Bad news, good news, bad news.

So, the bad news is that it is looking increasingly likely that the world will experience a very strong El Nino event this 2014-2015 winter (winter in the N. hemisphere, summer down under).  There is even talk of a super-El Nino, one to rival 1998's phenomenal event.  Lots of good information on that here at …

Dr. Jeff Masters: Katrina-level storm surges have more than doubled due to global warming

Jeff Masters reports on these studies: Grinsted, A., J. C. Moore, and S. Jevrejeva, 2012, "A homogeneous record of Atlantic hurricane surge threat since 1923," PNAS 2012, doi:10.1073/pnas.1209542109 Grinsted, A., J. C. Moore, and S. Jevrejeva, 2012, "Projected Atlantic hurricane surge threat from rising temperatures" PNAS March 18, 2013 201209980, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1209980110 There is a …

The Greenhouse Effect in a Water World

The natural world is complicated. Therefore, so is the science that tries to understand it. Complexity, uncertainty, ambiguity are all a part of the story that describes processes that are as extraordinary as they are mundane. While these are the very characteristics of scientific study that motivate professional and amateur alike, they are also the …

Global warming has been underestimated by HadCRU

Oh boy, get out the tinfoil. Here's one the conspiracy nuts will howl over. The temperature record that has been showing the lowest anomaly in the recent decades, HadCRU, the dataset managed by the UK's Met Office and the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU), is about to be revised upwards. Met Office …

La Niña cannot erase decades of warming

A great and substantive post up at Skeptical Science on La Nina and what we should expect (and not expect) in terms of its impact on global temperatures. Read it all! (image borrowed from Skeptical Science) La Ninas typically redistribute the global heat budget in such a way as average surface temperatures are depressed from …

Massive stretches of weathered oil spotted in Gulf of Mexico

Like rumours of Mark Twain's death, the claims of the disappearance of BP's oil spill have been greatly exagerated. From the Times-Picyune of New Orleans. Additional photos here. These pictures are only a few days old. Watch/Listen/Read this interview from DemocracyNow! as well: we hear that five million barrels of oil were released from the …

CCW – Extinction: It’s not just for Polar Bears anymore

Okay, so this one is a bit of a tear-jerker and I usually like to avoid mixing sentimentality with environmentalism, but it is very informative and interesting if sad. It is greenman3610's Climate Crock of the Week from about three weeks ago and as usual well worth watching. I tend to be skeptical about anthropomorphizing …

A Sea Change

For any fellow Vancouverites out there, you can catch a free screening of "A Sea Change" (a movie about ocean acidification) at UBC. It's at the Norm Theatre in the Student Union Building this Tuesday, Oct 5, at 6:00 pm. It's being put on by the Student Environment Centre.

Putting out fire with gasoline?

Corexit was a big news topic at the beginning of this tragic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the gulf of Mexico but it seems little talked about now. There is no question that BP's calculation in its decision to use so much of this toxic chemical prioritizes the cosmetics of the situation over ecological impact …

2010 Hurricane season begins

The 2010 hurricane season has begun, and has done so with a hard blow to Guatemala, including dozens of fatalities (83 so far). Ironically, this storm was not particularily violent, not even getting above tropical storm status, but the rainfall was very intense. As always, the best place to follow the hurricane season is Jeff …