‘Climate’ Archives
An online model of methane in the atmosphere
I’ve put together an easy-to-play-with online model of methane in the atmosphere. I’m going to use it for teaching along with the rest of the Understanding the Forecast webmodels, but it was designed to be relevant to the issue of abrupt new methane burps as we’ve been ruminating about lately on Realclimate. The model runs in [...]
Fear and Polluting on the Campaign Trail: Clean Energy Needs to Fight Back in 2012
“Politics is the art of controlling your environment.” — Hunter S. Thompson I’ve been writing for years about how renewable energy is “an issue we can all rally around” that shouldn’t involve partisan politics. In an ideal world that would hold true. But after seeing the relentless campaign waged by a [...]
Senate Staff Play Bizarre Office Pool on Wildfires
by Sarah Laskow, reposted from Grist Last summer, wildfires sped by drought turned large chunks of Texas into a moonscape. Nationally, 2011 saw the third worst wildfire season in the United States since 1960: More than 8.7 million acres of land burned. It’s the job of congressional staffers working on energy and natural resources issues to [...]
Iran, Electric Cars, and Our Stuck Narrative: Gas-Powered Vehicles Catch Fire 180,000 Times a Year
by Randy Essex, cross-posted from the Rocky Mountain Institute With Iran threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, chokepoint for the passage of 17 percent of globally traded oil, this is a good time to introduce myself to Outlet readers. This set of issues—oil addiction and the vehicle-centric, land-abusing society it engenders—has a lot [...]
Masters: “It Is Very Likely That This Has Been the Driest First Week of January in U.S. Recorded History”
Remarkably Dry and Warm Winter Due to “Most Extreme Configuration of the Jet Stream Ever Recorded” by Jeff Masters, reposted from WunderBlog Flowers are sprouting in January in New Hampshire, the Sierra Mountains in California are nearly snow-free, and lakes in much of Michigan still have not frozen. It’s 2012, and the new year is [...]
An Arctic methane worst-case scenario
Let’s suppose that the Arctic started to degas methane 100 times faster than it is today. I just made that number up trying to come up with a blow-the-doors-off surprise, something like the ozone hole. We ran the numbers to get an idea of how the climate impact of an Arctic Methane Nasty Surprise would stack up to that from [...]
Hansen et al: “Extreme Heat Waves … in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 Were ‘Caused’ by Global Warming”
“Climate dice,” describing the chance of unusually warm or cool seasons relative to climatology, have become progressively “loaded” in the past 30 years, coincident with rapid global warming. The distribution of seasonal mean temperature anomalies has shifted toward higher temperatures and the range of anomalies has increased. An [...]
Great Video of New Hampshire Farmer Trying to Save Maple Syrup from Climate Change
In the past five decades, winter temperatures in the Northeastern U.S. have risen by 4 degrees F, causing noticeable changes in levels of snow and ice during the slowly shortening winter months. The trend was recently highlighted by 50 scientists in New Hampshire, who wrote an open letter to GOP candidates campaigning in the state, asking them to [...]
‘Job-Killing’ EPA Regulations for Chesapeake Bay Will Create 35 Times as Many Jobs as Keystone XL Pipeline
by Michael Conathan If rhetoric from the Republican Presidential candidates is to be believed, the Environmental Protection Agency is “a tool to crush the private enterprise system” (Mitt Romney), “a cemetery for jobs” (Rick Perry), and “should be re-named the job-killing organization of America” (Michele Bachmann). But it’s a safe [...]
IEA: World on Pace for 11°F Warming, “Even School Children Know This Will Have Catastrophic Implications for All of Us”
The International Energy Agency was once a staid and conservative organization that people ignored because it was staid and conservative. Now people ignore the IEA because it has become a blunt truth teller on oil and climate (see World’s top energy economist warns peak oil threatens recovery, urges immediate action: “We have to leave oil [...]
