Sandy Tops List of 2012 Extreme Weather & Climate Events
From unprecedented heat waves that shattered "Dust Bowl" era records from the 1930s, to Hurricane Sandy, which devastated coastal New Jersey and New York, 2012 was the year Mother Nature had it out for the U.S. No country on Earth rivaled the U.S. in 2012 in terms of extreme weather and climate events, as one rare episode after another rocked the c… Read More
Coal to Challenge Oil’s Dominance by 2017, Says IEA
Coal is likely to rival oil as the world's biggest source of energy in the next five years, with potentially disastrous consequences for the climate, according to the world's leading authority on energy economics. One of the biggest factors behind the rise in coal use has been the massive increase in the use of shale gas in the U.S. … Read More
Few A-list Novelists Tackling Climate Change in Their Plots
from a Harlequin Romance: Dellarobia Turnbow, a restless young housewife in rural Feathertown, Tenn., is walking into the woods to meet a man who is not her husband. Things take a turn, as they always do in fiction. But this turn is not the usual one. … Read More
Great Arctic Cyclone in Summer ‘Unprecedented’: Study
A study published in Geophysical Research Letters looks at no fewer than 19,625 Arctic storms and concludes that in terms of size, duration and several other of what the authors call “key cyclone properties,” the Great Cyclone was the most extreme summer storm, and the 13th most powerful storm -- summer or winter -- since modern satellite observati… Read More
Soaring Temps in West Antarctica May Fuel Sea Level Rise
It’s a cause for serious concern, say the study’s authors: West Antarctica holds enough fresh water to raise sea level by 11 feet if all the ice melted, and even a fraction of that amount could prove catastrophic to coastal areas where hundreds of millions of people live.… Read More
It’s Not Too Late to Limit Global Temperatures - But Almost
For a couple of years now, climate scientists have agreed that to avoid the most serious consequences of global warming we need to cap the planet’s average temperature at no more than 2 degrees C (or 3.6°F) above where it stood in the 1800s. The temperature has already risen by about 1°C -- the longer we wait to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions, th… Read More
November Is Globe’s 333rd Straight Month of Warm Temps
November was the 333rd month in a row with a global average surface temperature that was above the 20th century average, a clear sign of the warming trend that scientific evidence shows is very likely due in large part to manmade emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide.… Read More
IPCC Predictions: Then Versus Now
Scientists will tell you: There are no perfect computer models. All are incomplete representations of nature, with uncertainty built into them. But one thing is certain: Several fundamental projections found in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports have consistently underestimated real-world observations, potentially leaving world gover… Read More
