Written by Thomas Fuller, SF Environmental Policy Examiner | 08 March 2010

Penguins playing on the Antarctic ice

Recent months have brought to light data that has (or should have) reduced fears about some of the dramatic effects of global warming. It seems we no longer have to worry about Himalayan glaciers disappearing by 2035--the IPCC just got it wrong. It appears that the Amazon, African agriculture, damages due to hurricanes and floods and the continued existence of the polar bear are also at lower risk due to global warming than previously thought. Hallelujah!

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Written by Chip Knappenberger, MasterResource | 08 March 2010

Another error in the influential reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports has been identified. This one concerns the rate of expansion of sea ice around Antarctica.

While not an issue for estimates of future sea level rise (sea ice is floating ice which does not influence sea level), a significant expansion of Antarctic sea ice runs counter to climate model projections. As the errors in the climate change “assessment” reports from the IPCC mount, its aura of scientific authority erodes, and with it, the justification for using their findings to underpin national and international efforts to regulate greenhouse gases.

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Written by Fiona Harvey, Financial Times | 08 March 2010

Every night, Anthony Watts blogs on developments in a climate change scandal that he helped uncover. The routine has made the Californian meteorologist one of the most followed global warming sceptics in the world.

“It’s busier than ever – it’s hard to keep up,” says Mr Watts, a TV weatherman for 25 years who now sells weather equipment. “I’ve been blogging every day and some days I wish I could take a vacation.”

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Written by Stephen Dinan, Washington Times | 05 March 2010

[h/t climatedepot.com] Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be "an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach" to gut the credibility of skeptics.

In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of "being treated like political pawns" and need to fight back in kind. Their strategy includes forming a nonprofit group to organize researchers and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times.

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Written by James Jordan, Sky News Online | 05 March 2010

[h/t to Stephen] More than 1,000 people have been trapped on two passenger ferries and two cargo ships stuck in ice in the Baltic Sea off Sweden's east coast.

The vessels, which were among about 50 ships stuck firm - some for several days - in the thick Baltic ice, have now been freed.

The Swedish Maritime Administration and ice-breaking vessels mounted a rescue but were unable to reach the vessels immediately because of gale-force winds around the Stockholm archipelago and the Finnish island of Aland.

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Written by Luboš Motl, physicist, reference frame | 04 March 2010

The global anomaly is +0.588 °C which is 0.052 °C lower than the January 2010 anomaly. The newest February 2010 reading is also a whopping 0.148 °C cooler than the warmest February reading on their record, namely +0.736 °C in February 1998.

While January 2010 was 0.09 °C warmer than January 1998, the average of January 2010 and February 2010 is already cooler than the corresponding two months of 1998 so it seems more likely than not that 2010 will be cooler than 1998. The ongoing El Nino is still somewhat strong but already measurably weaker than the 1997-1998 El Nino, so that's what you would expect.

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Written by Peter Foster, Financial Post | 03 March 2010

Gordon Cambell, center, passing the torch of stupidity at the Winter Olympics.

This past week has seen two wonderful examples of that psychological phenomenon known as “confirmation bias,” that is, interpreting whatever evidence presents itself as proof of what you believe. On Sunday, in The New York Times, Al Gore deemed it disgraceful that “deniers” were suggesting that this year’s East Coast Snowmageddon had undermined the Inconvenient Truth of man-made global warming. More snow was clear evidence of the pernicious hand of industrial man. The next day, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell told The Globe and Mail that the lack of snow at the Vancouver Olympics was due to … man-made global warming.

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Written by Thomas Fuller, SF Environmental Policy Examiner | 03 March 2010

Image via Wikipedia

My headline for today is how I would describe the state of play regarding global warming.

Global warming is real
Temperatures have risen 0.7 degrees Celsius over the past century, which is about twice the rate of the previous century. Even if Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre are absolutely correct about urban heat island effects and paleoclimatic temperature reconstructions, the earth has warmed--and both Watts and McIntyre have said so on their websites repeatedly. This is not really part of the controversy at all.

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Written by Clean Skies News | 03 March 2010

Image via Wikipedia

A federal appeals court has thrown out a ruling that allowed Mississippi residents to sue energy companies over the effects of global warming.

A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans ruled last year the residents had legal standing to sue Murphy Oil and other companies. In Comer v. Murphy Oil, the plaintiffs argued that the defendants' emissions contributed to global warming and intensified damage from Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

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Written by Thomas Fuller, SF Environmental Policy Examiner | 02 March 2010

The next time a journalist complains about the poisoned quality of the debate, remember the vicious writing of Joe Romm.

What a stellar line-up. Remember this headline next time you read someone wondering why people are not convinced about global warming, or why skeptics have such an easy time getting traction for their ideas.

Message to the community of scientists and activists concerned with climate change: If you do not explicitly condemn the actions of scientists like Michael Mann and Phil Jones and political leaders such as Rajendra Pachauri, you accept them. This will be portrayed as endorsing them. Their level of accuracy and due diligence will be what is assumed to be the norm for climate science.

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