Warmer water is exacerbating problems in the oceans
at 9:53 am on Sunday, 29 November 2009
The fishermen of Kokongi, Japan, have seen record hauls this year. They are not, however, very happy. Their nets are trapping jellyfish: giant, gelatinous, wobbly and worthless. Jellyfish were once rare along these shores, but are now an almost annual occurrence.
It is the same story in many other parts of the world. Jellyfish are blamed for damaging fishing, shutting down power and desalination plants, and upsetting swimmers.
(The Economist, November 17, 2009)
Why political orthodoxy must not silence scientific argument
at 9:28 am on Sunday, 29 November 2009
A majority of the world’s climate scientists have convinced themselves, and also a lot of laymen, some of whom have political power, that the Earth’s climate is changing; that the change, from humanity’s point of view, is for the worse; and that the cause is human activity, in the form of excessive emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. A minority, though, are sceptical. Some think that recent, well-grounded data suggesting the Earth’s average temperature is rising are explained by natural variations in solar radiation, and that this trend may be coming to an end. Others argue that longer-term evidence that modern temperatures are higher than they have been for hundreds or thousands of years is actually too flaky to be meaningful.
(The Economist, November 26, 2009)
Why the hammerhead shark got its hammer
at 7:53 am on Saturday, 28 November 2009
It’s one of evolution’s most eccentric creations: a head shaped like a hammer. Now, a study suggests that the hammerhead shark may have evolved its oddly shaped snout to boost the animal’s vision and hunting prowess.
(New Scientist, November 27, 2009)
Hacked E-Mail Data Prompts Calls for Changes in Climate Research
at 6:59 am on Saturday, 28 November 2009
http://tr.im/G1j1 Some prominent climate scientists are calling for changes in the way research on global warming is conducted after a British university said thousands of private e-mail messages and documents had been stolen from its climate center.
(New York Times, November 28, 2009)
Oceans getting slow in absorbing carbon dioxide: study
at 9:00 am on Friday, 27 November 2009
http://tr.im/FWI1 WASHINGTON, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) — The world’s oceans appear to be slowing their pace in absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2), a worrying signal for global warming, a study has found.
Yale professor Jeffrey Park reached the conclusion by using data collected over the past 50 years from atmospheric observing stations in Hawaii, Alaska and the Antarctica to study the relationship between fluctuations in global temperatures and the global abundance of atmospheric CO2 on interannual (one to 10 years) time scales.
(China View, November 25, 2009)
The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Climate Science Report
at 9:01 am on Thursday, 26 November 2009
http://copenhagendiagnosis.org/ This is one of the most often quoted studies on our subject. It is best read if you download the pdf, or the PowerPoint version. Jimalakirti
It is more than three years since the drafting of text was completed for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). In the meantime, many hundreds of papers have been published on a suite of topics related to human-induced climate change.
The purpose of this report is to synthesize the most policy-relevant climate science published since the close-off of material for the last IPCC report.
An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth’s global energy — Kevin E. Trenberth
at 8:46 am on Thursday, 26 November 2009
http://tr.im/FRcu This study is referred to in about 90% of articles and comments you will read about global warming, so I thought it a good idea to just make it available here. Jimalakirti
Planned adaptation to climate change requires information about what is happening and why. While a long-term trend is for global warming, short-term periods of cooling can occur and have physical causes associated with natural variability. However, such natural variability means that energy is rearranged or changed within the climate system, and should be traceable. An assessment is given of our ability to track changes in reservoirs and flows of energy within the climate system. Arguments are given that developing the ability to do this is important, as it affects interpretations of global and especially regional climate change, and prospects for the future.
The CRU hack: Context (a continuation)
http://tr.im/FGsI This is a continuation of the last thread which is getting a little unwieldy. The emails cover a 13 year period in which many things happened, and very few people are up to speed on some of the long-buried issues. So to save some time, I’ve pulled a few bits out of the comment thread that shed some light on some of the context which is missing in some of the discussion of various emails.
(Real Climate, November 23, 2009)
New evidence for ancient, ice-free Arctic
at 10:37 am on Tuesday, 24 November 2009
What will the Arctic look like in a warming global climate? Researchers at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, believe they’ve caught a glimpse thanks to fossils from the Late Cretaceous, a period that experienced greenhouse conditions.
The Late Cretaceous, the period between 100 and 65 million years ago leading up to the extinction of the dinosaurs, saw high levels of carbon dioxide. However, scientists have disagreed about the climate at this time, with some arguing for low winter temperatures in the Arctic — where sunlight is absent during the polar night — as against more recent suggestions of a somewhat milder 15°C mean annual temperature.
(Climate Change, July 9, 2009)
Tiny shrimp, other creatures have big impact on ocean mixing
at 10:25 am on Tuesday, 24 November 2009
http://tr.im/FGhO Winds and tides might not be the only ocean-mixing factors affecting climate change; two scientists from the California Institute of Technology say marine-dwelling creatures could also have a significant impact as they swim through the seas.
Researchers Kakani Katija and John Dabiri at the California Institute of Technology have developed a way to estimate the extent of “biogenic” mixing by marine animals.
(Greenbang, November 23, 2009)
What do the hacked CRU emails tell us?
http://tr.im/FGaQ Earlier this week, the servers at the University of East Anglia were illegally hacked. Emails dating back to 1996 were stolen and leaked onto the web. Phil Jones, the director of the Climate Research Unit, has confirmed the emails are not forgeriesalthough there is over 60Mb worth of material – they can’t guarantee all of it is genuine. What does it all mean? Michelle Malkin labels it the global warming scandal of the century (of course the century is only 9 years old but even ‘scandal of the decade’ would be no mean feat). James Delingpole at the UK Telegraph claims the emails are the final nail in the coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’? So just what do these emails tell us?
(Skeptical Science, November 22, 2009)
The CRU hack
http://tr.im/FG5Q As many of you will be aware, a large number of emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia webmail server were hacked recently (Despite some confusion generated by Anthony Watts, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Hadley Centre which is a completely separate institution). As people are also no doubt aware the breaking into of computers and releasing private information is illegal, and regardless of how they were obtained, posting private correspondence without permission is unethical. We therefore aren’t going to post any of the emails here. We were made aware of the existence of this archive last Tuesday morning when the hackers attempted to upload it to RealClimate, and we notified CRU of their possible security breach later that day.
(Climate Science, November 20)
Ants Eat Well, Thanks to Bacteria
at 9:13 am on Tuesday, 24 November 2009
http://tr.im/FFVf Tropical leaf-cutter ants can’t eat without a little help from their microbial friends. The insects drag inedible leaves into their massive subterranean lairs, where “gardens” of fungi break them down into a palatable, spongy white material. Meanwhile, bacteria keep the fungi healthy by secreting antibiotics. Now, it turns out that another microbe is needed to ensure that the ant has a balanced diet.
(Science Now, November 19, 2009)
Slideshow: Ancient Crocs With a Dog-Like Walk
at 9:06 am on Tuesday, 24 November 2009
http://tr.im/FFSU Darwin’s finches have nothing on these crocodiles. Paleontologists Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago in Illinois and Hans Larsson of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, have discovered the 100-million-year-old remains of five monstrous and surprisingly diverse species of crocodile relatives in Niger and Morocco. Despite their differences, the crocs shared an unexpected characteristic: They ran high-up on all fours like mammals.
(Science Now, November 19, 2009)
Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
at 8:58 am on Tuesday, 24 November 2009
http://tr.im/FFPl It still surprises me when I hear skeptics claim there is no evidence that we’re causing global warming. The evidence is there in the peer reviewed literature. What they’re really saying is they haven’t bothered to look. So to make things easier for everyone, here is the evidence that humans are causing global warming. It’s not based on theory, climate models, faith or political ideology but on direct, empirical observations.
(Skeptical Science, October 1, 2009)
Solved: X tonnes of CO2 = Y degrees of warming
at 8:25 am on Tuesday, 24 November 2009
http://tr.im/FFFU A team of UK and Canadian researchers have found a direct link between carbon dioxide emissions and global temperature changes.
The team used a combination of global climate models and historical climate data to show that there is a simple linear relationship between total cumulative emissions and global temperature change. The findings are being published today in the journal Nature.
(Greenbang, June 11, 2009)
Insects have farmed monocultures longer than we have
at 8:04 am on Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Modern agriculture’s dependence on monoculture crops — vast fields of nothing but corn, wheat or soybeans — has been widely criticised lately for being unsustainable. However, a new study reports on how farming ants and termites have successfully used monoculture techniques far longer than we have.
While humans have developed agriculture only in the past 10,000 years or so, certain insects have had tens of millions of years to evolve their fungus farming techniques, a team of researchers writes this week in the journal Science. By all appearances, those techniques are stable and sustainable, conclude the scientists from the Laboratory of Genetics of Wageningen University and the Centre for Social Evolution at the University of Copenhagen.
(Greenbang, November 20, 2009)
Hacked E-Mail Is New Fodder for Climate Dispute
at 6:29 am on Sunday, 22 November 2009
http://tr.im/FuuU Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change.
(New York Times, November 22, 2009)
Dino Mites: A Diminutive Dinosaur in North America and a Rare Mass Death of Young Relatives in China
at 8:13 am on Saturday, 21 November 2009
http://tr.im/Fr5Z Just as the African savannas aren’t all lions and tigers, North America’s late Cretaceous wasn’t all tyrannosaurs and triceratops. Researchers have found remains of the continent’s smallest dinosaur, according to a new study. TheHesperonychus elizabethae, which, according to the study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, probably looked a lot more like a bird than a tiny Tyrannosaurus Rex, is the first of its subfamily to be discovered outside of Asia and postdates the disappearance of its Asian cousins by about 45 million years.
(Scientific American, March 16, 2009)
Jurassic Start: Fossil Pushes Tyrannosaurs’ Origin Back 10 Million Years
at 8:05 am on Saturday, 21 November 2009
http://tr.im/FreK Tyrannosaurus rex and its relatives were North America’s dominant predators in the late Cretaceous period, about 99 million to 65 million years ago, but a new analysis of a toothy fossil skull suggests that the early history of this group includes smaller meat-eating ancestors that date as far back as 170 million years ago.
(Scientific American, November 9, 2009)
Are Algae Mass Murderers?
http://tr.im/Fph0 Algae seem harmless enough. These precursors to plants thrive throughout the world’s waters. But these single-celled plants have global consequences. We can thank them for oxygen in the atmosphere, oil in the lithosphere as well as dead zones in the oceans and now even a dead horse in France.
(Scientific American, November 13, 2009)
Good News — and Bad — for Coral Reefs
at 1:44 pm on Friday, 20 November 2009
http://tr.im/Fonh Reports show the ocean’s unique ecosystems are adapting to fluctuation in water temperatures likely caused by global warming, but increasing acidic levels may prove fatal for the world’s coral reefs.
(Miller-McCune Newsletter, November 20, 2009)
Vulcan Logic and the Missing Sink
at 1:12 pm on Friday, 20 November 2009
http://tr.im/Fogo Researchers studying a mashup of existing data are tracking exactly where carbon is entering — and exiting — the atmosphere.
(Miller-McCune Newsletter, November 20, 2009)
Climate Change Killing Trees in Countries Around the World
at 2:39 pm on Tuesday, 17 November 2009
http://tr.im/FaLk The world’s forests are being damaged by climate change-related heat and drought, even in areas not traditionally known for water shortages, U.S. Geological Survey researchers say in the first global assessment of tree deaths from heat stress and drought.
The findings highlight the very real risk that tree mortality could become a bigger problem as global climate change progresses.
(Solve Climate, November 17, 2009)
Scientists Need to Get Out More
http://tr.im/F9U5 Two books look at science illiteracy in America and report that it can be reversed if scientists emerge from the lab and start communicating.
(Miller-McCune Newsltter.com, November 17, 2009)