NSA Prism is motivated in part by fears that environmentally-linked disasters could spur anti-government activism The Guardian: Top secret US National Security Agency (NSA) documents disclosed by the Guardian have shocked the world with revelations of a comprehensive US-based surveillance system with direct access to Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft and other tech giants. New Zealandcourt…
University of Manchester: Tiny bubbles of water found in quartz grains in Australia may hold the key to understanding what caused the Earth’s first ice age, say scientists. The Anglo-French study, published in the journal Nature, analysed the amount of ancient atmospheric argon gas (Ar) isotopes dissolved in the bubbles and found levels were very…
By FishOutOfWater / DailyKos: 500mb heights Normal for May 21 to June 6; 1980-2010 Average 500mb heights for May 21 to June 6 2013 A sudden stratospheric warming split the polar vortex in two in mid-January. Since then, the northern hemisphere’s atmospheric circulation has been behaving very strangely. An area of extreme high pressure formed…
The latest projections about the extent of planetary warming and the dire consequences of our growing carbon imbalance. Series: “Science at the Theater” [Science] A special Earth Day edition of Science at the Theater —”How Hot Will It Get?” — Featuring presentations by Lab climate scientists Bill Collins, Margaret Torn, Michael Wehner, and Jeff Chambers,…
“If we can limit our emissions, then the permafrost region will release less carbon to the atmosphere, there is a curve – it’s not a all or nothing question.” Ben Abbott One of the most feared of climate change “feedbacks” is the potential release of greenhouse gases by melting arctic permafrost soils. New research indicates…
Jeff Masters / Wunderground: Destructive wildfires erupted in three locations in drought-baked Colorado on Tuesday, fanned by strong winds and the hottest temperatures ever recorded in the state so early in the year. The mercury soared to 100°F in Denver on Tuesday, their earliest 100° day on record (previous earliest 100° day: June 14, 2006,…
Pollutant’s cooling effect on climate may be overstated, study The Los Angeles Times, May 15, 2013: Don’t count on sulfur dioxide to bridle climate change. The ability of that pollutant to reflect the sun is not quite what it was assumed to be, according to new research. Sulfur dioxide — a common pollutant from burning…
UN News Centre: With United Nations-backed climate talks underway in Germany, the UN climate change body today reiterated that international efforts to mitigate the phenomenon are insufficient to meet the goal of keeping global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The statement from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) follows…
By John Mahoney / Popsci: The skies do strange things at the NEEM camp, a remote ice-drilling and research facility on the northern Greenland ice sheet. Midnight sunshine. Low clouds of sparkling ice crystals known as “diamond dust.” But when rain fell instead of snow last summer, complete with a rainbow arcing over the camp,…