A new scientific paper authored by seven scientists affiliated with the Russian Academy of Sciences was just published in the scientific journal Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences: Physics.Defend Democracy
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) says he can’t be expected to know about climate science because he is “not a scientist.” Same for Florida Governor Rick Scott (R), Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY), and Sen.Marco Rubio (R-FL).
But what happens when a highly educated guy who did study science in college wants to run for national office in a party that increasingly stands against facts and science? In the case of Louisiana Governor and perennial presidential wannabee Bobby Jindal (R), you act dumb and make tortuous statements.
How dumb?
At a breakfast organized by The Christian Monitor, Jindal was introduced as a biology major, Rhodes Scholar, and former President of the University of Louisiana System. Naturally, at one point HuffPost’s Howard Fineman said, “I want to ask a couple of science questions.”
Jindal cluelessly fails to see what’s coming and excitedly interjects “I’m a biology major.” Fineman is happy to repeat that point and, of course, then asks him a bunch of obvious science questions, including whether he accepts evolution.
So Jindal now feels compelled to explain, “I was not an evolutionary biologist.” Yeah, Jindal apparently got one of those Biology degrees from Brown University (with honors at the age of 20!) that doesn’t require learning about evolution — the central organizing principle of modern biology.Climate Progress
Six Things Michael Mann Wants You to Know About the Science of Global Warming (via Moyers & Company)
Climate Change: ‘Abrupt,’ ‘Unpredictable,’ ‘Irreversible’ and ‘Highly Damaging’ (via Moyers & Company)
Up to Five Billion Face ‘Entirely New Climate’ by 2050 (via Climate Central)The author of an influential 2006 study on climate change warned Tuesday that the world could be headed toward warming even more catastrophic than expected but he voiced hope for political action.
Nicholas Stern, the British former chief economist for the World Bank, said that both emissions of greenhouse gas and the effects of climate change were taking place faster than he forecast seven years ago.
Without changes to emission trends, the planet has roughly a 50 percent chance that temperatures will soar to five degrees Celsius (nine degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial averages in a century, he said.
“We haven’t been above five degrees Centigrade on this planet for about 30 million years. So you can see that this is radical change way outside human experience,” Stern said in an address at the International Monetary Fund.
“When we were at three degrees Centigrade three million years ago, the sea levels were about 20 some meters (65 feet) above now. On sea level rise of just two meters, probably a couple of hundred million people would have to move,” he said.
Stern said that other effects would come more quickly including the expansion of deserts and the melting of Himalayan snows that supply rivers on which up to two billion people depend.The Raw Story
Even if nations fulfill pledges made in 2010 at a UN-led conference in Cancun, Mexico, the world would be on track to warming of four degrees (7.2 Fahrenheit), he said....
The Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command has identifued climate change as the most likely threat to the Pacific region, as ThinkProgress reported:
Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, gave a striking answer when asked about the greatest threat the region faces: climate change.
Locklear told the Boston Globe, the changing climate “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.”
Among the issues that the Admiral cited as most concerning was the possibility that rising sea-levels result in the disappearance of whole countries, producing influxes of ‘climate refugees‘ in neighboring states.....Climate Progress
Scientists drilling deep into the edge of modern Antarctica have pulled up proof that palm trees once grew there.Analyses of pollen and spores and the remains of tiny creatures have given a climatic picture of the early Eocene period, about 53 million years ago....
"There are two ways of looking at where we're going in the future," said a co-author of the study, James Bendle of the University of Glasgow
"One is using physics-based climate models; but increasingly we're using this 'back to the future' approach where we look through periods in the geological past that are similar to where we may be going in 10 years, or 20, or several hundred," he told BBC News
The early Eocene was a period of atmospheric CO2 concentrations higher than the current 390 parts per million (ppm )- reaching at least 600ppm and possibly far higher.Global temperatures were on the order of 5C higher, and there was no sharp divide in temperature between the poles and the equator...
"The more we get that information, the more it seems that the models we're using now are not overestimating the [climatic] change over the next few centuries, and they may be underestimating it. That's the essential message."Read it at BBC News Science & Environment
But as the climate warms, natural variability is altered, too. In a normal climate without global warming, two sides of the die would represent cooler-than-normal weather, two sides would be normal weather, and two sides would be warmer-than-normal weather. Rolling the die again and again, or season after season, you would get an equal variation of weather over time.
But loading the die with a warming climate changes the odds. You end up with only one side cooler than normal, one side average, and four sides warmer than normal. Even with climate change, you will occasionally see cooler-than-normal summers or a typically cold winter. Don’t let that fool you.
Our new peer-reviewed study, published by the National Academy of Sciences, makes clear that while average global temperature has been steadily rising due to a warming climate (up about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century), the extremes are actually becoming much more frequent and more intense worldwide.
When we plotted the world’s changing temperatures on a bell curve, the extremes of unusually cool and, even more, the extremes of unusually hot are being altered so they are becoming both more common and more severe.
The change is so dramatic that one face of the die must now represent extreme weather to illustrate the greater frequency of extremely hot weather events.Read it at Climate Progress
Three thousand non-science major undergraduates at the University of Chicago have taken this class since 1996, and learned the science behind the forecast for a human influence on Earth's climate. The story combines physics, chemistry, biology, and Earth and atmospheric science.
The content of this class is now being served to the internet world at large. You can watch video lectures followed by quizzes to stimulate your understanding, and work your way through tutorial exercises letting you get hands-on with interactive models and simple mathematical ideas. You can work at your own pace, on your own time. You don't get University of Chicago credit, but it's free, and if you complete the exercises you can download a certificate of accomplishment signed by me.Open Climate Science 101
