Since Ban Ki Moon’s Washington Post op-ed, drought and Darfur seems to be on the agenda. Today, AP moved this feature, which seems to be getting widespread play: Decades of drought helped trigger Darfur’s violence as rival groups fought over scarce water and arable land. Now, experts fear the war and its refugee crisis are …
On the heels of Europe’s remarkable summer of 2003, last autumn and winter were anomalously warm – as much as three standard deviations from normal, likely the warmest in 500 years, according to Luterbacher et. al in GRL. ((Exceptional European warmth of autumn 2006 and winter 2007: Historical context, the underlying dynamics, and its phenological …
A group of climate modelers at Lawrence Livermore and elsewhere has taken issue (in the peer-reviewed literature) with an argument made by Roger Pielke Sr. and others that the models cannot adequately explain variability in ocean temperatures: Using simulations of 20th century climate performed with 13 numerical models, we demonstrate that the apparent discrepancy between …
Conditions in Georgia are not the worst you’ll find in the southeast, but they look plenty bad – so bad that in this age of cool URL’s, someone down there had the foresight to register GeorgiaDrought.org. From last week’s drought monitor: In Alabama, 68 percent of the cotton crop, 48 percent of peanuts, and 78 …
The Audubon Society got a lot of media traction last week with its report on Birds in Decline. But Michael Tobis has sussed out a problem: The number of species increasing in abundance exceeds the number in decline!!! As Michael pointed out in a followup post: Reason requires fair attention to evidence. It is necessary …
From Zhengxin: In a problem that is pervasive in much of China, over-farming has drawn down the water table so low that desert is overtaking farmland. Authorities have ordered farmers here in Gansu province to vacate their properties over the next 3 1/2 years, and will replace 20 villages with newly planted grass in a …
Bikes on the train Originally uploaded by bhaskins1. The photographer known as bhaskins1 offers up some great evidence that Albuquerque is warming to the idea of throwing its collective bicycle on the train for its morning commute. . (Check out the other bike photos taken by bhaskins1.)
Jim Belshaw on walking into his house upon discovering that his old Datsun pickup had been stolen: Here’s the worst part: As I rushed back into the house to tell Liz, I couldn’t stop thinking that this was going to make a good column. Once again, Philip Roth came to mind. He said nothing that …
paper of the day: From Jia-Lin Lin at the Climate Diagnostics Center in Boulder, more evidence that the models don’t get El Nino right real climate: From the Climate Prediction Center: La Nina’s roaring back real climate II: I saw on yesterday’s bike ride that the Rio Grande is back down, under 1,300 cubic feet …
My attempt at sketching in the background behind the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee’s proposed cuts in the U.S. nuclear weapons program: Nuclear weapons spending has long seemed an entitlement for New Mexico. With two of the nation’s three nuclear weapons laboratories located here, a big chunk of the U.S. nuclear weapons budget is …