James Hansen and company have a new paper attempting to define “dangerous climate interference” and suggest where we currently stand relative to their chosen standard. Their answer? Close: We examine potential criteria for dangerous climate change assuming that humanity wants to preserve planetary conditions similar to those in the period of civilization, thus near the …
Stuff I wrote elsewhere: Mosquitoes feasted Tuesday morning on dignitaries who gathered in the Rio Grande bosque to commemorate the release of the millionth Rio Grande silvery minnow. The minnow release was a celebration of efforts to save the fish from extinction. The mosquitoes were a reminder of an especially wet spring— nature cooperating with …
New NASA data shows accelerated snowmelt in Greenland: To understand why these trends are important to track, Tedesco explained one of the consequences of melting snow. “Although wet and dry snow look similar at first glance, wet and re-frozen snow absorb more of the sun’s radiation, reflecting only 50-60 percent back into the atmosphere. Dry …
Six Month Standardized Precipitation Index Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. Not exactly what you’d expect from an El Nino winter, when the typical pattern is to have wet anomalies across the southern tier of states in the continental U.S. and drier weather to the north. As obsessed as I am with southwestern climate, if you judge …
cactus flowers May 2007 Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. Lissa’s picture of one of her front yard cactus. In the desert, when it rains, they’re happy. And this May, it has rained.
There’s a longstanding debate about whether we should use “climate change” or “global warming” in describe the global climate change-warming thingie. In that regard, this data from Google’s new search terms trends monitoring tool: This is the relative use by people searching on Google of the terms “global warming” (blue line) and “climate change” (red …
Brad Udall at the Western Water Assessment has written an extremely helpful summary of the history of research into the effects of climate change on the Colorado River. It is interesting to note a consistent message in nearly 30 years of work on this question: the sign is nearly always negative. There’s not a whole …
Roger Pielke Sr. and I have been having a polite disagreement today over at his blog on how to think about Richard Seager’s paper last month in Science on the risk of future drought in the southwest. Roger argues Seager’s work is contradicted by a 1997 paper by Trenberth and Hoar arguing for stronger El …
the “canary in the climate change coal mine” wine (see also Napa Valley) the boreal forests of Quebec Perth Australian ski resorts the Sahel polar bears trout Alaska (see also the Arctic, which has been subject to expert peer review) the Northeast (this would be US) mountains November Tuvalu Flamingo (the former Florida town, not …
An example of framing in the statement out today from the national academies of 13 nations: Major investments and successful technological and institutional innovation will be needed to achieve better energy efficiency, low- or zero-carbon energy sources and carbon-removing schemes. A clear area for increased investment is energy conservation and efficiency. This has immediate and …