global warming

arctic drilling risks

New policy emphasizes U.S. security interests in the Arctic. That makes sense in the light of the Arctic’s international significance. But the administration’s plan makes the mistake of equating security with drilling for oil in the region.[read more]

ocean thermal energy conversion

With Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion deployment, the navy can become energy self-sufficient in its own domain and can be relieved of a heavy burden in the Middle East; a win for the navy, a win for the planet.[read more]

Global Warming via Shutterstock

Technical fixes created by, for, and in rich countries will not work to solve global energy problems. For clean technologies to be both widely and rapidly adopted, they need to be developed, produced, and deployed in the particular environments where they are to be used.[read more]

The assessment, put together by dozens of the country’s top climate experts, makes clear that if we stay anywhere near our current emissions path, we are headed towards a devastating 9°F to 15°F warming over most of the United States (this century), with ever-worsening extreme weather, heat waves, deluges and droughts[read more]

In a report released just before Christmas, the UK Met Office lowered its decadal forecast for the expected average global temperature. This was a noticeable change from previous forecasts and was the result of a new climate model being put into use. On the one hand we are seeing an increase in the number of severe heat events globally, yet on the other there has been seemingly little change in global average temperature for much of the last decade.[read more]

A recently released report by VeraQuest Inc. titled “VeraGreen: A Look at American Attitudes and Behaviors on Environmental Issues,” examines how Americans view environmental issues such as global warming and the involvement of government in the private sector. The report surveyed a stratified random sample of 3,506 online...[read more]

On Monday, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that for the 333rd consecutive month November 2012 brought higher than average global temperatures. In fact, the last time November temperatures dropped below the 20th century average was in 1976. Last month global average temperature over land and...[read more]

Another day, another (accurate) apocalyptic review of climate science. Joining recent articles in the New York Times and New Scientist is a terrific piece in Scientific American by science writer John Carey.Carey has collected an assortment of epic quotes and nightmare scenarios from leading climatologists. As he explains (behind a...[read more]

Another national poll confirms that Americans increasingly believe there is solid evidence of global warming and that human activities are mostly to blame for climate change.In the second such survey released this month, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reported that 67 percent of U.S. residents now believe the...[read more]

The average global land surface temperature between June and August of 2012 was the warmest ever recorded, according to data from the National Climatic Data Center. The three month period saw an average land temperature that was 1.03°C (1.85°F) above the 20th century average.When factored with ocean surface temperature, the average...[read more]

A recent analysis shows how the distribution of summer temperatures has shifted in recent decades, to the extent that there has been a notable change in the frequency of what were extreme outlying events. This in turn led NASA to assert that “the recent bouts of extremely warm summers, including the intense heat wave afflicting the U.S. Midwest this year, very likely are the consequence of global warming”.[read more]

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that last month was, on average, the hottest July on record for the contiguous United States, beating the previous record set in the dust bowl of 1936. The past 12 months have been the hottest ever recorded in the US, with more than 27,000 heat records broken so far this...[read more]

NOAA has released its “State of the Climate Global Analysis” for May 2012. Here are the highlights:The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for May 2012 was 0.66°C (1.19°F) above the 20th century average of 14.8°C (58.6°F). This is the second warmest May since records began in 1880, behind only 2010.The Northern...[read more]

nasirkhan/Shutterstock

Paul Volcker may have $3 billion of “I told you so” J.P. Morgan Chase losses to point to. Al Gore has 326 months, and counting. Somehow I doubt either feels gleeful, although I wouldn’t blame them:April was the 326th month in a row the global temperature was above average when compared with the 20th century:The last time the globe had a...[read more]

People have been concerned about what global warming, GW, may do to their future well-being for at least the past 50 years. Governments and academia responded by performing studies to identify the causes and holding international meetings to get agreement on future actions. Current annual spending has risen to about $200 billion to...[read more]