Monthly Archives: March 2015

Bad news from East Antarctica. A new paper has been published detailing studies of the Totten Glacier, the largest of its kind in East Anarctica. They find that it is being melted from the underside, not unlike others on the … Continue reading →

Destruction in Vanuatu. Extreme typhoons like this one draw their extra strength from overheated ocean water, a common consequence of global warming. Also worth noting, “The small island nation, located about a quarter of the way from Australia to Hawaii, … Continue reading →

World carbon emissions did not increase in 2014 over 2013. This was a surprise because the world’s economy grew by 3%. The shift in China’s use of coal was the most important negative factor, lending some hope for 2015 as … Continue reading →

Global climate and CO2 levels—looking backward in time. Robert Fanney gives us an excellent short introduction to historical perspectives, relating the heat forcing power of CO2 to past global climate changes. At around 405ppm we are at the threshold of … Continue reading →

Weakness in Brazil’s current wet season. The 2014-15 rainy season in Brazil is now 2/3 completed, and again falling below norm as it did last year, only worse. This post includes a sharp graph from NOAA that shows geographically how … Continue reading →

New study of the dynamics of glacial ice movement in West Antarctica. The conclusion is that destabilization is likely to occur more quickly than commonly believed. That means sea level estimates will need to be revised upward. The processes, as … Continue reading →

Arctic sea ice lost 65% of its thickness from 1975 to 2012. For September alone the average loss was 85%, virtually assuring an ice-free September not many years from now. During that same timespan (which followed a 30-year plateau) the … Continue reading →

New monthly report for CO2 levels. Check out all three charts on this website. Still no sign of any change in the trend, which on average has been gaining 2.1ppm per year recently. Not good, but it needs to be prevented … Continue reading →

Quantifying the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions. Latest results, from a study at Duke headed by Drew Shindell. The numbers are not “real,” but are based on more than guesswork. The relative comparisons of different sources of energy appear … Continue reading →

Some reactions to China’s pollution documentary. (You can watch all 104 minutes of it in the post, with English subtitles.) This could very well signal a major turning point for policy direction in China. Such a turn of events could … Continue reading →