Republican Senator Invents New Theory of Global Warming

Ted Stevens, the Republican senator from Alaska whose vacation home was recently raided by the FBI, and who made over $800,000 from a shady real estate deal last year, has come up with a brand-new theory of global warming. He told a CBS reporter in Alaska:

"We’re at the end of a long, long term of warming, 700 to 900 years of increased temperature, a very slow increase. We think we’re close to the end of that. If we’re close to the end of that, that means that we’ll start getting cooler gradually, not very rapidly, but cooler once again and stability might come to this region for a period of another 900 years."

This was Stevens’ way of telling the villagers of Shishmaref, which is being washed away by rising waters, despite the Army Corps of Engineers’ construction of massive sea walls, that they’re on their own.

It’ll be interesting to see if the denialists at Planet Gore, so quick to attack any liberal politician who makes an issue of global warming, will leap to the defense of Stevens’ claim, which as far as scientists can tell, appears to be a personal fantasy.

Intriguingly, five years ago, Stevens sang a different tune, as as Timothy Egan of the New York Times reported. For more, please see my post in Grist:

Diamond-Mining in Canada: Climate Change Hits A New Boomtown

Great story and conversation from Steve Inskeep of NPR, who recounts going to Yellowknife, Canada, on the edge of the Arctic Circle, which has become a boomtown thanks to diamond-mining..a boomtown now threatened by climate change. (National Public Radio helpfully provides a transcript and a slide-show.) But one of the charms of NPR is their calm, reassuring tones; the story is about changes at the Arctic circle, but it opens gently, almost lovingly, with words from a long-time local about wildlife.

Gordon Van Tieghem is the mayor of Yellowknife in northern Canada near the Arctic Circle.                        

He’s also a hunter. And as the weather grows warmer, he’s noticing more animals drifting up from the south.                        

"In
our area, we’ve seen cougars, we have crows. It’s just in the last 10
years that crows (appeared) — the last 15 years that we’ve had magpie,
white-tailed deer. It’s all indicative that something’s changing," Van
Tieghem says.

Moonrise over Felix

If global warming is, as Bill McKibben argues convincingly, "the biggest thing we have ever done" as a species, then it follows, I think, that we’re going to have to start looking for the beauty and the grace of global warming in the inevitable changes that follow…one of them being, apparently, bigger and stronger hurricanes. Here’s an example: a jaw-dropping photo from Randy Byron, pilot of a NOAA hurricane observation plane. Look at the moon rise — over the wall of Felix’s eye. (h/t: Wunderblog)

Moonrise_over_felixs_eye

Bush Lies, er, Misleads on Global Warming…Again

The Prez has a long history of misleading the nation on climate change. Not unlike his father, who promised to be the "environmental president" on the stump, Bush promised on the campaign trail in 2000 to reduce CO2 emissions, then promptly reversed himself once taking office.

But that’s in the history books. Yesterday, according to the Washington Post, he told an audience at a fund-raiser in Washington state:

"Do you realize that the United States is the only major industrialized nation that cut greenhouse gases last year?

One problem: it’s misleading, at best. For more, please see my post in Grist :

Temp: Hot! Outlook: Cooler (says soils forecast)

Southern California has been baking in a nasty heat wave for the last five days; it’s expected to last another day. Yet the experimental NOAA temperature outlook says it’s going to be cooler than usual this September, if the blue squares along the California coast can be trusted.

In fact, earlier this year NOAA forecaster Douglas LeComte told me he thought these forecasts were as good as conventional ocean-based forecasts.This month will be a good test for their predictive skill.

September_cas_temp_outlook

Alarming Facts about Hurricane Felix

Chris Mooney makes a list. Last year this fine reporter and blogger sharply criticized Time magazine for overstating reasons why we should be "very worried" about global warming driving more powerful storms and hurricanes: now he seems to have changed his tune.

Reckless prediction: He wasn’t the first, and he won’t be the last.

Here’s Chris on this year’s hurricane season:

"Here’s some data I recently compiled. First, concerning Hurricane Felix:

* After not having once since Andrew in 1992, we are now
expected to see two Category 5 Atlantic basin hurricane landfalls in
the space of 2 weeks.

* Hurricane Felix reached Category 5 on September 2, just 13 days after Hurricane Dean reached it on August 20.

* Both hurricanes are stronger than anything seen in the Pacific
this year, even though Pacific typhoons are generally more frequent and
powerful than Atlantic hurricanes.

* 11 am ET, Sunday Sept 2: Felix was at 90 knot maximum sustained winds. By 8 pm ET, Sunday Sept 2, maximum sustained winds were 145 knots, for an increase of 55 knots in 9 hours.

The staggering facts also continue when it comes to the Atlantic in general:

* There have now been 8 Category 5 hurricanes in the past 5 years (Isabel, Ivan, Emily, Katrina, Rita, Wilma, Dean, Felix)

* There have been two Category 5s this year; only three other seasons have had more than one (1960, 1961, 2005). (Thanks, Llewelly.)

* There have been 8 Category 5 hurricanes so far in the 2000s; no
other decade has had so many. The closest runner up is the 1960s with 6
(Donna, Ethel, Carla, Hattie, Beulah, Camille).

* For the 2007 Atlantic Season, all hurricanes so far have been Category 5 hurricanes.

Are we worried yet?"

Hurricane Felix Hits Category Five

ZCZC MIATCDAT1 ALL
TTAA00 KNHC DDHHMM
HURRICANE FELIX SPECIAL DISCUSSION NUMBER  10
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL   AL062007
800 PM EDT SUN SEP 02 2007
 
REPORTS FROM A NOAA HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT INDICATE THAT FELIX
HAS INTENSIFIED AND IS NOW A CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE.  THE AIRCRAFT
REPORTED PEAK FLIGHT-LEVEL WINDS OF 152 KT...WITH PEAK SFMR WINDS
OF 142 KT IN THE SOUTHWEST QUADRANT.  HIGHER SFMR WINDS WERE FOUND
IN THE NORTHEAST QUADRANT...UP TO 163 KT...BUT THESE MAY HAVE BEEN
CONTAMINATED BY GROUPEL.  A DROPSONDE RELEASED IN THE SOUTHWEST
QUADRANT LANDED IN THE NORTHEAST QUADRANT...AND THIS DROP YIELDED A
SURFACE ESTIMATE OF 139 KT BASED ON THE LOWEST 150 M LAYER AVERAGE. 
BASED ON THESE DATA...THE PEAK SURFACE WINDS ARE ESTIMATED TO BE AT
LEAST 145 KT.  AN EYE SONDE MEASURED A SURFACE PRESSURE OF 936 MB
WITH SURFACE WINDS OF 24 KT.  BECAUSE OF THE EXTREME TURBULENCE AND
GROUPEL THAT THE AIRCRAFT EXPERIENCED...THE MISSION IS BEING
ABORTED AND THE AIRCRAFT IS RETURNING TO ST. CROIX.

yeah, and who can blame them for not wanting to fly into this?

Hurricane_felix




While Greece Burns…

Greece this summer had as many fires in a month as all of Europe had in the last ten years — up to 200 on one day alone. I think global warming–meaning an existing drought, a record-breaking heat wave in June and July, and high winds–encouraged these fires. But of course, just as a gambler in a casino cannot see "a streak of bad luck" or be "on a roll" based on a single hand in a card game, so can we as a species not see global warming in any single event. Hence, only the bravest of reporters even mention it — a mistake, in my view. Global warming is here; time to talk about it. Even if it’s only one of many factors.

For more, see my post in Grist. Here’s a poster for a silent protest that took place in front of the government building in Athens on Thursday night and attracted a large crowd. (Licensed.)

Silentprotestposter

Editorial vs. News: The Wall Street Journal Contradicts Itself on Global Warming

The Wall Street Journal is universally admired among journalists for its news and analysis; for its editorial page, not so much. A spectacular example of the latter’s ability to mislead appeared yesterday, under the cute title Not So Hot, in which the anonymous editorializers adroitly attacked NASA, environmentalists, climate change models, and climatologists James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt over a statistically insignificant data correction. The misleading editorial was rewarded with great popularity, as the piece was the second most emailed of the day, right after a feature on beer pong.

But interestingly, two weeks ago the number-crunchers at the WSJ ran a feature analyzing the exact same controversy in the column called The Numbers Guy, prosaically entitled "Global Warming Debate Overheats with Bad Numbers." This gives Grist readers a unique opportunity to compare the WSJ news-and-analysis team versus the WSJ editorial team. Judge for yourself via this post on Grist: