I find myself scratching my head over the latest debate between the RealClimate crew and Roger Pielke Sr. regarding the definition and use of “chaos” (non-linear sensitive dependence on initial conditions) in weather and climate modelling. As often is the case in debates like this, both sides are correct in the point they’re making, differing …
While we’re on the subject of droughts, Ed Cook and his colleagues and Lamont-Doherty have a new review paper (preprint, 10 meg pdf) of North American drought that makes some relevant points about the differences between what happens here and the current African drought/famine I mentioned below. Point one is the distinction between the effects …
Michael Wines had a terrific story in Wednesday’s New York Times on famine in Africa that evokes a point Mickey Glantz makes in his book Climate Affairs. First Glantz: Closer scrutiny of most famine situations uncovers a multistressed political environment, of which drought was but one factor. Now Wines: War wrecked Mozambique’s economy; socialism and …
Here’s a fun little bit of business to warm a weather wonk’s heart: That’s from John Wesley Powell’s 1878-79 Report on the lands of the arid region of the United States, and is the earliest climatic data from Albuquerque that I have ever run across. The data was collected by Charles Schott of the Smithsonian, …
Finally found the time this evening to tack a comment onto a post at Roger Pielke Sr.’s blog, in which he suggested the media hasn’t been writing about a new NAS report because it “is inconvenient for those who view the radiative effect of human-caused CO2 increases as the dominant forcing of climate change.” Roger’s …
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