Row over IPCC Report
Robert Mendick of the Daily Telegraph reported this week about behind-the-scenes wrangling over the up-coming publication of the 2,000-page Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
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Gorgeous Glimpses of Calamity
“Welcome to the Anthropocene.” That is the message of a stunning collection of satellite images recently compiled by the New York Times.
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How Extreme Australian Rains Made Global Sea Levels Drop
Global sea level has been rising as a result of global warming, but in 2010 and 2011, sea level actually fell by about a quarter of an inch. Scientists now say they know why: It has to do with extreme weather in Australia. The sea level drop coincided with some of the worst flooding in…
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West Antarctica Warmed Quickly: 20,000 Years Ago
The modern meltdown of the Antarctic Ice Sheet mirrors the frozen continent’s big thaw after the last ice age ended 20,000 years ago, a new study finds. New ice core records from West Antarctica show the huge ice sheet started heating up about 20,000 to 22,000 years ago, 2,000 to 4,000 years earlier than previously…
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Mass extinctions: Small but deadly
AS EVERY schoolchild knows, the dinosaurs were wiped out in an instant, when a rock from outer space hit what is now southern Mexico. That happened 66m years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period. Well-informed schoolchildren also know that this mass extinction was neither unique nor the biggest. The geological record speaks of…
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101 Top Web Resources on Climate Change
EnvironmentalScienceDegree.com is an enormously helpful platform for anything and everything environmental. Their mission is to help environmentally conscious professionals and those seeking an education in the field to move forward. Recently, they have compiled a list of 101 Web Resources on Climate Change. As an incredibly complex and controversial topic, it is difficult to find…
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Hot Climate Scientists in Cool Places
Ecology is the new theology and women in climate science rock! “Climate Wake-Up” was the title of Connie’s and my four-church speaking tour in Kentucky in early May. The star of our illustrated talks turned out to be the northern jet stream — and how the 2012 record melt of Arctic sea ice has already…
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Cutting Carbon Dioxide Isn’t Enough
According to data being gathered at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, which has been monitoring atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1958, the CO2 concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere officially exceeded the 400 parts per million mark last week, a value not attained on Earth since humans were first human. This ominous milestone comes at a…
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400 PPM: Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere Reaches Prehistoric Levels
On May 2, after nightfall shut down photosynthesis for the day in Hawaii, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere touched 400 parts-per-million there for the first time in at least 800,000 years. Near the summit of volcanic Mauna Loa—where a member of the Keeling family has kept watch since 1958—sensors measured this record through sunrise…
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After Catastrophe
For a lesson in the compounding effects of surprising events, go back to a March afternoon in 2011: A powerful earthquake hits 40 miles off the eastern coast of Japan. The country’s building codes ensure that most structures can cope with even this major stress, but a resulting tsunami pounds the shore, unexpectedly breaches the…
