Clouds complicate the measurement of climate change. Last year, for example, a couple of Colorado State students used CloudSat data to show that pollution by aerosols is causing the formation of more of those eerie, high altitude noctilucent clouds. (Said clouds are reportedly encroaching on the lower latitudes…) The increase in cloud cover resulted in an increase of reflected sunlight, which resulted in less solar radiation reaching the surface.
Now, a team of Ukrainian scientists argue that clouds are the only thing that matter when it comes to climate change. Well, almost. Clouds… and solar radiation. Basically, contrary to what almost every other scientist has been saying, they hypothesize that the big picture of climate change has little to do with carbon dioxide. There’s incoming solar radiation, and clouds that either reflect said radiation or reflect it back into space.
Here’s where cosmic rays come in, according to the Ukrainians: they cause an increase in cloud cover by ionizing the atmosphere, which forms aerosols, which leads to more clouds. Thus, cloud cover patterns should follow the same 11 year cycle that is observed in the Sun’s magnetic field, which corresponds the influx of cosmic rays.
Is it time to throw out any inconvenient truths out there?
Independent, Austin-based inventor Mike Brickley set out to create an engine that connects the pistons to each other and the crankshaft in a more efficient manner. He claims that the friction reduction gained by his design improves fuel efficiency by 15-20 percent and reduces CO2 emissions by 15-20 percent. Overall engine friction is reduced by as much as 35 percent. With this loss in friction, Brickley says his engine turns "energy normally lost in heat into useful work. With petroleum prices increasing and global warming on the rise, there is an urgent need for us to provide a more efficient, less polluting internal combustion engine."
I don't know: To my eyes, I see plenty of friction and heat going on, if you know what I mean. But perhaps I'm just deeply perverted...yes, yes I am.
One of the most critical questions of global warming: how fast will sea levels rise? It’s a question the experts are eager to find answer for, as the rate at which some glaciers are melting away into the ocean has already doubled, far out pacing former estimates.
These videos animate one scary potential effect of climate change -- rising sea levels.
OK, so what? Al Gore already covered that territory, right? Well, yes. But hardly this comprehensively. And certainly not this... what's the word... normal-guy-ily. The dude is actually damn entertaining.
We talk about global warming a lot here on 60 Second Science, mostly because, now that we're off the methadone, our anxiety levels are through the roof. We've blamed everything from wildfires to the government for Earth's ailing climate, but we think the UK's chief science adviser, Sir David King, is taking it a bit far:
"I was asked at a lecture by a young woman about what she could do and I told her stop admiring young men in Ferraris. What I was saying is you have got to admire people who are conserving energy and not those willfully using it."
At a time when kids should be concerned about acne and a Spice Girls comeback, global warming tops the list of teenage worries.
A recent poll of 50,000 teenagers from 18 countries found that, even though many can not name the cause of the problem, today's teens believe global warming is a serious issue. (Except in North America, where one quarter of those polled aren't sure it's a concern.) For the majority, however, global warming won teen hearts over drugs, violence, and war.
Our future still looks a bit bleak. A staggering 20 percent of teens polled don't know what causes global warming, or how to prevent it.
I'll openly acknowledge that most groundbreaking inventions should be revealed only in the province of the super-privileged; I've never been beaten as badly and as frequently as when I rode my Segway around my ghetto-ass nabe, shouting things like, 'gaze upon your Golden God, filthy rubes!"
Still, the announcement that "a new science, a Super Material" that "will contribute in a major way to reducing climate change" will debut at a £1,000-a-head dinner in London has me both curious and wary. The super-luxe dinner (which, for that price, better have glazed baby on the menu) happens later today in London, and Al Gore is in attendance, so maybe it will be a BFD after all. Then again, that guy will fall for anything as long as there's glazed baby involved.
Ya gotta hand it to jellyfish: For basically being a gelatinous conglomeration of nematocysts and ganglia, they sure know how to f*** s*** up. After getting all wicked on an Irish salmon farm earlier this month, wrecking their shizz to the tune of $2 million, they've decided to let Japan know who's ocean it really is. Giant jellyfish, some as large as 450 lbs and six feet in diameter, have invaded the coasts of Japan, clogging fishing nets, stinging fools, and generally treating the land of the rising sun like its bitch. Blame for the jellies rise could include global warming, overfishing, dropping oxygen levels in the ocean or, like everything, the Chinese. The Wall Street Journal's got video of the nastiest east-side gang since the Crips in action. Look out for the Japanese researcher who has to be "very careful" to not get jellyfish goo in his eye. These guys don't stand a chance — jellies on the east siiiiyeeeeed!
Are degrees of latitude as valid a metric for discussing climate policy alternatives as those of temperature , whether Fahrenheit, Kelvin, or Celsius? One degree of warming may shift your environment roughly a Degree or two away from the North or South Pole, but any re-examination of the issue in terms of biogeography and shifting biotremes and human
ecology needs an uncontroversial point of statistical departure.
It may not be easy to come by, because just
as the concept of "average " global temperature is
scientifically , statistically and semantically ambiguous, it's hard to get a
firm handle on the "average" temperature the whole of humanity experiences.
Because demography is changing faster than climate .
This Pentagon report says that climate change is as big a threat to humanity as terrorism. And this health secretary has warned that obesity is as big a threat as climate change.
The International Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations body tasked with sussing out the severity of forthcoming climate change, has predicted that the Earth will warm 1-4 degrees C by 2100.
Now the International Energy Agency, spurred by unexpectedly rapid emissions growth in China and India, estimates that we are on a collision course with 3 degrees of warming by 2030.
At roughly 5:00 p.m. EST, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded its week-long deliberations, sometimes running late into the night, over its forth and final report regarding the state of climate science.
The document summarizes more than 3,000 pages of findings this year and will be officially released on Saturday, November 17, by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. In brief it is reported to say that human activity is to blame for rising temperatures around the globe. To avert heat waves, melting glaciers, and rising sea levels, there will need to be a severe reduction in greenhouse gases, primarily of those emitted from fossil fuels.
Earlier this week, the BBC's environmental correspondent Richard Black wrote a piece summarizing the top 10 arguments made by climate change skeptics as to the significance or reality of global warming. Black, who has been covering climate change for at least a decade, offers counter arguments.
To my reading, it's a first-of-its-kind distillation that presents the current state of the discussion. As Black notes, what the skeptical arguments share is the sentiment of a non-response to data indicating unequivocal warming.
Bogs, fens, marshes and wetlands. Those - and few conifer species - make up the world’s second largest biome, some 12 million square km of boreal forest. Accounting for one third of the planet’s forests, the boreal contains a whole lot of carbon.
Ecologists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison using computer models found that wildfires were the number one means of releasing CO2 from the ecosystem. As the planet warms, and the boreal forest dries, wildfire frequency will increase.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will begin an international climate change tour next week, stopping in Latin America, Antarctica and Europe, the UN announced on Tuesday. While 60SS can't join the tour in body. . .
Polar bears are the best animal mascots to come along in, well, maybe ever; whales, lynxes and spotted owls should all fire their agents. Global warming is a great start, but I see big things for polar bears — you wanna be in pictures, kid? Polar bears are so cuddly that even if I was getting torn apart by one, I think I'd be yelling "you're ...sooo... cuuute...must.... give...savings ...to... IPCC...aaaaaghggh!" with my dying breath.
But ExxonMobil recently funded research into the impact of climate change on polar bear populations. The researchers, including Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, contradicted previous research and took a big dump on Al Gore's PowerPoint presentations by concluding that polar bears aren't threatened. The results were published as "viewpoint" and not peer-reviewed, which has naturally drawn the ire of the scientific community and the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology. From NewScientist:
If the polar bear is listed under the Endangered Species Act, steps to protect its habitat could directly hurt ExxonMobil's economic interests, subcommittee chair Brad Miller wrote in an open letter to the oil giant.
This week’s New York Times Magazine does a nice job of summing up a prolonged crisis near and dear to my California-native heart: the West’s aridity. A fact underlying today's frontpage news as Southern California wildfires burn out of control and Schwarzenegger declares a state of emergency.
I'll openly acknowledge that most groundbreaking inventions should be revealed only in the province of the super-privileged; I've never been beaten as badly and as frequently as when I rode my Segway around my ghetto-ass nabe, shouting things like, 'gaze upon your Golden God, filthy rubes!"
Polar bears are the best animal mascots to come along in, well, maybe ever; whales, lynxes and spotted owls should all fire their agents. Global warming is a great start, but I see big things for polar bears — you wanna be in 
