An interesting resource on energy reserves from a global perspective can be found in "Statistical Review of World Energy 2008" by BP. (Link) The report was mentioned in a presentation based on it at Rice University by Mark Finley, BP America general manager for global energy markets, hosted by Amy Myers Jaffe, assoc. director, Baker Institute for Public… Read More »
Scientists say the jury is still out on whether rising sea temperatures will cause more hurricanes to hit U.S. coastlines. Yet some insurance companies are boosting premiums based on assumptions that they will. Others are withdrawing from coastal communities altogether.
Over the 57-year period of their study, Harrison et al. report that "the impact of climate changes since 1948 has been to decrease the ability of Europe to store carbon by 97 TgC year ," but that "the effect of rising atmospheric CO2 has been to stimulate [our italics] increased uptake and storage." In fact, this latter phenomenon… Read More »
The authors note that "human-induced climate change could lead to an increase in forest fire activity in Ontario, owing to the increased frequency and severity of drought years, increased climatic variability and incidence of extreme climatic events, and increased spring and fall temperatures," citing several references in support of this hypothesis. In addition, they say that such climate… Read More »
What was done The authors developed a tree-ring-based reconstruction of the December-May North Pacific Index (NPI) – which is a measure of the atmospheric circulation related to the Aleutian low pressure cell – for the period 1600-1983, based on data derived from 18 tree-ring chronologies (selected from a total of 67 candidate chronologies) obtained from sites surrounding the… Read More »
What was done The authors studied decadal-scale temperature variations of the past six centuries derived from four high-resolution temperature indicators — the d O and d C of bulk carbonate, total carbonate content, and the detrended d N of organic matter — which they extracted from Lake Qinghai (36°32′-37°15’N, 99°36′-100°47’E) on the northeast Qinghai-Tibet plateau, comparing the resultant… Read More »
I’m not a global warming believer. I’m not a global warming denier. I’m a global warming agnostic who believes instinctively that it can’t be very good to pump lots of CO2 into the atmosphere but is equally convinced that those who presume to know exactly where that leads are talking through their hats.
Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the mass hysteria phenomenon known as global warming. Much of the science has since been discredited. Now it’s time for political scientists, theologians and psychiatrists to weigh in. What, discredited? Thousands of scientists insist otherwise, none more noisily than NASA’s Jim Hansen, who first banged the gong with his June 23,… Read More »
PARIS: The Group of Eight (G8) is set to fudge its decision on climate change next week, reflecting the issue’s weaker status in the absence of European campaigning and in the face of sky-high oil prices. A year ago, on the back of blunt warnings by UN scientists, global warming dominated the G8 summit in Heiligendamm.
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has acknowledged a 6.5 per cent swing against his Government in the Gippsland by-election is a "setback" fuelled by voter anger at rising petrol prices and interest rates. But a disastrous result for Labor in key blue-collar mining and power industry voting areas suggest his controversial proposals to implement a carbon trading scheme could… Read More »