This post is not only informative, but, for those who can’t wait until next year’s Talk like a Pirate day, (mark your calendar, 9/19/11) – listening to an Aus-trilian talk to a Kiwi is the next best thing.
For a quick lesson on comparing and contrasting Aussie and Kiwi dialects, see below:
Aerial tour of a large solar array near Sarnia, Ontario (42 degrees north latitude) Canada seems the unlikely location for the world’s largest solar photovoltaic array, but, for now, that is the case. Ontario has one of the most ambitious renewable energy plans in the world. The program is based on a “Feed in Tariff” model, similar to arrangements that have been successful in Europe. As a recent study pointed out, the cost to the average ratepayer is about equal to buying one Tim Horton Doughnut per month.
A quick glance at this NOAA generated image shows how the Arctic warming/continental cooling situation remains over North America and Eurasia.
If you compare this to my recent postings on the topic, you’ll see that the arctic warm anomaly is even more extreme in the current 5 day average, covering a wider area and especially intense around the Northern Canada/Hudson Bay area.
Meanwhile, further reporting on the issue helps clarify some of the paradox.
Continue reading “Today’s NOAA Image: Cold Continents/Warm Arctic continues”
Global Warming or Climate Change?
Deniers fancy themselves sharp cultural sleuths ferreting out Orwellian linguistic games in the back and forth between “Climate Change” and “Global Warming”. See if you think so after watching this.
Video gurus weigh in. I keep getting a mismatch in the audio during the segment between about 4:30 and 6:00. It doesn’t happen when I play it locally on my HD, and it doesn’t seem to happen during other parts of the vid.
??
I get this all the time. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is only 390 parts per MILLION! How can that possibly make a difference?
Dan Miller has a simple visual demonstration.
Admiral David Titley has an example on this issue – which goes as follows, — the portion of Co2 in the atmosphere is now about 390 parts per million, (ppm) or .039 percent — assuming a ‘business as usual’ approach to emissions, experts expect that level could reach over 800 ppm toward the end of this century.
To compare that to something readers may be familiar with, a blood alcohol level of .039 percent puts a party goer well on their way to intoxication. If we increase our blood alcohol to 800 ppm or .08 percent, we are legally impaired. If your denier friend still insists that such trace levels of a substance can have no effect, – have him tell it to a judge.
Titley’s presentation to the American Meteorological Society is here.
The Science Guy for Climate wonks is back, with a characteristically simple explanation for how we know the current CO2 rise is man made.
Naomi Oreske’s recent book was the topic of a recent post. Here she is in person, outlining the basic facts of the American Denial of Global Warming.
And a related video describing the hidden army of interest groups that shape public dialogue.
This piece by Peter Watts has been making it’s way around the blogosphere, and rattling in my subconscious, for a year or so. The original is here. I post what I think is the more salient portion below.
Continue reading “Why Science Works, even when Scientists are A-holes.”
If you are looking for a good primer on how the world managed to so badly bungle and delay action on the climate issue, you could do much worse than Naomi Oreske and Erik Conway’s book, Merchants of Doubt – “the troubling story of how a cadre of influential scientists have clouded public understanding of scientific facts to advance a political and economic agenda.”
The book describes how a series of science based public policy issues, the cases of Smoking and Cancer, DDT, Acid rain, Ozone depletion, and manmade climate change, became confused, distorted and clouded in the public mind, by a small group of right wing scientists, who perfected a template for delaying regulatory actions even when science clearly indicates the need.
The Dean of the Doubt merchants is probably Fred Singer, and the portrait of Singer in the book is not a flattering one. Which is probably why he felt he had to attempt a feeble hit job in the only media outlet with standards low enough to accept it, the execrable American Thinker.
Tim Lambert, John Cook, and Scott Mandia have covered the story.
The image above was generated by a great web page from NOAA’s Earth System Research Lab
If you look at the temperature scale, and then at the chart, you can see the large swaths of cold air that have spilled out of the arctic, and are covering parts of Europe, North America, and Eurasia. And, you can also note how much warm air has been drawn up into the Arctic, causing temperatures that are 5, 10 and even 15+ degrees C warmer than normal.(the temps are anomalies, ie how much warmer or cooler than compared to the 1968-1996 mean)
Continue reading “Denialists: Winter is cold, So There is no Global Warming”
