Antarctic octopus tells story of ice-sheet collapse

By Tamera Jones4 May 2012 Scientists have long been concerned that the massive West Antarctic Ice Sheet could collapse if global temperatures keep climbing. If it did, sea levels are predicted to rise by as much as five metres. Now, genetic evidence from an Antarctic octopus reveals that this may have happened at some point […]

Responses to Professor Ian Plimer’s 101 climate questions

In late 2011, Professor Ian Plimer, a geology professor and expert mineralogist with no background in climate science, released his latest book, How to get expelled from school: a guide to climate change for pupils, parents and punters. In response to Professor Ian Plimer’s 101 questions on climate change science, the department provides Accurate Answers […]

State Farm and Diageo withdraw support for Heartland Institute after terrorist billboard campaign

By Phil Plait 8 May 2012 I wrote a few days ago about the disgusting billboards put up by the far-right Heartland Institute, a climate-change denial group that apparently has no lower bounds to what they’ll do. The billboards, which went up in Chicago, likened climate scientists (and anyone who knows global warming is real) […]

Unprecedented April heat hits Central and Eastern Europe

By Jeff Masters1 May 2012 A European heat wave of unparalleled intensity for so early in the year smashed all-time April heat records over much of Central and Eastern Europe on Saturday and Sunday. According to wunderground’s weather historian Christopher C. Burt, and weather records researcher Maximiliano Herrera, new national April heat records were set […]

More rainmaking launched as drought bites North Thailand after record floods

3 May 2012 (The Nation) – Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra presided over a meeting yesterday on water policies to speedily distribute water and launch the rainmaking operations and declared the Mae Wong Dam in Nakhon Sawan was necessary. Kitti Thupsri, technical specialist at the Phitsanulok rainmaking operation centre, said yesterday that since March the centre […]

As Japan swings away from nuclear power, higher oil dependency erases greenhouse-gas gains

By Associated Press TOKYO – The Fukushima crisis is eroding years of Japanese efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming, as power plants running on oil and natural gas fill the electricity gap left by now-shuttered nuclear reactors. Before last year’s devastating tsunami triggered meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, Japan had […]

Report points to decline in ability to monitor Earth

By RACHEL NUWER2 May 2012 Earth-observing systems operated by the United States have entered a steep decline, imperiling the nation’s monitoring of weather, natural disasters and climate change, a report from the National Research Council warned Wednesday. Long-running and new missions are frequently delayed, lost or canceled because of budget cuts, launching failures, disorganization and […]

Bangkok heatwave stokes debate over mega-city planning as climate warms

By Amy Sawitta Lefevre, with additional reporting by Enrico Dela Cruz and Manuel Mogato in Manila, David Fogarty in Singapore and Stuart Grudgings in Kuala Lumpur; Editing by Alan Raybould and Jeremy Laurence4 May 2012 BANGKOK (Reuters) – Five months after the worst floods in half a century, the Thai capital is facing a heat […]

Greenland deglaciation slower than worst-case scenarios, ‘but the glaciers are speeding up and we see no sign of that stopping’

By Damian Carrington, www.guardian.co.uk 3 May 2012 Sea-level rises are unlikely to be as high as worst-case scenarios have forecasted, suggests new research which shows that Greenland‘s glaciers are slipping into the sea more slowly than was previously thought. But the scientists warned that ice loss still sped up by 30% and is driving rises […]

Graph of the Day: Observed and Experimental Sensitivity of Plants to Global Warming

This trend is seen in the observational studies (blue) but not in the experimental studies (red). The numbers correspond to those in Fig. 1 and to site information given in the Supplementary Information. ABSTRACT: Warming experiments are increasingly relied on to estimate plant responses to global climate change1, 2. For experiments to provide meaningful predictions […]

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