Grist | Topics | 22 Results

RESULTS		Results 1 – 22 of 22
Headline	Author	Published	Section
More on the hockey stick Previous warm periods don't mean we're not responsible for this one	Andrew Dessler	17 Jun 2008	Gristmill
For those interested in temperature reconstructions of past climates, in particular the kerfuffle over the hockey stick, I recently found a pretty good website. It contains a load of useful information, some of which I did not know. For example, consider this famous plot from the IPCC's First Assessment Report:Skeptics have used this plot to argue that today's warmth cannot be caused by humans because it was warmer one thousand years ago. The website does a good jo ...
Topics: climate science, climate change skepticism, IPCC, climate (all these topics)

CJR panel on climate journalism	David Roberts	20 May 2008	Gristmill
The Columbia Journalism Review recently held a roundtable on climate journalism: There were three journalists: Andrew Revkin, the New York Times's lead climate reporter/blogger; Bill Blakemore, who has spearheaded climate coverage at ABC News for the last four years; and John Rennie, the editor in chief of Scientific American who recently helped craft two issues on climate change that have sold better any other issue in the magazine's long history. And there were two ...
Topics: climate science, climate, magazines, IPCC (all these topics)

Burning ice, ice, baby Methane hydrates: What's the worst -- and best -- that could happen?	Joseph Romm	17 Apr 2008	Gristmill
Methane hydrates (or clathrates), 'burning ice,' are worth understanding because they could affect the climate for better or worse. You can get the basics here on ... ... a solid form of water that contains a large amount of methane within its crystal structure [that] occur both in deep sedimentary structures, and as outcrops on the ocean floor. The worst that could happen is a climate catastrophe if they were released suddenly, as some people believed hap ...
Topics: climate, climate science, energy, fossil fuels, IPCC, natural gas, oceans (all these topics)

More from the delayer-1000 du jour Why did Nature run Pielke's pointless, misleading, embarrassing nonsense?	Joseph Romm	02 Apr 2008	Gristmill
The usually thoughtful journal Nature has just published a pointless and misleading -- if not outright dangerous -- commentary by delayer-1000 du jour, Roger Pielke, Jr., along with Christopher Green, who, as we've seen, is another aspiring delayer. It will be no surprise to learn the central point of their essay, ironically titled 'Dangerous Assumptions' (available here [PDF] or here, with a subscription), is: 'Enormous advances in energy technology will be needed to s ...
Topics: climate, climate change skepticism, climate science, greenhouse-gas emissions, IPCC (all these topics)

Happy birthday The fourth IPCC report is still going strong a year later	Andrew Dessler	15 Feb 2008	Gristmill
I was at a meeting earlier this week and was talking to one of the coordinating lead authors of the recent IPCC working group 1 report on the physical science of climate change. He remarked that he was quite surprised that how little substantive criticism the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report had received since its release just about one year ago. The reason, he thought, was that the skeptics were 'in the room' with the writing team. What he meant was that the scien ...
Topics: climate, climate science, IPCC (all these topics)

Greenland study Sea-level rise could be double IPCC projections	Joseph Romm	12 Feb 2008	Gristmill
Last year, Nature Geoscience and Science (PDF) published major articles suggesting that the consensus projection for sea-level rise this century was far too low -- and could be as high as five feet. Now the Journal of Glaciology joins in with a remarkable analysis, 'Intermittent thinning of Jakobshavn Isbr�, West Greenland, since the Little Ice Age' (PDF). The lead author, Beata Csatho from the University of Buffalo, explains implications of this work for the traditi ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, climate science, IPCC, oceans (all these topics)

Belief vs. knowledge WSJ launches Luddite attack on climate scientists and Al Gore	Joseph Romm	06 Dec 2007	Gristmill
The bar for Wall Street Journal editorials, in the journalistic equivalent of limbo dancing, keeps dropping. In a piece titled 'The Science of Gore's Nobel' (subs. req'd), Holman W. Jenkins Jr. of the WSJ editorial board manages to slander the media, Al Gore, the Nobel Committee, and all climate scientists -- without offering any facts to back up the attacks: The media will be tempted to blur the fact that his medal, which Mr. Gore will collect on Monday in Oslo ...
Topics: Al Gore, IPCC, climate science, climate, climate change skepticism (all these topics)

What do we know about climate change? Contents of the IPCC Sythesis Report Summary for Policymakers	Andrew Dessler	18 Nov 2007	Gristmill
For those not familiar with it, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was set up in 1988 to write periodic assessments of the state of climate science. Its goal is to produce policy-neutral reports that inform policymakers about the best thinking of the scientific community. These reports have tremendous impact on the debate, owing to the credibility of the IPCC process. The IPCC is actually split into three working groups. Working group 1 focuses on basi ...
Topics: climate, climate science, IPCC (all these topics)

Absolute must-read report IPCC says debate over, further delay fatal, action not costly	Joseph Romm	18 Nov 2007	Gristmill
In its definitive scientific synthesis report (PDF), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) today issued its strongest call for immediate action to save humanity from the deadly consequences of unrestrained greenhouse gas emissions. This report -- signed off by 130 nations including the U.S. and China -- slams the door on any argument for delay and makes clear we must under no circumstances listen to those who urge that we wait (who knows how long ...
Topics: IPCC, climate, climate science (all these topics)

Should the IPCC be more extreme? Recent report published projecting values of sea-level rise	Andrew Dessler	08 Jun 2007	Gristmill
As anyone who reads my posts knows, I am a big fan of the IPCC reports. They are the best summary of what the scientific community knows about climate change and how confidently we know it. A recent article (subscription required, sorry) in Science suggests that some scientists view the IPCC as overly cautious: In the latest report, its fourth since 1990, the IPCC spoke for scientists in a calm, predictably conservative tone (Science, 9 February, p. 754). It is, ...
Topics: climate, climate science, IPCC, scientific research (all these topics)

Scientists and alarmism The 'in it for the money' theory of climate science doesn't pan out	Andrew Dessler	29 May 2007	Gristmill
We have all heard the following argument: in order to get funding for research, the scientific community is forced to produce alarmist predictions of climate change. There's a lot wrong with this argument. But it recently occurred to me that it doesn't even make sense. In the latest IPCC reports, what the scientific community said is that our understanding of climate change is quite good (although not 'settled'). This does nothing to build up research funding. T ...
Topics: climate, climate science, IPCC (all these topics)

Clarion Caller An interview with renowned climate scientist James Hansen	Kate Sheppard	15 May 2007	Main Dish
James Hansen. Photo: nasa.gov James Hansen, NASA's top climate expert, believes scientists have an obligation to speak out when their findings have important implications for the public -- and he certainly put that belief into practice last year when he told The New York Times that the Bush administration was trying to muzzle his calls for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Hansen has been ...
Topics: climate, climate change mitigation, climate science, coal, energy, international politics, interview, IPCC, James Hansen, politics (all these topics)

Uh oh! Observed warming since 1990 is greater than the models predicted	Andrew Dessler	10 May 2007	Gristmill
An article in the May 4 issue of Science shows that observed warming in the 16 years since 1990 is greater than predicted by models. Perhaps models are underestimating future climate change. That would be bad news. 'Recent Climate Observations Compared to Projections' We present recent observed climate trends for carbon dioxide concentration, global mean air temperature, and global sea level, and we compare these trends to previous model projections as summa ...
Topics: climate, climate science, greenhouse-gas emissions, IPCC (all these topics)

IPCC out of date, again More current science paints an even grimmer picture	Joseph Romm	04 May 2007	Gristmill
Already, there are serious reservations about the final IPCC summary for policymakers, which was released today. The BBC leads the charge, noting that the economic models used to recommend mitigation policies aim to hold the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration at 550 parts per million (ppm). However, more recent scientific evidence suggests, and I agree, that our policies need to keep concentrations much closer to 450 ppm. I certainly applaud the IPCC and ...
Topics: climate, climate change mitigation, climate science, IPCC, politics (all these topics)

The IPCC: conservative? A case can be made	David Roberts	19 Mar 2007	Gristmill
Is the fourth assessment report from the IPCC a conservative document? David Biello makes the case.
Topics: climate, climate change mitigation, climate science, IPCC, politics (all these topics)

A new round of attacks on the IPCC Just as misleading as the old round	Andrew Dessler	11 Feb 2007	Gristmill
Because of the enormous credibility of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's reports, and because they suggest that human-induced climate change is a very real risk, opponents of action on climate change must attack the IPCC or completely cede the scientific high ground in the debate. With the release of the latest IPCC report, a whole new crop of specious skeptical arguments has arisen. Here's a good example, which appeared in this week's Weekly Standard: ...
Topics: climate, climate science, IPCC (all these topics)

Op-ed on the IPCC and climate change	Andrew Dessler	10 Feb 2007	Gristmill
An op-ed I wrote with my colleague Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech appeared last Sunday in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The editorial can be found here. Update [2007-3-16 11:55:39 by Andrew Dessler]: The link no longer appears to work. The text of the op-ed is reproduced below:Global warming: Stop arguing and start planning By KATHARINE HAYHOE and ANDREW DESSLER Special to the Star-Telegram Science has spoken. The Earth is warming, and most of t ...
Topics: climate, climate science, IPCC (all these topics)

Update on the AEI and AR/4 brouhaha Follow-up on think tank paying writers to question IPCC	Andrew Dessler	08 Feb 2007	Gristmill
The 'AEI vs. AR/4' story has gotten a surprising amount of play in the mainstream press over the last few days. Briefly: last summer conservative think tank AEI sent letters to two of my colleagues asking them to participate in a 'critique' of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR/4). Oh yeah, and they offered them $10,000 to do this. My initial blog post from July can be found here. It got picked up by the mainstream press and has been widely reported on over the ...
Topics: climate, climate science, IPCC (all these topics)

You're Getting Warmer The scoop on the new IPCC climate-change report	Andrew Dessler	02 Feb 2007	Main Dish
What is the IPCC, and what's the deal with its new report? When climate change emerged as an important environmental issue in the late 1980s, the world governments' first response was to establish an international body to produce summaries of scientific knowledge of climate change. That body is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC has completed three major reports since its ...
Topics: climate, climate science, IPCC (all these topics)

Hurricanes: A new and improved hockey stick Another silly debate around the IPCC report	Andrew Dessler	01 Feb 2007	Gristmill
News stories have been reporting that the IPCC will make a statement about the relation between global warming and hurricanes: During marathon meetings in Paris, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change approved language that said an increase in hurricane and tropical cyclone strength since 1970 'more likely than not' can be attributed to man-made global warming, according to Leonard Fields of Barbados and Cedric Nelom of Surinam.The blogosphere is already awash ...
Topics: climate, climate change skepticism, climate science, IPCC (all these topics)

The scientific debate Some thoughts	David Roberts	05 Jan 2007	Gristmill
Part of the confusion over Revkin's article is that there isn't one "climate debate." There are several. I'm going to taxonomize them in another post, but first I want to say something about the scientific one. This debate, as many folks have pointed out, is pretty much over. The denialists are wrong and they've been completely discredited. Every serious person involved in the climate change discussion accepts the broad conclusions of the IPCC. However, ...
Topics: Al Gore, climate, climate change impacts, climate change skepticism, climate science, IPCC (all these topics)

'The temperature record is simply unreliable' Perhaps, but temperature trends are clear and widely corroborated	Coby Beck	02 Nov 2006	Gristmill
(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide) Objection: The surface temperature record is full of assumptions, corrections, differing equipment and station settings, changing technology, varying altitudes, and more. It is not possible to claim we know what the "global average temperature" is, much less determine any trend. The IPCC graphs only say what the scientists want them to say. Answer: There is actually some truth to the part about ...
Topics: climate, climate change skepticism, climate science, How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic, IPCC (all these topics)

Stories About: climate AND climate science AND IPCC