climate science

Melting the Ice (But Not in a Fun, Life-of-the Party Way)

The Ny Times has a lengthy article about glacial melting and sea level rise, with bad news: But researchers have recently been startled to see big changes unfold in both Greenland and Antarctica. As a result of recent calculations that take the changes into account, many scientists now say that sea level is likely to …

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I, Robot

The claims of climate deniers are so repetitive that someone has figured out how to automate the twitter wars: Getting into a climate change debate on Twitter could be even more exhausting than it sounds now that a software developer named Nigel Leck has automated the process. Tired of arguing with climate change deniers in …

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Tipping Points and Feedback Effects

From the title, this could be a posting about the election results.  It isn’t — although I do wonder whether the relatively rapid changes we’ve seen in the House over the past decade are a sign of increased feedback effects.  My topic, however, is climate science. The curve at the left shows how feedback effects …

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Climate Change and the Royal Society

Despite claims to the contrary in the blogosphere, the Royal Society’s views seem to be entirely consistent with the IPCC’s.

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Major Berkeley Conference on Climate and Energy

Today and tomorrow, Berkeley is hosting a major conference featuring leading scientists, engineers, and policy analysts.  The keynote speakers include: Ralph Cicerone, President, National Academy of Sciences Chris Field, Co-chair, IPCC Working Group 2: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability Arun Majumdar, Director, Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, DOE A live webcast is available here.

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It’s All About the Feedback

A fairly common reaction to climate science is to wonder how changes in the concentration of a trace gas can have a substantial effect on the world’s climate.  As it turns out, this is exactly the right question to ask. There’s a great post at RealClimate working through the logic. The direct effect of increased …

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Politics versus Science in the 2010 Election Cycle

Here’s some fairly depressing news from Wonk Room: Remarkably, of the dozens of Republicans vying for the 37 Senate seats in the 2010 election, only one — Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware — supports climate action. Even former climate advocates Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) now toe the science-doubting party line. …

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The Not-So-Skeptical Environmentalist

  Bjorn Lomborg (a/k/a the “Skeptical Environmentalist”) has apparently had a change of heart regarding climate change.  According to the Guardian: The world’s most high-profile climate change sceptic is to declare that global warming is “undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today” and “a challenge humanity must confront”, in an apparent U-turn …

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Climate Change and El Nino

From dot.earth: Federal researchers have published work concluding that a particular variant of the periodic El Niño warmups of the tropical Pacific Ocean is becoming more frequent and stronger. The pattern appears to fit what is expected from human-driven warming of the global climate, said the researchers . . . The 2009-2010 El Nino event …

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Climate Integrity

A major British report has been issued relating to the famous pirated emails from East Anglia.  The report concludes: Climate science is a matter of such global importance, that the highest standards of honesty, rigour and openness are needed in its conduct. On the specific allegations made against the behaviour of CRU scientists, we find …

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