I have tried several times, with varying degrees of success, to tackle the “consensus ain’t science” shibboleth. (See especially here and the comments here). Andrew Dessler recently took an excellent stab at this in a couple of posts: see here and here. Might a “consensus” position be wrong? Of course. All knowledge is provisional and …
The Climate Prediction Center’s latest ENSO outlook, issued yesterday, ups the odds for a weak El Niño by the end of the year. Last month, they put the odds at 50-50. Yesterday, they said a weak El Niño is “likely” by the end of the year. Here in New Mexico, that tips the odds wet. …
A new paper from Jungclaus et al. at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology says model runs show the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet is not likely to shut down the thermohaline circulation any time soon: Our results suggest that abrupt climate change initiated by GIS melting is not a realistic scenario for the …
From today’s Drought Monitor: Yuma, Arizona, has recorded only 0.23 inches of rain this year, which is 12 percent of normal. (That’s 0.6 cm for my metric friends.) I’m not sure who would notice this amid the electronic buzzing and whirring and air conditioning and fountains, but Las Vegas, Nevada, has only had half an …
I’ve been riding my bike to work lately when I can. I can’t always do it, because some days I need a car to go out on interviews. Herein lies my greenhouse guilt dilemma. According to this analysis, cycling to work will cause a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions over my lifetime. While in …
Expectations are as much a part of drought as is climatological reality. Take this LA Times story: CANTON, Texas — The effects of a long, stubborn drought are everywhere here: in the parched, wasted fields and the bony cows nosing the dirt for nonexistent grass; in the cracks splitting stone-hard earth and the worried faces …
I don’t begin to understand the politics of water. The science of water I can barely see how to get my arms around, but that’s a tame problem. The politics of water is a wicked problem. So I pass this along without any clear idea of whether it’s right, just the thought that it’s interesting: …
Zippy, back on the global warming beat today, asks what I think is the central question: Will major climate change affect the temperature of my neighborhood? Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, Zippy is posing the question to what appears to be an oversized Dachsund wearing some sort of a chef’s …
Years ago Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were on Letterman, and Dave was complaining about the problem posed for movie audiences when one of them gave a movie a thumbs up and the other a thumbs down. Dave came up with a brilliant solution: he had them shoot basketball free throws for it. As many …
Hurricane John has developed something called a “pinhole eye,” which Chris Mooney declares “spooky“. I don’t know from pinhole cameras, but apparently this is a big deal, according to Chris: The same thing happened when Hurricane Wilma put on a record burst of intensification last year, building up from a tropical storm into a Category …