However, some Northern Hemisphere locations still have cold temperatures. Some people wonder "why the winter was so long if we talk about global warming?". Actually global warming may be the reason for longer and colder winters.Global warming produces more glacier retreat. Although some people wonder whether glaciers retreat faster or slower than predicted, the fact is that they are retreating, as explained in a previous article.
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April 04, 2013
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Canada’s latest climate change
Canada to lose billions more from pipeline woes
Enbridge pipeline opponents say hearings unfair
Exxon cleans up Arkansas oil spill
Federal agencies asked to delay Keystone
Keystone debate continues
Keystone XL oil spill risk troubles Nebraskans
Oozing Canadian crude in Arkansas spill is black gold
Ruptured pipeline in Arkansas carried Canadian dilbit
The Keystone XL pipeline and its politics
The Tar Sands disaster
Trans Canadas west east oil pipeline
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7:00 PM | When bugs talk
By Adi Microbes make the world go round. There are more microbial cells on you and in you, than your own cells – in fact 99% of them are not human! Some members of our microbiome enable us to digest … Continue reading →
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In a recent study in Nature Climate Change Haywood and colleagues demonstrate how volcanic eruptions can influence Sahelian precipitation. Sadly the article is not open access, but from the abstract it seems like they are providing further evidence that aerosols are important for rainfall in the Sahel. In this context I also recommend the study by [...]
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The Monckton has landed in New Zealand, and he’s up to his usual tricks. In a desperate display of attention-seeking behaviour, the discount Viscount has lashed out at his critics, threatened libel actions against a scientist and a journalist, and attacked the good standing of Victoria University of Wellington. To make matters worse, in a [...]
[Get the full story at Hot Topic...]
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6:14 AM | The Fool's Gold of Current Climate
A frequent argument made by climate contrarians is that global warming hasn't yet resulted in unbearable climate change consequences, and therefore we have nothing to worry about. In a talk recorded by ReasonTV, Matt Ridley offers up several different examples of this line of thinking, arguing that climate change thus far has had some positive consequences and that fossil fuels are just great, implying that we should continue to consume them without worry.
However, this argument misses a
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6:08 AM | S.O.S.
“What do you get when you have some mad scientists, a snow blower, and a barrel of soot? A research grant.” - Niku Kivekäs, Finnish Meteorological Institute . Greetings from outside Sodankylä in Finnish Lapland, where the [...]
April 03, 2013
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By Kelly My apologies for the late notice but for those in Canberra may I suggest an evening with the ACT Climate Change Council and the indomitable Barbara Norman? From their flyer: The ACT Climate Change Council is inviting interested … Continue reading →
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5:40 PM | Smearing Climate Data
If a temperature event like we witnessed in the last century — a warming of around 0.9 deg.C in about 100 years — had happened at some other time in the last 11,300 years, would it have left some trace … Continue reading →
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Failure to model a climate fingerprint from 5 million years ago thought to be similar to what we can expect in the warmer future must be resolved, say Lafayette College’s Kira Lawrence and University College London’s Chris Brierley
Fedorov, A., Brierley, C., Lawrence, K., Liu, Z., Dekens, P. & Ravelo, A. (2013). Patterns and mechanisms of early Pliocene warmth, Nature, 496 (7443) 43-49. DOI: 10.1038/nature12003
Citation
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2:52 AM | Plants march north
Laura Nielsen for FrontierScientists The face of the Arctic is changing as plant growth flourishes further north than before. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), "Temperature and vegetation growth at northern latitudes now resemble those found 4 degrees to 6 degrees of latitude farther south as recently as 1982." This change accompanies the ongoing anthropogenic climate change associated with our warming world. Satellite data from the past 30 years helped […]
April 02, 2013
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By Claire Arctic sea ice has reached record low levels over the past few years due to climate change. A warming Earth has caused the extent of Arctic sea ice to decrease rapidly, suggesting that the Arctic will in fact … Continue reading →
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10:27 PM | TDB today: Smelt a rat
In my column for The Daily Blog this week, I dig into the tangled relationship between New Zealand’s electricity system, a multinational mining company, and the New Zealand government, and argue that radical reform of the electricity market would be beneficial for the country: If Rio Tinto Alcan pull the plug on Tiwai Point, a [...]
[Get the full story at Hot Topic...]
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Antipersonnel mines are explosive devices designed either to injure or kill humans. They are indiscriminate weapons that injure and kill civilians in every corner of the globe, every day. Moreover, antipersonnel mines do not recognize ceasefires and claim victims long after the end of conflicts. The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, a.k.a. the Ottawa treaty, was signed in the Canadian city of Ottawa. Such treaty aims at eliminating antipersonnel landmines around the world. Nevertheless, there are
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8:17 AM | Episode 9: Chubby Microbes
“That took millions of years and now we try to do a little bit with different types of microbes just in a couple of days,” said Petri Lehmus of Neste Oil, a Finnish energy [...]
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7:11 AM | The (mad) science of geoengineering
Climate scientist Ken Caldeira begins with a discussion of ocean acidification, a term he helped coin. He follows with the story of how his name became attached to geoengineering, from his own skeptical beginnings to publishing a paper that basically … Continue reading →
