Great letter from Tom Swiler in today’s ABQJournal:

I propose that carbon dioxide should also be known by the name “carba.” Other oxides are known as the elemental root followed by an “a.” For example, aluminum oxide is known as alumina and silicon dioxide is known as silica.

Like the name “water,” “carba” is not as chemically descriptive as the formal name of the compound it represents, but it is short and sweet, and it could keep us from slipping further into flawed terminology and therefore a flawed understanding regarding carbon dioxide.

There has been a great deal of discussion lately about an apparent global cooling trend that conventional climate science is at loss to explain. Most recently, for example, Anthony Watts made much of the latest satellite data out of Huntsville:

Confirming what many of us have already noted from the anecdotal evidence coming in of a much cooler than normal May, such as late spring snows as far south as Arizona, extended skiing in Colorado, and delays in snow cover melting, (here and here), the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) published their satellite derived Advanced Microwave Sounder Unit data set of the Lower Troposphere for May 2008.

It is significantly colder globally, colder even than the significant drop to -0.046°C seen in January 2008.

It appears now that Noah Shachtman has the explanation: Pirate Attacks up 75 percent. This seems strong confirmation for the Venganza hypothesis:

[S]tatistics show that the rise in global temperature and the number of pirates in existence are inversely proportional…

Today’s Climate Prediction Center monthly ENSO forecast discussion bids a fond farewell to La Niña, and illustrates the difficulty of figuring out what will happen next:

A majority of the recent dynamical and statistical SST forecasts for the Niño 3.4 region indicate a transition to ENSO-neutral conditions during June – August 2008 (Fig. 5). During the second half of the year, the majority of models reflect ENSO-neutral conditions (-0.5 to 0.5 in the Niño-3.4 region). However, there is considerable uncertainty during this period as some models suggest the possible development of El Niño while others show a re-development of La Niña.

As if things weren’t bad enough, this from NASA’s Earth Observatory:

One of the worst droughts in the past decade settled heavily over the Fertile Crescent region of Iraq and Syria in the winter of 2007-2008. Under normal conditions, winter rain and rivers flowing from the mountains of Turkey sustain the rich agricultural land that has fed humanity from the dawn of civilization. But little to no rain fell between October and December during the crucial planting period, and sparse rain fell in the months that followed, said the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS).