Sea Level Risk
For my Louisiana readers (reader?), Michael Tobis links to some maps showing areas at risk of sea level rise.
Archive of entries posted on October 2007
Drought From Orbit
This is one of my favorite views of U.S. climate, providing a quick and easy way to squint and get a feel for what’s going on across the entire continental U.S. It’s the USGS streamflow map, with color showing today’s flow relative to the long term mean for this date. Red’s dry, blue and back …
Climate Quiz
For the climate warriors in the audience, a quiz. Who said this? Mankind has a record of reacting after a disaster strikes. Dams are built after floods, not before. So far in human history, disasters have not taken place on a global scale. Therefore we don’t really have a tested mechanism for dealing with global …
Tallying Drought’s Horrifying Toll
More bad news out of Australia: “There’s no doubt that much of the estimated winter crop is now lost due to the ongoing dry conditions,” Macdonald said Saturday. “Wheat and barley are among those crops hardest hit — as a result we could see everything from bread to beer made in New South Wales cost …
The Virtues of Being Close to the Ground
I stumbled today on Kim Hannula’s delightful blog, in particular her post about hiking with her four-year-old son: He pointed to something that looked like white hairs on an over-excited yeti. Fibrous ice crystals, holding up pebbles and leaves and bits of frozen dirt. Every shadowed spot was covered with them, when we stopped and …
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The Devil in the Climate Change Details
So how do “they” know that the climate change we’re seeing is caused by people? There is no big “aha” smoking gun here, which is why the Nobel for the IPCC’s scientists is so appropriate. Our understanding is based on a long and laborious accumulation of little bits of science. Let me cite a single …
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The Drying of Atlanta
Watercrunch details the imminent drying of Atlanta. It’s worth remembering here that, as opposed to sub-Saharan Africa, likely no one will starve to death in Georgia. But it’s still a quite extraordinary situation: The thought of a huge city the size of Atlanta running out of water sounds apocalyptic in our age of progress.
Winning the Nobel: The Price of Fame
Trying to download a section of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report this morning, I’m getting a “server busy” message. One might argue that, from the perspective of getting one’s message out to the world, winning a Nobel Peace Prize is a good thing. Of course, it might just be a coincidence.
Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere
New Mexican Wins Nobel Peace Prize
Al Gore Wrong
There seems little point in commenting here about the Al Gore-Mr. Justice Burton kerfuffle, given that a) everyone who comes here and cares about climate issues already knows all about it, and b) everyone who comes here and cares about climate issues has already made up their mind about its significance. But since I’ll lose …