Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Daily Kos: Not to be forgotten -- Dealing with Climate Change

Not to be forgotten: Dealing with Climate Change

by chparadiseShare this on Twitter - Not to be forgotten: Dealing with Climate Change, Daily Kos, March 22, 2010

While the focus has (rightfully) been on HCR, climate change news hasn't been fully dead. In fact, it may have been easy to miss a couple notes:
  1. 2010 is very likely to be the hottest year on record. This was predicted based on the presence of a modest El Nino and as I've shown below the fold, the prediction's so far been borne out.
  1. Skeptical Science and other sites are being targeted for hacks.
  1. NASA has another paper coming out that the last decade was damn hot.
Join me for figures and more below the jump.
  1. Stanford study confirming that media coverage of climate change is presenting a false balance that misleads the public.
  1. (Apologies if this link doesn't work - my school has an institutional subscription to Science Magazine) New study shows that burning brush may help forests retain more CO2 by promoting larger tree health.
The NASA paper (hasn't fully gone through peer review yet, so some things may get changed, but the main conclusion is valid) notes that warming didn't go away in the 2000's (dur), and they predict a high likelihood of 2010 being a record year, due to the moderate El Nino and other factors (note that the 1998 El Nino was significantly stronger - I haven't been able to find a decent graph comparing the two, so this table will have to suffice).

GISS1
Figure 1. It's warming up! 

UAH-winter-2010
Figure 2. 2010 running satellite average. Circle indicates the latest day. Note how 2010 is almost exclusively higher than any previous year. (Apologies that the figure is for about a month ago - March hasn't been any different and I can't make the figures into GIF or JPG myself).

Ap
Figure 3. For better or worse, the current solar minimum appears to be ending. This could mean that the current negative forcing by the solar cycle could reverse.

Temp_vs_TSI_2009
Figure 4. This one's been posted before, but temperature vs. solar cycle. Useful for showing that the solar cycle hasn't been responsible for the warming. 

Total-Heat-Content
More on note 4.
ClimateChangeReporting
Figure 5. Another one that's been posted a lot, but as a reminder, most of the excess heat that's trapped by CO2 and methane and other GHG's ends up in the oceans.

Hopefully the passage of HCR will help grease the skids to get other stuff moving. If dems use the momentum to get meaningful legislation through, then I'll be the first to applaud them. Or one of the first.

ETA: Request. I have seen but couldn't find now an updated figure with temps until mid or late March on the Satellite record and also a figure showing El Nino strength is dissipating (small graph). If anyone has either the link or the figure please post so I can edit them in. Thanks!

Link:  http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/3/22/845364/-Not-to-be-forgotten:-Dealing-with-Climate-Change
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2 comments:

  1. susanMarch 23, 2010 at 2:38 PM

    I'm so glad to see you posted this. I thought it was terrific! I would LOVE to see more info on the graphic about press coverage, which says it ALL, and then some, about what is going on.

    As someone who tries to insert a few remarks for the general and gullible public on DotEarth, it is an uphill struggle - they are like dragon's teeth, those commenters, and even when mild Andy points out their errors they go on, and on, and on, ad infinitum.

    Thanks for moving our chat into this more public venue, as this is important.

    PS. I don't usually post the WordVerification, but igunpro - go figure!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tenney NaumerMarch 25, 2010 at 1:48 PM

    If you think "igunpro" is hilarious, you should see the ones that pop up on Real Climate.

    ReplyDelete