The question of whether global warming is bumping up hurricanes gets another good airing in today’s Nature, with two strong arguments against the suggestion that Kerry Emanuel made in August in Nature (sub. req. for the Nature links) of a global warming-hurricane link. Just as Emanuel’s initial work was seized upon by the left (“As …
Two drought-related things crossed my desk today. The first was the CLIMAS southwest outlook, documenting growing drought conditions where I live. The second involves drought in Niger. Drought’s a complicated thing, and it’s worth remembering that climate is not the only driver. A society’s resiliency is key, and Niger clearly has just about no margin …
This critique of RealClimate by James Annan resonated with me: More recently, they have plucked a couple of fairly minor papers out of relative obscurity and thrust them into the limelight for no apparent purpose other than to tear into them …. The authors’ crimes? In each case, they included a throwaway phrase which appears …
It occurs to me that if I really believe that the regional-scale climate change question is relevant, I should offer up the Albuquerque temperature numbers. 2005, according to the GISS data (adjusted to try to remove an urban bias), is the seventh warmest in history. Seven of the ten warmest years here have come since …
The various analyses of global surface temperature are up for 2005. Realclimate has a rundown. The map from the NASA GISS folks is instructive: By the GISS measure, 2005 is the warmest year since reliable temperature measurements have been available. By the measurement of the World Meteorological Organization and Climatic Research Unit group in the …
Steve McIntyre, fresh from AGU, has noticed Jonathan Overpeck talking about drought and sea level rise, inferring some newly minted marketing message: It’s hard not to conclude that Overpeck was attuned to the market and giving them what they wanted. You want sea level – Overpeck had sea level. You want drought – Overpeck had …
OK, here’s something I don’t get: a new paper in GRL by Russell Vose at the National Climatic Data Center suggesting the decrease in the diurnal temperature range slowed dramatically from 1979-2004. Maybe some of you climate types can ‘splain this? (Backstory for non-climate wonks: The “diurnal temperature range” is the difference between the daytime …
Kevin Vranes on the reality of Kyoto and Montreal: The real consensus we need to reach here is whether slowing GHG increases is worth it or not. Kyoto has always been close to irrelevant climatologically and while I feel the pain of those making the “it’s a start, a necessary first step” argument, I have …
Reading John Houghton’s Global Warming: The Complete Briefing this evening, I was reminded of one of my favorite episodes in the history of science: Lewis Fry Richardson and the first numerical weather forecast. Richardson was of that era that ended with the burst of modernism in the early 20th century – a generalist, dabbler in …
Forests are a good thing, right? And reversing deforestation is a smart approach to climate change – locking all that carbon back up in trees, right? A new paper out of Lawrence Livermore throws an odd monkey wrench into the conventional wisdom, using model simulations to conclude that grassland cools while forest warms: We find …