Ship Tracks captured in September 2009 by NASA imagery. These tracks are caused when sulfate emissions from burning fossil fuels create cloud condensation nuclei that result in the ship tracks seen in this image. These clouds are common and result in extra sunlight being reflected back into space, cooling Earth. No need to ruminate for…
This is not autumn in Austin, but a particularly severe area of drought mortality. Heat Extremes and the Future This years’ heat extremes have been caused by: Climate change of course, the effects of which are now in the nonlinearly increasing phase of climate change where we have significantly warmed above our old climate….
For 24 years we have been attempting to implement climate reform, but because strategies are complex, controversial and inequitable, we have nothing to show for this effort save a near-failing carbon credit program in the EU. By giving ourselves permission to seek zero warming, we go beyond the failed strategies of the past into a…
Pop Quiz: How Much of the Warming is Natural? Or more precisely; “How much warming has been caused by mankind’s emissions of fossil greenhouse gases?” None About half Most of it All of it None of the above This is a piece of science I have been struggling with since I discovered the Milankovitch cycles…
First published on Truthout December 26, 3015, by Bruce Melton. Climate science is way out in front of climate policy. Commitments at the United Nations Climate Conference in Paris pale in comparison to those from the Kyoto Protocol with its beginnings in the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. The cheap and unambiguous solution of removing CO2…
First Published on Truthout, December 4, 2015 The perceived debate on climate change has discredited traditional climate science communications to such an extent that we are just now implementing policies developed during the Kyoto Protocol era that began in 1992. New climate science knowledge is simply not making it out of academia and into public…
First published on Truthout.org April 24, 2015. “The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming [from 1951 through 2010].” IPCC 2013, Summary for Policy Makers.(1) This statement differs radically from the almost ubiquitous understanding that part of global warming has been caused by humanity and part is natural. In…
The Arctic is warming on average twice as fast as the global average, but in places the warming is double even this rate. Implications are immense as the Arctic is literally the worlds air conditioner, or at least most of the world as most of the world’s land is in the Northern Hemisphere. Thaw out…
First published on Truthout, December 26, 2014. As we move into 2015, the latest climate science continues to diverge from policy. New science tells us that, because of short-lived climate pollutants, current policies dealing with carbon dioxide pollution alone will likely produce more warming than doing nothing at all. Complete Article
First Published on Truthout, August 27, 2014 (link) The fundamental climate change policy question today is not how much we should reduce carbon dioxide emissions by when, but what will currently proposed carbon dioxide emissions reductions do to our climate in the near-term? In addition, what are the ramifications of short-lived climate pollutants that are…
This presentation was given to the Texas Chapter of Mensa on August 16, 2014. (link to presentation) Calling it climate change, global warming, climate disruption — these all scare people or mean things to them that are not good for the cause. Call it what it is—Climate Pollution. We know what pollution is and what…
Globally, rainfall intensity, or the amount of rain in the average rainfall event has already been shown to have increased. But another of the rainfall related projections for a warming world—total rainfall—has not yet seen a similar increase. This can be justified in some places as the length of dry periods is longer and the…
International Energy Agency (IEA) Says Oil Shall Fracking May Kill Alternatives: The Bad News Is That Natural Gas Production Produces Greater Warming than Coal The International Energy Association (IEA) in their new report “Golden Rules for the Golden Age of Gas” says cheap natural gas from fracking oil shale may kill the budding alternative energy…
January 29, 2012, The Wall Street Journal “No Need to Panic About Global Warming” Sixteen Deniers Authorities Delegate Delay – These 16 “scientists,” as the Wall Street Journal calls them, have published a letter that has some news for the readers of the WSJ. They tell us that our planet has not warmed for well…
The major aerosols are black carbon (see May 7), sulfates and oxides of nitrogen (NOx). They come from combustion. Black carbon comes mostly from the burning of most fuels in developing and third world nations where pollution controls are not as stringent as in the developing world. Sulfates and NOx comes mostly from coal and…
