Climate Change

WooHoo A New PPM Record for CO2

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says in March, the global monthly average for carbon dioxide hit 400.83 parts per million. That is the first month in modern records that the entire globe broke 400 ppm, reaching levels that haven’t been seen in about 2 million years.

“It’s both disturbing and daunting,” said NOAA chief greenhouse gas scientist Pieter Tans. “Daunting from the standpoint on how hard it is to slow this down.”

And somewhat disturbing is that the political party that legislates stuff (like funding for NOAA) completely and utterly denies this basic scientific fact.

In fact, they go beyond denying this fact, and call anyone who *does* delusional. They do this over and over and over again, with the backing of many of the richest people on the planet (who make money off selling the stuff causing the rise in CO2).

So that’s where we are at…a place no human civilization has ever been.

And rising.

Amount of carbon dioxide in air keeps rising, hits milestone
—
The great thing about this is that the GOP, which controls funding for these agencies, in planning to gut it in order to not get any more reports like this one.

The Last Time Oceans Got This Acidic This Fast, 96% of Marine Life Went Extinct

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The biggest extinction event in planetary history was driven by the rapid acidification of our oceans, a new study concl​udes. So much carbon was released into the atmosphere, and the oceans absorbed so much of it so quickly, that marine life simply died off, from the bottom of the food chain up.

That doesn’t bode well for the present, given the disturbingly similar rate that our seas are acidifying right now. Parts of the Pacific, for instance, are already so acidic that sea snails’ shells begin dissolving as soon as they’re born.

via The Last Time Oceans Got This Acidic This Fast, 96% of Marine Life Went Extinct | Motherboard.

Just another one of those observable effects of that human civilization is having on our planet.

 

Note: these are denied utterly and completely by the GOP.

Study Forecasts 70% Loss of West Canada’s Glaciers

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He added that since the projections for the study were based on the climate panel’s range of predictions, it was heartening to find that the panel’s projections that took into account the possibility of strong measures to combat climate change showed glacial loss leveling off. “There are still some good-behavior rewards there,” he said. “We have to get at this now.”

via Study Forecasts 70% Loss of West Canada’s Glaciers – NYTimes.com.

I wanted to highlight that quote because I think there is still hope for this issue.

I haven’t given up yet.   I do think the liars are losing, the question is whether or not it will be fast enough to keep things from getting out of hand.

The California drought is going to be a big factor.  If you haven’t read the linked story yet, now would be a good time, because it explains why the drought is probably going to get worse, for a long time.

Senator Inhofe Lies to the World, Takes Over Senate Environmental Committee

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The U.S. Senate on Wednesday voted 98-1 to approve a resolution stating that “it is the sense of the Senate that climate change is real and not a hoax.” Then, about 15 minutes later, the Senate rejected a second resolution that said climate change is real and caused by humans.

The first resolution was approved — and co-sponsored — by one of the most outspoken climate deniers in the Senate, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), a man who literally wrote a book about how climate change is the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated.” The only Senator to vote against the resolution was Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS).

Sounds too good to be true, right? That’s because it is. At the last minute, right before a vote was taken, Inhofe took the floor to state that he would be co-sponsoring and approving the amendment on the grounds that yes, climate change is real, but human-caused climate change is not. “Man cannot change climate,” Inhofe said. “The hoax is that there are some people that are so arrogant to think that they are so powerful that they can change climate.”

“Gaawwwwhd has deeclared he is the OOOOONNNLY ONE who may destroy the Earth,” continued the animated corpse from Oklahoma.

I’m actually not joking…this is why many in this country don’t think it is *possible* for humans to do something as big and powerful and “godlike” as changing our own climate.

As I’ve done before, I’d advise anyone who thinks this way to try this little experiment. Instead of billions of people and hundreds of millions of cars, and thousands of cubic miles of atmosphere, take one person, one car, and one garage. Put the person in the car, put the car in the garage, and start the car and close the garage.

Come back in a day and tell me again how humans can’t use our technology to change our atmosphere (and we already know that changing the atmosphere can change the climate).

This is the stuff of Idiocracy, I shit you not.

Senate Votes 98-1 That ‘Climate Change Is Real And Not A Hoax’
Sounds too good to be true, right? That’s because it is.
THINKPROGRESS.ORG

Usually the One that Predicts the Future is the One we want to listen to….

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Back in 2004, Sloan, professor of Earth sciences at UC Santa Cruz, and her graduate student Jacob Sewall published, “Disappearing Arctic sea ice reduces available water in the American west” (subs. req’d). They used powerful computers “to simulate the effects of reduced Arctic sea ice,” and “their most striking finding was a significant reduction in rain and snowfall in the American West.”

“Where the sea ice is reduced, heat transfer from the ocean warms the atmosphere, resulting in a rising column of relatively warm air,” Sewall said. “The shift in storm tracks over North America was linked to the formation of these columns of warmer air over areas of reduced sea ice.” In January, Sewall wrote me that “both the pattern and even the magnitude of the anomaly looks very similar to what the models predicted in the 2005 study (see Fig. 3a [below]).”

via Climatologist Who Predicted California Drought 10 Years Ago Says It May Soon Be ‘Even More Dire’ | ThinkProgress.

It’s funny, but this has happened a few times now.  You see…when 97%+ of the world’s scientists are using their models to predict the future based on known things (like the measurements of the world getting warmer because of human activity), they get to start making predictions about the future based on that knowledge.

The deniers just sit there and go “nu-uh!!”.  They have no predictions, no knowledge, no point, just flat out denial, repeated endlessly.

HYPOCRISY: Climate Change Deniers Mock Jenny McCarthy’s Anti-Science Views

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McCarthy’s advocacy isn’t just a silly, innocent belief; it is actively harmful to public health. A recent University of Michigan study found that 1 in 4 parents trusted anti-vaccine advocates like McCarthy at least somewhat on the matter. Fewer parents vaccinating their children against infectious diseases can be quite dangerous, leading to an increase in whooping cough deaths in California and measles cases in the United Kingdom.

Among those lambasting The View for giving McCarthy’s anti-science theories a platform, though, are prominent conservatives who deny scientific consensus in another realm: climate change.

Here are four examples:

via HYPOCRISY: Climate Change Deniers Mock Jenny McCarthy’s Anti-Science Views | ThinkProgress.

And then they go on to list a number of prominent blow-hard who have zero self-awareness or an understanding that science, in general, doesn’t give a fuck about your political rationalizations.

So your conspiracy theories denying climate change are actually on a *lower* level than McCarthy’s take on what caused her child’s autism….which is already pretty low.

Rick Perry Follows Bush Footstep, Censors State Climate Change Report

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The scientists said they were disowning the report on the state of Galveston Bay because of political interference and censorship from Perry appointees at the state’s environmental agency.

By academic standards, the protest amounts to the beginnings of a rebellion: every single scientist associated with the 200-page report has demanded their names be struck from the document. “None of us can be party to scientific censorship so we would all have our names removed,” said Jim Lester, a co-author of the report and vice-president of the Houston Advanced Research Centre.

“To me it is simply a question of maintaining scientific credibility. This is simply antithetical to what a scientist does,” Lester said. “We can’t be censored.” Scientists see Texas as at high risk because of climate change, from the increased exposure to hurricanes and extreme weather on its long coastline to this summer’s season of wildfires and drought.

..

That state of denial percolated down to the leadership of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The agency chief, who was appointed by Perry, is known to doubt the science of climate change. “The current chair of the commission, Bryan Shaw, commonly talks about how human-induced climate change is a hoax,” said Anderson.

But scientists said they still hoped to avoid a clash by simply avoiding direct reference to human causes of climate change and by sticking to materials from peer-reviewed journals. However, that plan began to unravel when officials from the agency made numerous unauthorised changes to Anderson’s chapter, deleting references to climate change, sea-level rise and wetlands destruction.

“It is basically saying that the state of Texas doesn’t accept science results published in Science magazine,” Anderson said. “That’s going pretty far.”

Officials even deleted a reference to the sea level at Galveston Bay rising five times faster than the long-term average – 3mm a year compared to .5mm a year – which Anderson noted was a scientific fact. “They just simply went through and summarily struck out any reference to climate change, any reference to sea level rise, any reference to human influence – it was edited or eliminated,” said Anderson. “That’s not scientific review that’s just straight forward censorship.”

via Rick Perry officials spark revolt after doctoring environment report | Environment | The Guardian.

The really sick thing?  Deniers will then point to this same report as evidence climate change isn’t happening.

Koch Brothers Pay Off Legislators to Fight Fighting Climate Change

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When President Obama rolled out his climate strategy last week, he made a point to sidestep Congress and take executive action — and with good reason. A two-year study conducted by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University offers some insight into how Charles and David Koch have helped systematically derail climate legislation on Capitol Hill.

Using Americans For Prosperity, a conservative group they bankroll, the Koch brothers have convinced scores of Republicans in Congress not to vote for any climate legislation unless it’s “accompanied by an equivalent amount of tax cuts.”

via Koch Brothers Pledge Helped Kill Climate Change Legislation: Report.

It’s not even a hiding thing any more.  They are straight up saying…vote against this stuff and we fund you….vote for it and we primary your ass.    The vast majority of the GOP is completely beholden to these asshats.

Record heat waves again this summer too, for those paying attention.

Sea Level Rising Faster than U.N.’s IPCC Projected….WAKE UP!!

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Seas rising faster than projected, low areas threatened – study http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL5E8MRAA520121128?irpc=932

DOHA, Nov 28 (Reuters) – Sea levels are rising 60 percent faster than U.N. projections, threatening low-lying areas from Miami to the Maldives, a study said on Wednesday. The report, issued during U.N. talks in Qatar on combating climate change, also said temperatures were creeping higher in line with U.N. scenarios, rejecting hopes the rate had been exaggerated. “Global warming has not slowed down, (nor is it) lagging behind the projections,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, lead author at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research that compared U.N. projections to what has actually happened from the early 1990s to 2011. The study said sea levels had been rising by 3.2 mm (0.1 inch) a year according to satellite data, 60 percent faster than the 2mm annaul rise projected by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) over that period.

I still think it’s absurd bordering on criminal how scientific reality has become partisan politics…all because the GOP is so beholden to carbon billionaires.

Yo, I heard you like hot summers and droughts, so I added hot summers, melting sea ice, droughts and wildfires to your hot summers and droughts

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Arctic Sea Ice Hits Record Low—Extreme Weather to Come? 

Arctic sea ice is thawing at a historic rate, scientists say. In fact, a recent analysis of satellite data “utterly obliterates” the previous record, set in 2007.

The chief culprit? Global warming. The potential upshot? Longer and more intense extreme-weather events such as heat waves, cold spells, and droughts.

On Monday, researchers at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said the rate of Arctic sea ice decline is now the highest that has ever been observed. In August, the sea ice disappeared at an average rate of about 39 square miles (a hundred square kilometers)—or about twice as normal, NSIDC scientists say.

Moreover, the area of Arctic sea ice around the North Pole had shrunk to 1.58 million square miles (4.1 million square kilometers)—the smallest measurement since 1979, when satellite observations began.

It’s a sick situation when science predicts something will happen, gets it wrong….but gets slammed because they were too conservative in their predictions.

Double irony…”conservatives” actually reject the entire notion this happening at all.

Same group that landed a Buick on another planet has something to say about our own

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Research links extreme summer heat events to global warming
http://m.phys.org/news/2012-08-links-extreme-summer-events-global.html

To distinguish the trend from natural variability, Hansen and colleagues turned to statistics. In this study, the GISS team including Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy did not focus on the causes of temperature change. Instead the researchers analyzed surface temperature data to establish the growing frequency of extreme heat events in the past 30 years, a period in which the temperature data show an overall warming trend.

NASA climatologists have long collected data on global temperature anomalies, which describe how much warming or cooling regions of the world have experienced when compared with the 1951 to 1980 base period. In this study, the researchers employ a bell curve to illustrate how those anomalies are changing.

A bell curve is a tool frequently used by statisticians and society. School teachers who grade “on the curve” use a bell curve to designate the mean score as a C, the top of the bell. The curve falls off equally to both sides, showing that fewer students receive B and D grades and even fewer receive A and F grades.

Hansen and colleagues found that a bell curve was a good fit to summertime temperature anomalies for the base period of relatively stable climate from 1951 to 1980. Mean temperature is centered at the top of the bell curve. Decreasing in frequency to the left of center are “cold,” “very cold” and “extremely cold” events. Decreasing in frequency to the right of center are “hot,” “very hot” and “extremely hot” events.

Plotting bell curves for the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, the team noticed the entire curve shifted to the right, meaning that more hot events are the new normal. The curve also flattened and widened, indicating a wider range of variability. Specifically, an average of 75 percent of land area across Earth experienced summers in the “hot” category during the past decade, compared to only 33 percent during the 1951 to 1980 base period. Widening of the curve also led to the designation of the new category of outlier events labeled “extremely hot,” which were almost nonexistent in the base period.

Please take a moment and watch the second animated bell curve in action.  You can *see* the trend.   If you walk outside in the same place but different times (and could do it in a statistical manner similar to the way the NYTimes did this analysis of 100M results over the history of the Olympics), you could feel it.

Liberal Myth Kicks off Methane Feedback Loop in Arctic

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In late summer, the Russian research vessel Academician Lavrentiev conducted an extensive survey of about 10,000 square miles of sea off the East Siberian coast. Scientists deployed four highly sensitive instruments, both seismic and acoustic, to monitor the “fountains” or plumes of methane bubbles rising to the sea surface from beneath the seabed.

“In a very small area, less than 10,000 square miles, we have counted more than 100 fountains, or torch-like structures, bubbling through the water column and injected directly into the atmosphere from the seabed,” Dr Semiletov said. “We carried out checks at about 115 stationary points and discovered methane fields of a fantastic scale – I think on a scale not seen before. Some plumes were a kilometre or more wide and the emissions went directly into the atmosphere – the concentration was a hundred times higher than normal.”

via Shock as retreat of Arctic sea ice releases deadly greenhouse gas – Climate Change – Environment – The Independent.

I’ll tell you what, liberal myths can change the world, and are.

The funny, silly thing about this latest news is that it comes just as the developed world failed to come up with any sort of decent plan to start to address this stuff.     Perhaps when the oceans catch fire, people will take note that something is amiss.