One of the common themes in drought journalism (mine at times included, sadly) is the tendency to cry “drought” at minor excursions into the down side of natural variability, when the real problem is not so much water supply as voracious consumption. Blaming nature is a whole lot easier than blaming ourselves. Is that the …
From the Guardian: “Global warming?” he sniffed. “Well, whatever.” Kinsler did appear to agree, however, that the conditions are subtly changing at the Ballpark. “It depends on where you hit the ball and what time of year it is,” said Kinsler. “Rudy is right in that balls you think you tagged will sometimes get knocked …
Continue reading ‘Global Warming Somehow Contributing to Home Runs in Texas’ »
Closing out a rainless February, Albuquerque ties the record for driest start to a year. update: Just for the record, while there was no rain at the official Albuquerque weather station, I did record 0.01 inch at my house Feb. 11.
Climate wonks with a key to get through Science’s gate should check out Andy Dessler’s excellent discussion in today’s issue of the water vapor feedback. For those who don’t, here’s the nut graph: [A]lthough there continues to be some uncertainty about its exact magnitude, the water vapor feedback is virtually certain to be strongly positive, …
Birds Flee Changing Habitats (ad/sub req.): Birds and butterflies offer the earliest signs that ecosystems are changing in response to a changing climate, according to Craig Allen, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “They’re mobile,” said Allen, an expert on the effect of climate change on New Mexico’s environment. Climate has always changed, Allen …
Continue reading ‘More Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Back on the Bird Beat’ »
The global cooling mole pops up its head again. Whack. (Comments closed here. If you’ve got something to say, do it there.)
New Mexico’s approach to implementing greenhouse gas legislation.
Stehfest et al. in Climatic Change: A global transition to a low meat-diet as recommended for health reasons would reduce the mitigation costs to achieve a 450 ppm CO2-eq. stabilisation target by about 50% in 2050 compared to the reference case. Dietary changes could therefore not only create substantial benefits for human health and global land …
James Annan argues that Roger and I are both wrong in our discussion of how to properly think about James Hansens 2006 draft paper discussing the possibility of “super El Nino”: It’s OK to hold Hansen to his 2006 El Nino forecast. (Fleck wrong.) A careful reading of that forecast suggests Hansen got it right. …
Roger Pielke Jr. has a bit of an odd post up today taking James Hansen to task for predicting a “super El Niño” in 2006, which did not come to pass. Here’s Roger: I’ve always thought that predictions made should not be forgotten, but evaluated and learned from. The “prediction” in question, which I wrote …
Continue reading ‘What Did Hansen Predict, and When Did He Predict It?’ »