• Global Temperatures, Volcanic Eruptions, and Trees that Didn’t Bark

    Updated: 2012-02-06 14:36:09
    My co-authors and I have just published an article in Nature Geoscience (advance online publication here; associated press release here) which seeks to explain certain enigmatic features of tree-ring reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere (NH) temperatures of the past millennium. Most notable is the virtual absence of cooling in the tree-ring reconstructions during what ice core [...]

  • Earmarks and the Environment

    Updated: 2012-02-06 11:51:18
    According to a bunch of my federal lobbyist friends, earmarks are back.  Good, bad, both? We have lived with a Congress minus earmarks for the last three years.  This tenure was marked with gridlock, several potential government shut downs, disputes over the national debt that led to a near default on the debt.  The reason? [...]

  • The Unequal Effects of Climate Change

    Updated: 2012-02-03 22:27:05
    Poor, urban and minority residents are most at risk for health problems linked to climate change, according to a new analysis of Los Angeles and Fresno counties. Continue reading →

  • Insurance Industry Awakening to Climate Risks

    Updated: 2012-02-03 00:36:58
    California will require all major insurers to survey and report climate risks. Continue reading →

  • Adaptation and an Aging Water Infrastructure

    Updated: 2012-02-02 00:57:11
    The Johnson Foundation recently released a report on the effects of an aging water management infrastructure and the impacts that climate change will have on significant water events, like the flooding we experienced from the Adirondacks to Westchester last year.  The news is not good.  It shows that like our energy, road and building infrastructure, [...]

  • Our Newest Clean Air Ally – Actress Julianne Moore

    Updated: 2012-02-02 00:06:21
    Those of us following the debate over clean air regulations are used to hearing frequent comments from key players – power plant executives, politicians, environmentalists, doctors. But every once in a while, we get a truly original point of view.  Like today – in this animated video from actress Julianne Moore. Moore taped the video [...]

  • Revenge of the Climate Scientists: 38 Experts Set the WSJ Straight

    Updated: 2012-02-01 23:26:07
    Two days ago, I wrote about a flawed global warming analysis in the Wall Street Journal. The paper published an opinion piece, No Need to Panic About Global Warming, written by a small group of scientists and engineers who are global warming skeptics. Today, the other side was heard from. The Wall Street Journal published [...]

  • Unforced Variations: February 2012

    Updated: 2012-02-01 23:14:38
    This month’s open thread. Current topics are focused on the laughingly bad Daily Mail article by David Rose, the fallout from the Wall Street Journal’s latest regurgitation of why no-one should ever do anything ever. And perhaps someone might want to audit some of David Whitehouse’s arithmetic and reading comprehension… Or anything else. Within reason.

  • Solar for New York

    Updated: 2012-02-01 14:23:42
    Yesterday NYSERDA released an important report for the future of solar energy in New York.  The report was prepared at the request of the legislature to answer the following questions: “1) Identify administrative and policy options that could be used to achieve the goals set forth in the State Energy Plan (“Goals”), 2) estimate the per-megawatt [...]

  • 2011: A Year of Weather Extremes, with More to Come

    Updated: 2012-02-01 01:41:37
    The global average temperature in 2011 was 14.52 degrees Celsius (58.14 degrees Fahrenheit). According to NASA scientists, this was the ninth warmest year in 132 years of recordkeeping, despite the cooling influence of the La Niña atmospheric and oceanic circulation …

  • Drought Is in the Eye of the Beholder

    Updated: 2012-01-31 22:41:19
    Are we in one? Water officials say the answer is "Yes and No." Continue reading →

  • Lighting and Liberty

    Updated: 2012-01-31 13:29:13
    On January 1, 2012, the energy efficient light bulb standards of the Energy Independence and Security Act became law. The standard gave light bulb manufacturers until 2012 to produce light bulbs that used 25 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs, which waste 90 percent of the energy they consume on waste heat. Lighting companies began [...]

  • Bobcats to face more hunting, trapping

    Updated: 2012-01-30 22:00:09
    With bobcat numbers rebounding in New York, the state Department of Environmental Conservation is offering a plan to open up new parts of the state from the Capital Region west to Lake Erie to hunting and trapping of the elusive felines. Here is the TU story from last week.

  • A Flawed Global Warming Analysis in the Wall Street Journal

    Updated: 2012-01-30 19:15:51
    Last week, The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by a few scientists and engineers who believe man-made climate change will have less impact on the environment than the vast majority of the scientific community has concluded it will. Debate is normal and necessary in science — it occurred even on such questions as [...]

  • The AR4 attribution statement

    Updated: 2012-01-29 16:22:30
    What the IPCC AR4 attribution statement meant for the anthropogenic contribution to recent global warming.

  • California Holds Lead in Clean Car Derby

    Updated: 2012-01-28 00:26:43
    Air Board adopts landmark rules to curb emissions. Continue reading →

  • This weekend on Capital Green Scene UPDATED

    Updated: 2012-01-27 22:33:20
    Last week, the largest single development for the Adirondack Park ever approved by the state Adirondack Park Agency cleared the board by a 10-1 vote. That was after seven years of review on a project that will cover more than 6,000 acres, with hundreds of new homes, 29 luxurious so-called “great camps” on large forest [...]

  • Weather and Climate Change

    Updated: 2012-01-27 00:45:10
    In December, Grant Foster and Stephan Rahmstorf published a paper in Environmental Research Letters that provided a new analysis of earth’s temperature through 2010. The team reported on the 5 available global temperature measurements for land and ocean and then excluded short-term variability due to ENSO, solar cycles and volcanic eruptions. The report concluded that [...]

  • Time, Newsweek Bury Keystone

    Updated: 2012-01-26 17:55:01
    Just published at nergy Tribune, the ouston Chronicle (Fuel Fix) nd at anada Free Press he above article revealing Time and Newsweek's' PR work' for the president in the upcoming election race. For the full article o here. 

  • Are Solar Panels at Wind Farms the Next Big Thing?

    Updated: 2012-01-26 13:04:52
    Yesterday I had lunch with Carol Murphy of ACENY. We were discussing trends in renewable development in New York. In general, development of wind, one of the largest renewable resources in New York behind Hydro, is down. One bright spot is the potential siting of solar panels at wind farms. This trend was confirmed by [...]

  • State of the Union Address: A Nation "Built to Last" on Clean Energy

    Updated: 2012-01-25 19:45:53
    President Obama delivered his State of the Union Address last night, and energy issues played a starring role in the speech.  Here are some of the comments that caught my attention:  The President drew some firm lines in the sand. The address was a strong defense of the importance of clean energy to America’s long-term economic prosperity. The [...]

  • Analysis by country of fossil fuel burning-based Carbon Debt and Carbon Credit

    Updated: 2012-01-25 17:16:37
    Fossil fuel burning yielding the greenhouse gas (GHG) carbon dioxide (CO2) is a major component of man-made global warming. In relation to carbon pollution from the burning of fossil fuels, Net Carbon Debt is equal to the Historical Carbon Debt …

  • New federal planting maps show changing climate

    Updated: 2012-01-25 17:01:53
    The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released its new plant hardiness zone maps, which show where certain plants can be grown within the constraint of low temperatures. And the map, which USDA last did in 1990, shows that the U.S. is gradually warming…. Here is today’s story in the TU… More of the state is [...]

  • DEC aims fine at gas driller over water pollution from PA

    Updated: 2012-01-25 15:59:39
    The state Department of Environmental Conservation wants  to fine a Buffalo-area natural gas driller $187,500 for water pollution coming into Allegany State Park from company gas wells and roads across the border in Pennsylvania. The proposed fine includes a $75,000 penalty against the company for allegedly failing to fix surface drainage problems around its gas [...]

  • Super-fracking & the Next Shale Gale

    Updated: 2012-01-24 22:00:25
    Just published, this should frighten the "environmental Taliban"....go here or the full article. 

  • “Vision Prize”, an online poll of scientists about climate risk

    Updated: 2012-01-23 01:51:34
    A group of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University is trying to get a better understanding of the views of earth scientists regarding various climate change topics. They have set up an ongoing poll to do this, called Vision Prize. It’s a short (10 question) poll, covering topics like the rate of CO2 increase, predicted future [...]

  • Grist

    Updated: 2012-01-21 08:22:20
    Environmental News, Commentary, Advice

  • The Covert 'War' In Iran

    Updated: 2012-01-17 16:57:52
    The story behind the recent spate of killings and bombings targeting high-profile targets and energy infrastructure in Iran. Go here. 

  • The dog is the weather

    Updated: 2012-01-17 13:09:02
    Update January 27: There is also another recent dog-based animations from Victoria (southeast Australia) explaining some of the key drivers of our climate and how some are changing. A TV series that ran on Norwegian TV (NRK) last year included a simple and fun cartoon that demonstrates some important concepts relative to weather and climate: [...]

  • Open Climate 101 Online

    Updated: 2012-01-16 13:41:08
    Almost 3000 non-science major undergraduates at the University of Chicago have taken PHSC13400, Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast, since Ray Pierrehumbert and I (David Archer) first developed it back in 1995. Since the publication of the textbook for the class in 2005 (and a much-cleaned-up 2nd edition now shipping), enrollment has gone through the roof, [...]

  • New Website Lets You Find the Largest Sources of Climate Pollution in Your Area

    Updated: 2012-01-11 18:11:41
    I’m very excited about a brand new website that will let me – and all Americans – learn about sources of climate pollution in my community and across America. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled the website today. The consumer-friendly web platform has new greenhouse gas emissions data that will help Americans work together [...]

  • An online model of methane in the atmosphere

    Updated: 2012-01-11 13:35:15
    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 [...]

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