Recently in Climate change Category

Global mean surface temperature difference from the average for 1880-2009 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This survey asks you to rate 10 scientific papers, estimating the level of consensus regarding the proposition that humans are causing global warming. The survey should take around 15 minutes. Your submission will be anonymous. To participate, please click the button below. Please only take the survey once.

This survey mirrors a paper, Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature, to be published soon in Environmental Research Letters, that analysed over 12,000 climate papers published between 1991 to 2011. The purpose of the survey is two-fold. Firstly, to replicate the experience of rating a random assortment of climate papers, gaining appreciation of the diversity of climate research available. Secondly, an invitation to this survey has been sent to a wide range of climate blogs in order to analyse ratings from a diverse range of participants.

The survey adheres to the guidelines for ethical review at the University of Queensland. You'll find the survey at http://survey.gci.uq.edu.au/survey.php?c=58TN3BFHYXYL.

Before the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, global average CO2 was about 280 ppm. During the last 800,000 years, CO2 fluctuated between about 180 ppm during ice ages and 280 ppm during interglacial warm periods. Today's rate of increase is more than 100 times faster than the increase that occurred when the last ice age ended.

NOAA has reported 400.03 for May 9, 2013, while Scripps has reported 399.73. The difference partly reflects different reporting periods. NOAA uses UTC, whereas Scripps uses local time in Hawaii to define the 24-hr reporting period. If Scripps were to use same reporting period as NOAA, we would report 400.08 for May 9. (source)

In the oceans, fossils mark the spread of tropical and subtropical marine life northward along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard.  Both observations and models of the Pliocene Pacific Ocean show the existence of frequent, intense El Niño cycles--a climatic oscillation that today delivers heavy rainfall to the western U.S. causing both intense flooding but also increasing the river flows needed to sustain salmon runs. The absence of significant ocean upwelling in the warmest part of the Pliocene would have suppressed fisheries along the west coasts of the Americas, and deprived seabirds and marine mammals of food supplies.  Reef corals suffered a major extinction during the peak of Pliocene warmth but reefs themselves did not disappear. (source)

1. Global climate is changing, and this is apparent across the U.S. in a wide range of 2 observations. The climate change of the past 50 years is due primarily to human activities, 3 predominantly the burning of fossil fuels.
2. Some extreme weather and climate events have increased in recent decades, and there is 9 new and stronger evidence that many of these increases are related to human activities.
3. Human-induced climate change is projected to continue and accelerate significantly if 16 emissions of heat-trapping gases continue to increase.
4. Impacts related to climate change are already evident in many sectors and are expected 22 to become increasingly challenging across the nation throughout this century and beyond.
5. Climate change threatens human health and well-being in many ways, including impacts 34 from increased extreme weather events, wildfire, decreased air quality, diseases 35 transmitted by insects, food, and water, and threats to mental health.

The full report is available in a single file (nearly 150MB) or as individual chapters (30 numbered chapters plus appendices and other material). The climate cliff is upon us.

Per capita anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions by country for the year 2000 including land-use change. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The largest challenge our country faces is the climate cliff. If we do nothing to address climate change in the next four years, the solutions become more limited, more expensive and more damaging to our country.

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This is a bigger challenge than the race to put a human on the moon. It's bigger than the war on poverty or the war on terrorism. It is far more important than the fiscal cliff. The consequences of failure are far more serious, multinational and multigenerational. We have delayed too long. Now it is time to act. But we need the president's leadership. It is time for our newly re-elected president to take charge and to lead us away from the looming climate cliff. (source)