Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
Last November I was writing about the nomination of Kathleen Hartnett White to head the Council on Environmental Quality. She was up before a senate committee to endorse her in the role and I was at that time mulling over just how grossly inappropriate she was for that position. Not the right person If you searched diligently … Read more
Rather obviously our planet contains rather a lot of vegetation. What is also understood to some degree is that this vegetation does influence our climate (Hint: plants absorb CO2). What is perhaps not so well appreciated is that humans have had a rather profound influence upon the currently existing quantity biomass. Well yes, we all … Read more
Once a year the Comic-Con of the Earth, space and climate sciences holds a meeting, and in 2017 it was in New Orleans. This is the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. As a result Reporters will inevitably suffer the horrendous stress of being sent to hang out in New Orleans for the weekend (oh the … Read more
For the past 12 years now NOAA has been published an annual Arctic Report card and the 2017 issue is now available on-line. The report card exists because something quite extraordinary has been happening in the Arctic and 2017 has not seen any pause in that. Highlights Arctic shows no sign of returning to reliably … Read more
Recently a right-wing Facebook “friend” shared an article from the Daily Caller that claimed that Satellite data showed no acceleration in warming for the past 23 years. Apart from the rather obvious “How did this guy get on my FB friends list?” question, I do actually find it fascinating to observe how such “truth” is … Read more
There is a meme going around that consists of a sweatshirt slogan that reads … This perhaps is the essence of climate modelling. Observations are made, and slowly slowly you build up a precise mathematical model that can be used to work out what comes next. Within such models you have the various drivers of … Read more