The GOP and Science, never the twain shall meet ?

On Climate Change, its the Republican Party vs. Reality.

A comprehensive Wonk Room survey of the Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate finds that nearly all dispute the scientific consensus that the United States must act to fight global warming pollution. In May, 2010, the National Academies of Science reported to Congress that “the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change” because global warming is “caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for — and in many cases is already affecting — a broad range of human and natural systems.”

This finding is shared by hundreds of scientific bodies around the world (over 99%). However, in the alternate reality of the fossil-fueled right wing, climate science is confused or a conspiracy, and policies to limit pollution would destroy the economy.

Remarkably, of the dozens of Republicans vying for the 37 Senate seats in the 2010 election, only one — Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware — supports climate action. Even former climate advocates Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) now toe the science-doubting party line. If Castle loses his primary on Tuesday to Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell, the GOP slate will be unanimous in opposition to a green economy.

Sharron Angle, Republican Tea-Party candidate for the US Senate (Delaware)

I don't, however, buy into the whole ... man-caused global warming, man-caused climate change mantra of the left. I believe that there's not sound science to back that up.

The National Academy of Sciences :

As part of its most comprehensive study of climate change to date, the National Research Council today issued three reports emphasizing why the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change. The reports by the Research Council, the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering, are part of a congressionally requested suite of five studies known as America's Climate Choices....

The compelling case that climate change is occurring and is caused in large part by human activities is based on a strong, credible body of evidence, says Advancing the Science of Climate Change, one of the new reports. While noting that there is always more to learn and that the scientific process is never "closed," the report emphasizes that multiple lines of evidence support scientific understanding of climate change. The core phenomenon, scientific questions, and hypotheses have been examined thoroughly and have stood firm in the face of serious debate and careful evaluation of alternative explanations.

"Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for — and in many cases is already affecting — a broad range of human and natural systems," the report concludes. It calls for a new era of climate change science where an emphasis is placed on "fundamental, use-inspired" research, which not only improves understanding of the causes and consequences of climate change but also is useful to decision makers at the local, regional, national, and international levels acting to limit and adapt to climate change. Seven cross-cutting research themes are identified to support this more comprehensive and integrative scientific enterprise.

Ken Buck, Republican candidate for Colorado :

I’ll tell you, I have looked at global warming, now climate change, from both sides. While I think the earth is warming, I don’t think that man-made causes are the primary factor. I am one of those people that Al Gore refers to as a skeptic.

The American Geophysical Union :

The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system-including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons-are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century. Global average surface temperatures increased on average by about 0.6¡C over the period 1956-2006. As of 2006, eleven of the previous twelve years were warmer than any others since 1850. The observed rapid retreat of Arctic sea ice is expected to continue and lead to the disappearance of summertime ice within this century. Evidence from most oceans and all continents except Antarctica shows warming attributable to human activities.

Linda McMahon, Republican Senate candidate, Connecticut

I think there's evidence to the positive and to the contrary about global warming.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

The 2009 State of the Climate report released today draws on data for 10 key climate indicators that all point to the same finding: the scientific evidence that our world is warming is unmistakable. More than 300 scientists from 160 research groups in 48 countries contributed to the report, which confirms that the past decade was the warmest on record and that the Earth has been growing warmer over the last 50 years.

Marco Rubio, Republican Senate candidate, Florida :

In an interview with the Tribune on that subject Friday, Rubio called Crist "a believer in man-made global warming."

"I don't think there's the scientific evidence to justify it," Rubio said.

Asked whether he accepts the scientific evidence that the global climate is undergoing change, he responded, "The climate is always changing. The climate is never static. The question is whether it's caused by man-made activity and whether it justifies economically destructive government regulation."

American Association for the Advancement of Science :

The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society.

Pat Toomey, Republican Senate candidate for Pennsylvania :

There is much debate in the scientific community as to the precise sources of global warming.

American Chemical Society :

Careful and comprehensive scientific assessments have clearly demonstrated that the Earth’s climate system is changing rapidly in response to growing atmospheric burdens of greenhouse gases and absorbing aerosol particles (IPCC, 2007). There is very little room for doubt that observed climate trends are due to human activities. The threats are serious and action is urgently needed to mitigate the risks of climate change.

Roy Blunt, Republican Senate candidate for Missouri :

There isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth.

American Meteorological Society :

Indeed, strong observational evidence and results from modeling studies indicate that, at least over the last 50 years, human activities are a major contributor to climate change.

Direct human impact is through changes in the concentration of certain trace gases such as carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and water vapor, known collectively as greenhouse gases.

American Physical Society :

The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.

Carly Fiorina, Republican candidate for Senate, California :

Q: Is climate change real?

Fiorina: I’m not sure. I think we should have the confidence and courage to test the science.

Joint statement by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, American Geophysical Union, American Institute of Biological Sciences, American Meteorological Society, American Society of Agronomy, American Society of Plant Biologists, American Statistical Association, Association of Ecosystem Research Centers, Botanical Society of America, Crop Science Society of America, Ecological Society of America, Natural Science Collections Alliance, Organization of Biological Field Stations, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Society of Systematic Biologists, Soil Science Society of America, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research:

Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science. Moreover, there is strong evidence that ongoing climate change will have broad impacts on society, including the global economy and on the environment.

 

This would be funny if it weren't so dangerous. This isn't a debate between Republicans and Democrats about what to do about climate change, it's a debate between Republicans and reality about the very existence of climate change. And it's clear that no amount of science will convince Republicans of something they just don't want to believe. The question is whether the voters want to listen to the scientists or to those whose beliefs are not based on anything remotely rational or factual. And it's only the future of the world as we know it that's at stake.

Its the Sun, stupid ! or is it ?

In 2007, Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia issued a controversial theory suggesting that changes in the Sun's activity were the cause for global warming and not raising levels of greenhouse gases such as CO2.   As evidence, Abdussamatov pointed to warming on Mars reflected in decreasing carbon dioxide ice caps on the poles of Mars over a 3 martian year period.  

Abdussmatov took this evidance and suggested that planetary warming is uniform across the solar system and is a product of solar activity.   However, this is not at all the case.   Indeed, for the past 35 years the Sun has actualy been in a slight cooling phase, generating slightly less heat, not more.  The past 10 years have also been in an unusualy long solar minimum period, a period in which solar flare and sunspot activity is lower than average.  Note that this same period also represents one of the hottest decades in recorded history since mankind has been measuring temperatures.

Therefore, it is clear that something interesting is happening on Mars, but it is not a result of higher solar activity and does not explain the global warming effect we are experiencing on Earth.

Graph : Global Average Earth Temperature (RED) and Sun Activity / Radiated Heat (BLUE)

Note that solar activity does cause increases in atmospheric temperaters on Earth, this is a given, however, the pronounced global warming effect we have been tracking since the mid 20th Century does not reflect any increase in solar activity, indeed, most of Earth's recent warming occurred while the Sun was in a cooling phase.  The Sun is not the driving factor in warming (currently), however, when the Sun does enter a new highly active (Solar Maximum) phase, the effects of greenhouse gas driven global warming will be accelerated and magnified by the increased warming from the Sun.  We should be entering a period of solar maximum very soon.

[ sources (controversial theory and skeptics) : http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html ; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3869753.stm ]


[ sources (refuting points) : http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm ; http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/464/2094/1387.abstract ; http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009JGRD..11414101B ; http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0901/0901.0515v1.pdf ; http://www.skepticalscience.com/acrim-pmod-sun-getting-hotter.htm ]

Nature Magazine - A new view on sea level rise

The IPCC's (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - UN) report presented and referenced as the basis of the Copenhagen climate change accord late last year predicted sea level rise over a 100 year period averaging globally at around 1.9mm per year, for a total increase in the range of 18 to 59 cm by 2090.  However, as Nature explains this month, numerous bodies are suggesting these figures are far too low and miss critical factors which will accelerate the rate of sea level rise.

The graph above represents new modeling of sea level rise taking a more refined approach and indicates a probable sea level rise of 1 meter by 2090.  So what is lacking in the IPCC's models ?  1) They assumed a linear increase in sea level with temperature increasing and did not consider the compounding impact of warming temperatures on ice melt  2) They did not consider the impact of the melting of glaciers or the melting of the ice sheets in Antartica and Greenland. The IPCC range assumes a near-zero net contribution of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to future sea level rise, on the basis that Antarctica is expected to gain mass from an increase in snowfall. Observations show, however, that both ice sheets have been losing mass at an accelerating rate over the past two decades [data : http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.org/ ]. 3)  The melting of all glaciars alone will add 60 cm to global sea levels, not including the vast continental ice sheets of Greenland and Antartica [ data : http://climatecongress.ku.dk/pdf/synthesisreport/ ].

This new and more refined view of probable sea level change is gaining traction and consensus with a growing body of the scientific community [1].   The 1 meter increase is not the worst case scenario in these new models by a long shot, indeed, it is the predicted middle scenario of 3 degrees celsius temperature increase.  The outer range of the models indicate the worst case scenario, not necessarily the most likely.

Nature magazine covers this refinement of project sea level rise quite comprehensively this month, and goes on to provide some historic context :

At the end of the last ice age, the Earth slowly warmed by 4–7 °C globally and lost almost two-thirds of its land ice in the process. That raised sea level by 120 metres, at rates often exceeding a metre per century. It seems that nothing in the present ice-sheet configuration would rule out similar rates in future. How much of the remaining 65 metres' worth of land ice will humans melt if we warm the planet by a further several degrees?

[ source : http://www.nature.com/climate/2010/1004/full/climate.2010.29.html#B17 ]


1 - [ references : http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/315/5810/368 ; Vermeer, M. & Rahmstorf, S. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 21527–21532 (2009). ; Horton, R. et al. Geophys. Res. Lett. 35, L02715 (2008). ; Grinsted, A., Moore, J. C. & Jefrejeva, S. Clim. Dynam. 34, 461–472 (2009). ; http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL042947.shtml ]

UN underestimating global warming impacts

Scientific American has been writing some excellent articles on the science behind climate change and the importance of tackling humanity's contribution to CO2 levels as urgently as possible.  This month they bring us a report from the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.   James McCarthy of the Harvard Medical School Center for Health and Global Environment provided a detailed analysis of UN data in comparison to measured, observable climate change.  To date, the UN models are proving to be highly conservative, underestimating the effects of global warming.   Notably, these UN models are the very data that Climategate supposedly called into question as worst case scenarios...

“If you were to go back and map the IPCC projection for sea level rise and temperature in 1990, look at it in 1995, look at it in 2000. In retrospect you would find that they were conservative. So we talk about errors. If you were to do two ledgers—here are IPCC overestimates, here are IPCC underestimates—over the 20 or so years that these assessments have been running, the underestimate ledger would be much larger than the overestimate. Even with glitches—clearly erroneous editing or sloppy editing that led to these erroneous statements that got us in trouble recently.”



It is unfortunate but our media, notably television media, will run with the initial headline of questions over the accuracy of some sources of UN climate data due to the questionable commentary in some emails from one University (out of hundreds) working on the UN's climate change analysis, but that same media remains mute when it becomes apparent that even so, the UN climate change data is still significantly underestimating the rate of warming.   This is significant, and the public at large remains oblivious to the fact that climate change data is holding together, and in most cases, the forecasts previously derided are proving to have been best case scenarios.

[source : http://www.scientificamerican.com/ ]

On the subject of climategate, a significant amount of misinformation has been spread regarding the accuracy of climate data and models.   The following video by Peter Sinclair provides a good summary of the degree of misinformation being perpetuated in the mainstream media and via chain emails regarding climategate.   A lot of cherry picking of sentences is leading to a lot of intentionally out of context interpretations of scientific analysis.



[referenced article : An imperative for climate change planning : tracking earth's global energy ]

Climate Change Science in Plain English - #1

A rather excellent plain English discussion of climate change, first in a series of "plain english science" videos I will be posting on a regular basis on this blog.



Please share.

Carbon Offsetting for individuals and corporations

Beyond reducing consumption of energy and keeping an eye on efficiency, concerned individuals and corporations can take further steps to reduce their carbon footprint (how much you individually contribute to global warming gases.)   Although the US Congress has yet to enact any legislation to trade or tax carbon pollution via cap and trade or a simple carbon tax, many non-profit organizations already provide opportunities to support renewable energy and other carbon offset processes.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) maintains a list of approved US providers of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) offsets for individuals and corporations at http://apps3.eere.energy.gov/greenpower/markets/carbon.shtml?page=1 .   The monthly cost for a typical family to neutralize your carbon footprint is in the range of $10 to $20 USD.   Using carbon offsets, individuals and corporations can invest in mitigating processes which remove GHGs from the atmosphere using a number of techniques, the most common are :

• Investments in forrestation
• Investments in renewable energy infrastructure such as wind and solar power
• Processing of methane leaking from landfills, preventing the methane from escaping
• Sequestration of CO2 in deep stores / disused mines

Alternatively, individuals and corporations can also trade in carbon market credits.  Purchasing and retiring carbon credits drives up the cost of these credits by reducing supply, making polluting more expensive and renewable energy more cost effective.   Currently the US has not established a formal, regulated market for trading carbon credits, the most reliable market at present exists in the EU.   Several organizations sell EU carbon credits on the open market to invididuals and businesses worldwide.  Climakind provides such a service in $USD http://www.climakind.com/.


Ultimately, there is no one solution to climate change.  Indeed, due to inertia, the world will continue to warm significantly for at least the next 50 years even if all CO2 releases stopped today.  Momentum carries energy and the Oceans in particular will continue to store and radiate this increased energy for a long period.   However, through concerted individual efforts of households and businesses, we can have a significant collective impact.   Driving a Prius or eating organic are visible and popular actions to take, however, be aware of your total carbon footprint and, if you can, consider in addition to reducing consumption, the benefits of carbon credits and carbon offsets.



As a first step, take a look at the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) personal carbon footprint calculator, located here http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ind_calculator.html, then, consider actions that can be taken to reduce consumption, following guidelines here  reducing individual emissions and here reducing emissions for corporations.   Finally, look into carbon offsets and carbon credits, at the links provided earlier.

I hope this information proves useful in adopting a carbon neutral lifestyle.




Further resources :

http://www.carbonoffsetlist.org/
http://www.carbonfund.org/

UN makes progress with new negotiations to address Global Warming

April 11th, the first round of formal negotiations toward a binding treaty to address global warming has been completed in Bonn Germany with the participation of over 100 nations. Negotiations are ongoing to build upon the Dec'09 Copenhagen Accord and change pledges within that accord to binding agreements. As it stands the Copenhagen Accord alone is widely assessed to be too weak to meet its goal of keeping global warming within a 2 degree celsius upper limit.



Work continues through this year leading up to final all party negotations in Mexico this coming December. Parties in Bonn have agreed to intensify negotations to ensure that most agreement is complete in time for the conference in Mexico.

UN Bonn Concluding Press Release

[source : http://unfccc.int/meetings/intersessional/bonn_10/items/5533.php ]

Updated data from NOAA, the National Oceanic & Atmosphere Administration

NOAA has a long and respected history for impartial and reliable science, seving both the US Government and marine based industry with weather and climate research and modeling. NOAA is an excellent resource for raw data concerning climate trend in North America. I will present several NOAA graphs here which provide a good general picture of the trend of key climate parameters, underlying change already underway.

However, before we get to the charts, I must make an important point on how scientific charts should be interpreted. There has been much deliberate confusion of the public recently by climate deniers claiming that over a certain period, warming has stop, or even, reversed. This conclusion is reached by cheating the data. Take any one point in a bar chart for example and compare to another. If you cherry pick the two dates to arrive at a particular conclusion, you can try to pick, for example, an unusually hot year 10 or 20 years ago, and compare to a normal recent year. This trick gives the illusion that warming is not occurring and is deliberately used to cause confusion in the public, reducing interest in regulating emissions and tackling climate change.

As with any long term data, these charts should be viewed by looking at the general average trend over many years. When looked at in this manner, the data is very strongely in favor of the conclusions climate scientists have reached - we are approaching a very dangerous climate event.

/>

[source : http://www.climatewatch.noaa.gov/2009/articles/climate-change-global-temperature ]

This chart depicts the trend in global average temperates from 1880 to 2009. These temperature readings are an average of all global temperates for each year, readings taken from all over the globe. In this time period although individual spikes and dips show short term variability, the trend is crystal clear, a notable acceleration in total world average temperate since the early 1970s. We are at least forty years into this trend, if you ignore the beginning warming in the 1930s and 1940s.

This is not a model, these are real measured temperatures from weather readings around the world, averaged to an average yearly temp and then plotted for this timeline. The trend is significant.

The next chart we should look at infers the most probable cause of this warming trend - rapidly building levels of atmospheric gases which are scientifically proven to cause "greenhouse" warming effects when they accumulate to sufficient volume. The ability of these gases to cause a warming event are solid concluded science, there is no scientific debate on this. The debate concerns how much of an effect, how rapid the effect builds, and how quickly it can be turned around.

For the last 50 years, global temperatures rose at an average rate of about
0.13c (around one quarter degree Fahrenheit) per decade - almost twice as fast
as the 0.07c per decade increase observed over the previous half-century.
In the next 20 years, scientists project that global average temperature will
rise by around 0.2c (about one-third of a degree Fahrenheit) per
decade.

The most abundant greenhouse gas (but not the most dangerous per part per million) is of course Carbon Dioxide (CO2). Carbon Dioxide is produced by living organisms, both animal and plant, through geophysical processes, and human activity such as buring fossil fuels. The Earth has a natural baseline balance, a natural level of CO2, Nitrogen and Oxygen levels which have been relatively stable prior to the 20th Century for the entire time period in which human civilization has been present. Large scale change in the make up of our atmosphere (approx 4 miles thick before you reach space) would have a significant impact on the long term balance of life on this planet. Already, we have seen long drought periods in various areas of the planet including the American southwest, Australia and the African continent. These drought areas are growing and already diminishing the available farmland for our food needs (both cattle and produce farming).

This graph indicates a clear and sustained increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide in the analysis period of 1958 to 2008.  The warming effect of CO2 is proven settled science.

The vast majority of climate scientists are concerned that the dramatic rise in carbon dioxide is causing the planet to warm. Likely consequences of global warming include sea level rise, shifting precipitation patterns, expansion of areas affected by drought, increasing numbers of severe heat waves, and more intense precipitation events.
Scientists are also concerned that carbon dioxide absorbed by the ocean from the atmosphere is increasing the acidity of seawater. This change in ocean chemistry interferes with the ability of marine plants and animals to build their shells, ultimately threatening a reorganization of the entire marine food chain, which could lead to a mass extinction event.

CO2 is a global heating gas (GHG).  When you increase levels of GHGs you increase the heat of a planet. Since the beginning of the 20th Century, global CO2 levels have increased 25%.  For further information on the proven science behind greenhouse effect and CO2, please take a look at this article : 

[article : A Hyperlinked History of Climate Change Science ]

The Greenhouse Effect :





This substantial increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere can be traced back to several changes in human behavior in the 19th and 20th centuries, namely deforestation (cutting down trees which naturally absorb CO2 and produce Oxygen) and the increasing rates at which we are mining and burning fossi fuels (coal, gas, oil).   The following illustration summarizes the breakdown of CO2 increases by source and their impact.

[source : http://unfccc.int/essential_background/feeling_the_heat/items/2903.php ]




In addition to warming the atmosphere, increased CO2 levels are also absorbed into the world's oceans.   High levels of CO2 absorption will eventually cause the acidity of the oceans to increase.   Critical elements of the ocean sea chain including plankton and shellfish are highly impacted by the pH of the water, increases in acidity would significantly reduce the levels of plankton and shellfish in the oceans, reducing food supplies for significant portions of the marine food chain.   More troubling still, plankton are one of the largest producers of atmospheric oxygen in the world.   Indeed, the original source of atmospheric oxygen in the early years of the evolution of life on Earth was indeed from early plankton organisms.

Please refer to the following article (PDF) by the NOAA on ocean acidification :

[article : Carbon Dioxide and Our Ocean Legacy ]


Ocean Acidification: Anthropogenic, Carbon dioxide, Earth's atmosphere, PH, Biological pump, Carbon sink, Carbonate compensation depth, Continental shelf ... Ocean Data Analysis Project, Solubility pump

Finally, lets take a look at global sea level trends.  Warming of the atmosphere, the oceans and the surface of the planet is resulting in the release of ice from glaciers, the arctic pack, antartica and the melting of snows that usually remain in place year round.  All of this melted ice and snow flows as water back into the oceans resulting in more water volume.  Just as adding water to a bath tub increases its level, adding large volumes of water to the oceans has the same effect.    The following graph represents sea level readings at New York from 1920 to 2009, based on readings from the same tide gauge station. 



Again we have a very clear upward trend in sea levels.   Its notable that warming has accelerated in this same window and acceleration is expected to increase rate further as warming begins to release other greenhouse gases (most notably, methane trapped in frozen soils in Siberia, Scandinavia and northern Canadian territories.  Methane is a far more dangerous gas than CO2 in terms of warming effect).

Rising sea levels present a significant risk of flooding for millions of people around the globe.   The current predicted sea level change assuming moderate to little reduction in CO2 pollution would result in the permanent flooding of lands currently occupied by millions :

A recent Nature study suggested that Greenland's ice sheet will begin to melt if the temperature there rises by 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit). That is something many scientists think is likely to happen in another hundred years.   The complete melting of Greenland would raise sea levels by 7 meters (23 feet). But even a partial melting would cause a one-meter (three-foot) rise. Such a rise would have a devastating impact on low-lying island countries, such as the Indian Ocean's Maldives, which would be entirely submerged.


Densely populated areas like the Nile Delta and parts of Bangladesh would become uninhabitable, potentially driving hundreds of millions of people from their land.  A one-meter sea level rise would wreak particular havoc on the Gulf Coast and eastern seaboard of the United States.   "No one will be free from this," said Overpeck, whose maps show that every U.S. East Coast city from Boston to Miami would be swamped. A one-meter sea rise in New Orleans, Overpeck said, would mean "no more Mardi Gras."

[source : http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0420_040420_earthday_2.html ]

To sum up, the NOAA is on the record with hard imperical data confirming warming, confirming rising CO2 levels are the prime source, confirming human activity is the primary factor in the release of this CO2, and confirming sea level increases are on a dangerous trajectory.   A quote from nature sums up where we are quite succinctly :

"Is society aware of the seriousness of climate warning? I don't think so," said Marianne Douglas, a geology professor at the University of Toronto. "If we were, we'd all be leading our lives differently. We'd see a society that embraced alternative sources of energy, with less dependency on fossil fuels."   Overpeck says passing on the problem of global warming to future generations is like ignoring a government budget deficit. "Except with the deficit, there are economic mechanisms that could be put in place to get out of the large deficit," he said. "With sea level rise, there's really no technological way to put the ice back on Greenland."

Welcome friends

Thank you for visiting my blog, the Climate Change Science Digest. As inferred by the title, this blog is focused on one mission and one mission only - to present scientific facts and reports as they emerge to better our understanding of Climate Change. As such, I will be blogging regularly as and when new papers and articles are released which serve to inform and explain this most serious of concerns for humanity and the health of our planet.

I come to this topic with a great deal of respect for the scientific process and the general independence and character of long standing scientific institutes and academic bodies. As such, I am not overly swayed by the false equivalency often given to climate change denial. In most cases, denial stories have been proven to be false, misleading, or originated from industries concerned about the short term financial impact of pollution control over any other concerns.

I take a longer term pragmatic view, if climate change is real, then the cost of not addressing in the long term will far outweigh any short term costs of changing how we do business.

The scientific process is not about proving what is correct, it is fundamentally about proving what is incorrect. We know the Earth is not flat, that is proven. We know smoking causes cancer, remember that 30 year PR fight ? The same people that were behind disparaging cancer research linked to smoking are in the game again, stirring up the waters and trying to sow confusion.

However, we are jumping ahead of ourselves. Welcome to this blog and I truelly hope you find this a useful resource for finding timely, informative and wherever possible, peer reviewed quality science articles articulating and refining what we know about climate change, and what is being done to minimize long term impacts on humanity, and the planet as a whole.