Daily chart
The temperature of the ocean is rising
Further improvements in data-gathering technology could improve forecasting of extreme weather events

The Economist

MEASURING the temperature of something as stratified as the ocean has never been easy. Before the 1980s, ships automatically recorded the temperature of water flowing through their ports, but the great depth variance of these ports and the dearth of data outside major shipping routes made the figures incomplete and unreliable. Next came satellites, which were able to capture more surface-temperature data in three months than the total compiled in all the years prior to their advent. Nonetheless, they too have limitations: for example, their infrared sensors are susceptible to cloud contamination.

Rick Perry just denied that humans are the main cause of climate change

By Steven Mufson June 19

The Washington Post

Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Monday denied that man-made carbon dioxide emissions are the primary cause of climate change.

Asked in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” whether he believed that carbon dioxide was “the primary control knob for the temperature of the Earth and for climate,” Perry said that “No, most likely the primary control knob is the ocean waters and this environment that we live in.”

Scientists just published an entire study refuting Scott Pruitt on climate change

By Chris Mooney May 24 at 1:46 PM

The Washington Post

In a sign of growing tensions between scientists and the Trump administration, researchers published a scientific paper Wednesday that was conceived and written as an explicit refutation to an assertion by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt about climate change.
The study, in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, sets up a direct test of a claim by Pruitt, made in written Senate comments following his confirmation hearing, that “over the past two decades satellite data indicates there has been a leveling off of warming.”

Scientists Drop Science Bomb on Climate-Change Skeptics

By Jonathan Chait

The New York Times

Over the last couple of years, the conservative movement, which loves science, has had a completely scientific-based reason for skepticism about climate change. The Earth’s temperature seemed to be rising at a slower rate than scientists had predicted. The global warming “pause,” as it was inaccurately called — it was actually “getting warmer at a slower-than-expected rate,” rather than an actual pause — served as grist for a massive flow of coverage expressing skepticism about scientific models and climate change.

Climate change and disputes.

The following articles by no means are exhaustive for the topic at hand. They are part of a debate, for and against human intervention in climate dynamics. The harsh weather of the recent days sparked it and I offer a mere sample of it.

An article against man induced climate change

'GLOBAL WARMING' ICED BY 'COLDEST DAYS EVER'

An article in favor of man induced climate change

A speech in favor of man induced climate change

Climate change sceptics aren't all alike, so don't tar them with the same brush

Denying the sceptics a voice on the IPCC report is surely bad for democracy and bad for science

The Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/09/climate-change-sceptics-not-all-alike

Last week my friend and onetime colleague, the UK government's former climate adviser John Ashton, berated the BBC for giving Australian climate sceptic Bob Carter undue airtime in its reporting of the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The geneticist Steve Jones also weighed in, reminding the corporation not to fall into the trap of "false balance" by treating the views of sceptics equally alongside mainstream climate researchers.

Landsat 8 to the rescue

NASA prepares to launch satellite that will continue historic record of global change.

NATURE

Jeff Tollefson

06 February 2013

When Landsat 5 fell silent on 6 January, scientists across the globe mourned its passing but gave thanks for its fortitude. The satellite had lasted a record-breaking 28 years, snapping images of the changing planet from melting glaciers to burning rainforests, while its successors faltered. Landsat 6 failed during launch and Landsat 7, at 13 years old, is partially blind and has limited fuel. With the passing of Landsat 5, the future of the world’s longest-running — and perhaps most influential — set of data on global change rests with Landsat 8, which is scheduled to launch next week from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Greenland defied ancient warming

But Antarctic glaciers may be more vulnerable than thought.

NATURE

Quirin Schiermeier

23 January 2013

Over a few exceptionally warm days last July, Greenland’s frozen surface turned into a colossal puddle. Even the coldest parts of the world’s largest island saw ice thaw and rain fall, fuelling concerns over the future of glaciers that hold enough water to raise global sea levels by around 7 metres.

Climate Change Doubt Is Tea Party Article of Faith

By JOHN M. BRODER

JASPER, Ind. — At a candidate forum here last week, Representative Baron P. Hill, a threatened Democratic incumbent in a largely conservative southern Indiana district, was endeavoring to explain his unpopular vote for the House cap-and-trade energy bill.

Database tallies US emissions

Environment agency launches searchable public log of major greenhouse-gas emitters.

Nature

… a new resource: official data from the companies themselves…

… The inventory covers industrial, commercial and government facilities that emit more than 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year…

… power plants overshadow any other stationary sources of greenhouse gases, accounting for about three-quarters of emissions…

Jeff Tollefson

17 January 2012

Michael Mann, The climate scientist who the deniers have in their sights

He didn't court controversy, but is happy to make use of it

The Independent

By Steve Connor

(From the blog: This article introduces a view on the controversy surrounding climate change. It revolves around a central figure of the debate, prof. M. Man. After introducing his famous “hockey stick” type reproduction of climate evolution during the past few centuries, he has been the target of a heated criticism. The criticism involves data used, models, assumed intentions which shifts the issue into politics. We are not climatologists. We know for sure that polar icecaps are melting. Therefore we could summarize the ongoing debate into two fundamental questions. First, are the observed changes long-term trends? And second: Can we quantify the human related contribution to global climate?)

Climate science (II)

Clouds in a jar

A new experiment with old apparatus reveals a flaw in models of the climate

The Economist

CLOUD chambers have an honoured place in the history of physics. These devices, which generate vapour trails that mark the passage of high-energy subatomic particles, were the first apparatus that allowed such passage to be tracked. That was in the 1920s and led, among other things, to the discovery of cosmic rays. Science has moved on since then, of course, and cloud chambers are now largely museum pieces. But the world’s leading high-energy physics laboratory, CERN, outside Geneva, is dusting the idea off and putting it into reverse. Instead of using clouds to study cosmic rays, it is using cosmic rays to study clouds. In doing so, it may have thrown a spanner into the works of the world’s computer models of the climate.