Who created the global warming “pause”? In a major report [PDF] released late last month, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading authority on climate science, told us it was more certain than ever that humans are causing global warming.
It also upgraded its projections for sea-level rise by the end of the century, and even broached the subject of climate change’s irreversibility: We may already have done so much harm to the Earth that some of it can’t be undone in our lifetimes, or even in the lifetimes of future generations as far out as most of us can imagine. This, you might think, would be quite a media story. Yet instead, something funny happened on the way from the scientists’ heads to the public’s ears, and many journalists instead embraced a very different narrative — in many ways, almost the opposite narrative.
Global warming, they suggested, had “paused” or was slowing down. And scientists didn’t really understand why. Four Hiroshima bombs a second: How we imagine climate change. The planet is building up heat at the equivalent of four Hiroshima bombs worth of energy every second.
And 90 percent of that heat is going into the oceans. Right, now I've got your attention. It's widely acknowledged that we need to keep climate change below 2C to avoid catastrophic impacts on society. To do so we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But this makes for tough choices for our leaders and for ourselves. Last Hours. Last Hours. New finding shows climate change can happen in a geological instant. (Phys.org) —"Rapid" and "instantaneous" are words geologists don't use very often.
But Rutgers geologists use these exact terms to describe a climate shift that occurred 55 million years ago. In a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Morgan Schaller and James Wright contend that following a doubling in carbon dioxide levels, the surface of the ocean turned acidic over a period of weeks or months and global temperatures rose by 5 degrees centigrade – all in the space of about 13 years. Scientists previously thought this process happened over 10,000 years. Wright, a professor of earth and planetary sciences in the School of Arts and Sciences and Schaller, a research associate, say the finding is significant in considering modern-day climate change.
"We've shown unequivocally what happens when CO2 increases dramatically – as it is now, and as it did 55 million years ago," Wright said. The Oceans are Dying: Oxygen is Depleting, Acidity Rising at Fastest Rate in 300,000,000 Years. Oxygen levels are dropping and ocean waters are acidifying at the fastest rate in at least 300 million years when the greatest marine extinction in earth's history took place according to The State of the Ocean Report 2013 written by an international panel of marine scientists.
Today's explosive increase in human CO2 emissions and warming of the oceans are recreating the conditions of the great Permian extinction 300 million years ago when massive volcanic eruptions in Siberia triggered the release of enormous amounts of stored carbon. A leading theory is that deoxygenation and acidification of the oceans led to the bacterial production of toxic hydrogen sulfide gas which poisoned species dependent on oxygen. Earth; The Pale Blue Dot. Climate Change: It’s Real, and It’s Us. Photo by peasap on Flickr/NASA/Phil Plait Climate change is real.
The Earth is warming up. Moreover, by implication and by fact: Climate change deniers are wrong. Researchers Find Historic Ocean Acidification Levels: 'The Next Mass Extinction May Have Already Begun' By Katie Valentine "Researchers Find Historic Ocean Acidification Levels: ‘The Next Mass Extinction May Have Already Begun’" An Elkhorn coral bleached by record-hot water in 2005.
The oceans are more acidic now than they’ve been at any time in the last 300 million years, conditions that marine scientists warn could lead to a mass extinction of key species. Scientists from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) published their State of the Oceans report Thursday, a biennial study that surveys how oceans are responding to human impacts. Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond? Black is white and white is black HIV does not cause AIDS.
The world was created in 4004 BCE. Smoking does not cause cancer. And if climate change is happening, it is nothing to do with man-made CO2 emissions. Few, if any, of the readers of this journal will believe any of these statements. More Bad News For Fracking: IPCC Warns Methane Traps Much More Heat Than We Thought. By Joe Romm "More Bad News For Fracking: IPCC Warns Methane Traps Much More Heat Than We Thought" Methane leaks in Boston area.
Yellow indicates methane levels above 2.5 parts per million. Via NY Times. Naomi Klein Redux: Capitalism And Climate. By Joe Romm "Naomi Klein Redux: Capitalism And Climate — Can This Marriage Be Saved?
" My recent article critiquing a Naomi Klein interview engendered among the most positive and negative reactions I have ever received. I take that to mean it hit one or more major cleavage points for readers — how one feels about the major environmental groups’ effort in the failed cap-and-trade bill and, more broadly, how one feels about capitalism. Australia has 'much to lose' from climate change. Stronger evidence climate change man-made Scientists say it's clear human activities are to blame for the earth's warming in the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 26, 2013.
Four Hiroshima bombs a second: How we imagine climate change. Global warming hasn't stopped; the climate is heating up. The latest climate change denial claim before the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment report on Friday is global warming stopped in 1998. A slowing in the observed rate of global warming has prompted dubious suggestions that temperatures have not increased significantly in the past 15 years. It's true that, after rising rapidly in the 1990s, average temperature increases at the Earth's surface have slowed since 1998.
But warming hasn't stopped. More Bad News For Fracking: IPCC Warns Methane Traps Much More Heat Than We Thought. Australia Has its Hottest September as Fire Threat Grows. Winter may just be ending in Australia, but temperatures are already summerlike. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - NOAA: Past Decade Warmest on Record According to Scientists in 48 Countries. Earth has been growing warmer for more than fifty years July 28, 2010 The 2009 State of the Climate report released today draws on data for 10 key climate indicators that all point to the same finding: the scientific evidence that our world is warming is unmistakable.
More than 300 scientists from 160 research groups in 48 countries contributed to the report, which confirms that the past decade was the warmest on record and that the Earth has been growing warmer over the last 50 years. Based on comprehensive data from multiple sources, the report defines 10 measurable planet-wide features used to gauge global temperature changes. The relative movement of each of these indicators proves consistent with a warming world. The report emphasizes that human society has developed for thousands of years under one climatic state, and now a new set of climatic conditions are taking shape. Two Tweets and a Lie! Greenpeace Responds to Heartland Institute.
Global Warming : Feature Articles. Earth has experienced climate change in the past without help from humanity. We know about past climates because of evidence left in tree rings, layers of ice in glaciers, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. For example, bubbles of air in glacial ice trap tiny samples of Earth’s atmosphere, giving scientists a history of greenhouse gases that stretches back more than 800,000 years.
The chemical make-up of the ice provides clues to the average global temperature. See the Earth Observatory’s series Paleoclimatology for details about how scientists study past climates. Glacial ice and air bubbles trapped in it (top) preserve an 800,000-year record of temperature & carbon dioxide. Using this ancient evidence, scientists have built a record of Earth’s past climates, or “paleoclimates.” Strong Winds - Is-News-Corp-Failing-Science.pdf. Don't believe the latest lie: There is no "pause" in global warming. One more look, this time in greater detail, at that bogus global warming “pause” you’re going to be hearing so much about shortly. My guess is that Chuck Todd will be one of those bringing the non-story to you, because … well … Chuck Todd.
But hey, watch the Sunday shows as well; they’ll all be hammering the soon-to-be-released fifth assessment report (AR5) from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is due out momentarily. The mainstream media will be denier central (“on the one hand, on the other hand”) for as long as the report is news, and as long they’re paid by climate-denying corporations to report it. We talked about why the “pause” is bogus, and presented a global heating chart — what heat gets absorbed where — as evidence. But I didn’t explain the dynamic, so here it is. Researchers warn record temperatures could hit as early as 2020.
Updated Thu 10 Oct 2013, 2:02pm AEDT. A proposed megamine in the remote Galilee Basin, Queensland, Australia. Rupert Murdoch. Denialism. Environmentalists Must Face Down the Anti-Science in Their Own House – denialism blog. How can environmental groups and media outlets maintain that they are advocates of science, and not ideology, when they engage in the anti-science Luddism of GMO fearmongering?
A brief history of climate science. Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond? Why greenhouse gases heat the ocean. Guest commentary by Peter Minnett (RSMAS) Observations of ocean temperatures have revealed that the ocean heat content has been increasing significantly over recent decades (Willis et al, 2004; Levitus et al, 2005; Lyman et al, 2006). This is something that has been predicted by climate models (and confirmed notably by Hansen et al, 2005), and has therefore been described as a ‘smoking gun’ for human-caused greenhouse gases.
However, some have insisted that there is a paradox here – how can a forcing driven by longwave absorption and emission impact the ocean below since the infrared radiation does not penetrate more than a few micrometers into the ocean? Scrapping the carbon tax will lead to electricity price rises: report - Breakfast. A new report out today says that the Coalition’s promise to end carbon pricing in Australia would lead to higher wholesale energy prices. Debunking_Handbook.pdf. Event horizon: the black hole in The Australian's climate change coverage. MEDIA & DEMOCRACY - Michael Ashley investigates the national paper’s op-ed policy. Debunking the persistent myth that global warming stopped in 1998. Facing the reality of climate change. Scientists as certain of climate change as they are that smoking kills -The Common Sense CanadianThe Common Sense Canadian. By Seth Borenstein – Associated Press WASHINGTON – Top scientists from a variety of fields say they are about as certain that global warming is a real, man-made threat as they are that cigarettes kill.
IPCC report will make no difference in culture of denial - World Change Cafe. Scientists Call for Overhaul of IPCC. IPCC Fifth Assessment Report: more certainty, not much news. The new IPCC climate report. New U.N. report: Humans responsible for climate change. What 95% certainty of warming means to scientists. Attacks on Climate Change Science Hinder Solutions. 4 Climate Myths You'll Hear This Week. A Climate Alarm, Too Muted for Some. Global Warming and Extreme Weather – #climate #agw. Media Watch on Climate Change. How the Religious Right Is Fueling Climate Change Denial. On letters from climate-change deniers.