Month: January 2011

How Hot was it?

From Hot Topic:

All of the major global temperature series — surface and satellite — report that 2010 is tied for first place as the warmest year in the long term record. NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center both have 2010 tied with their previous record holder 2005, while the UK’s Climatic Research Unit and the satellite series from the University of Alabama Huntley(sic)  report that 2010 is tied with 1998.

As they note, even the much touted ( by deniers) Satellite Data series from the University of Alabama at Huntsville, (UAH) show 2010 as tied for the warmest year in the record. (Satellite data, we’re told, has not been corrupted by evil scientists roasting weenies under the temp stations..)

Continue reading “2010 was so Hot…”

Training for Emergency Descent from 300 Foot Wind Turbine.

Base Jumping from Wind Turbines

If you go out and try this I will deny all knowledge of posting this video.  There’s a block on embedding by Sony, but it’s worth clicking the “Watch on YouTube” link.

Help wanted: Must not be afraid of heights or confined spaces. The pay is good and the openings are sky high.

Quote:

“Besides being able to take care of my family, I am also being able to take care of my community and the nation at large just by doing my daily work activities.”

It’s a testimonial that lot of Washington Think Tank wonks, Wall Street Wonders, or MBA whiz kids can only dream of.

Continue reading “Wind Technician Training”

“Nobody gripes about them at all and everybody that’s got them is plum happy.” – Edward Koester, Logan County, CO

Climate deniers hate wind power. The giant turbines have become welcome additions to the landscape in rural areas around the country, and the world, and they provide irrefutable evidence that renewable energy is here, it’s real, and it works.  Wind has been a leading source of new electrical capacity in the US for several years now.

Iowa was the first state to get more than 10 percent of its energy from wind, currently generates between 17 and 20 percent of its electricity from wind, and is heading toward much more.

Continue reading “Keeping Farmers on the Land with Wind Energy”

Katey Walter Anthony is one of the world’s leading experts on northern arctic lakes. She has been studying and sounding an alarm about the increasing production of methane, a greenhouse gas many times as powerful as CO2, as the permafrost melts and organic matter becomes available at hundreds of thousands of lakebottoms in Siberia, northern Canada, and Alaska.

Watching Methane explosions is like eating potato chips. Addictive. More after the jump.

Continue reading “Hunting for Methane with Katey Walter Anthony”

Will the mass media finally get it about climate?  Maybe this is a good sign.

NCAR researcher Jeffrey Kiehl discusses his piece in the current issue of Science.

Building on recent research, the study examines the relationship between global temperatures and high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere tens of millions of years ago. It warns that, if carbon dioxide emissions continue at their current rate through the end of this century, atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas will reach levels that last existed about 30 million to 100 million years ago, when global temperatures averaged about 29 degrees Fahrenheit (16 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels.

Much more at Climate Progress.