We can have a healthy climate — a climate with zero warming — in our lifetimes. The message for the last 20 years has been that we have to reduce emissions drastically to prevent dangerous climate change of more than 2 degrees C (3.6 F). This strategy would have likely worked when it was…
Increasing extreme storms are a big deal. Our civil infrastructure design is based on our old climate. Meteorologist across the country have been evaluating the historic record to see exactly how much change has already taken place. Climate modeling is still advancing towards being able to robustly understand exactly how much the most extreme storms will increase in the…
This is the original long version with much more detail and all of the destinations and forest health descriptions along the 6,000 mile route. The abbreviated 2,000 word version was published on Truthout on February 16, 2016 is here. We were awash for 19 days in a tumultuous sea of mountains and forests, drifting a course through the heart…
Dansgaard Oeschger climate variability, more easily remembered as abrupt climate change, has been known from across the world through numerous lines of investigation since the early 1990s. This research greatly increases the robustness of the theory that a freshwater cap in the far North Atlantic from melting ice plays a significant role in abrupt change….
Earth has warmed about 0.9 degrees C on average and the Arctic on average has warmed two to three times as much as the average. Daily temperature variation and annual temperature variation make a difference. Climate scientists have been warming us for over a generation that climate change would mean greater insect infestations on a…
First Published on Truthout, March 18, 2014 Today, we are burning fossil carbon one million times faster than it was naturally put in the ground, and carbon dioxide is increasing 14,000 times faster than anytime in the last 610,000 years (1,2). Climate is now changing faster than it has during any other time in 65…
Published on Truthout.org January 11, 2013: As incredible as it sounds, the effects of climate change are worse than the World Bank Report says in its latest report: “Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4 degree C world Must be Avoided,” a summary of the latest findings in climate science. Much of this work is…
Reposted from NSF Press Release: http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=123520&org=NSF&from=home Early snowmelt caused by climate change in the Colorado Rocky Mountains snowballs into two chains of events: a decrease in the number of flowers, which, in turn, decreases available nectar. The result is decline in a population of the Mormon Fritillary butterfly, Speyeria mormonia. Using long-term data on date…
March 21, 2012: — Henry David Thoreau, Concord Massechusetts, Walden Pond. Among temperature and non temperature dependent flowering species, climate change has affected and will likely continue to shape the pattern of species loss in Thoreau’s woods. Species that have decreased greatly in abundance include anemones, buttercups, asters, campanulas, bluets, bladderworts, dogwoods, lilies, mints, orchids,…
(This article is an expansion of and provides technical backup for Bruce Melton’s three-part series, “Welcome to Climate Change in Texas,” published in December 2011 and January 2012 on The Rag Blog.) Read More — Extra: Welcome to Climate Change Texas: The Worst-Case Scenario is Happening (expansion and backup) Part…
As I have been saying in the first two installments of this series, climate change is already much more extreme than most scientists have been predicting. This is mainly because the majority of predictions are based on the “most likely” emissions scenario and because we have not reduced our emissions like climate scientists told us…
This one is stranger than strange. scientists have long been puzzled by what looked like fungal bodies that seem to cover many fossils of different kinds from what is called the end-Permian. This “end-Permian” is how the end of the Permian Epoch is described. It’s also called Permian Triassic Extinction 251 million years ago when…
An article in Nature News, in the journal Nature, describes the prediction of this famine and it linked to climate change. Last summer, the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) set up by the US Agency for International Development to help policy makers prevent humanitarian disasters, predicted this major and growing famine. At risk…
This little guy is one of my (and my wife’s) favorite animals on the planet. It lives in alpine scree or talus slopes – giant rock piles created as craggy mountains disintegrate over eons. These rock piles are devoid of trees and have scanty alpine vegetation (arctic tundra basically) in patches where a little dirt…
On a warmer planet, winter weather becomes more volatile. The extremes get more extreme. Read More
Non CO2 Greenhouse Gas Warming Will Persist for Longer Than 1,000 Years Abstract: Emissions of a broad range of greenhouse gases of varying lifetimes contribute to global climate change. Carbon dioxide displays exceptional persistence that renders its warming nearly irreversible for more than 1,000 years. Here we show that the warming due to non-CO2 greenhouse…
The ice fields atop Mount Kilimanjaro have lost 85 percent of their coverage since 1912; The Quelccaya ice cap in southern Peru — the largest tropical ice field on Earth, has retreated 25 percent since 1978; Ice fields in the Himalayas that have long shown traces of the radioactive bomb tests in the 1950s and…
The Australian Research Council (ARC) said in press release that reefs are dead or dying across the Indian Ocean and into the Coral Triangle because of extra warm surface waters from the Seychelles in the west to Sulawesi and the Philippines in the east including reefs in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and many…
Bruce on Rag Radio, KOOP, Austin (12/03/2010) Investigative Journalist Thorne Dryer interviews Bruce about his work with climate change outreach.
How do we curb emissions with the way our society has evolved? Really. I mean serious curbing; enough to prevent dangerous climate change? When considering the answer, dangerous climate change must be clearly defined. So, what exactly is dangerous climate change? Read More — First published on the Rag Blog
