climate science

Prominent British researchers at the heart of the hacked email scandal shot down accusations of illegally withholding scientific information charting the planet's temperature, telling a parliamentary hearing that certain governments had prohibited them from publishing all the raw data.

Phil Jones (photo), head scientist of the premier Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, acknowledged that he refused requests for the institute's raw climate data, but only because of confidentiality agreements with national weather stations supplying the figures.

"No breach of the law has been established," said Edward Acton, vice chancellor of university.

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• Stacy Feldman's blog
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Some proponents of climate science are on a public relations drive to restore public confidence in the consensus that Earth is heating up, after critics seized on blizzards in the American Northeast, claiming they were evidence of global cooling.

Speaking to reporters, Jeff Masters, a meteorologist and founder of the Weather Underground web site, said that one extreme weather event, like a record-breaking snowfall, does not change the reality of climate change.

"Record snowstorms being evidence against global warming is just not true," said Masters, whose site gets 18 million visitors per month.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s last assessment of scientific research related to climate change was issued in 2007. Almost three years later, recognizing the need for an update ahead of next month’s climate talks in Copenhagen, a group of IPCC authors and other scientists released a report today that tries to fill that data gap.

What they found is a climate changing at a rate that outstrips what the IPCC projected just three years ago.

“There’s a common misconception that global warming has somehow paused or declined or reversed,” said Eric Steig, Professor of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington and one of the report’s 26 authors. “This report shows that is clearly not the case.”

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• Matthew Berger's blog
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Hurricane season 2008, which began on June 1, will officially come to a close on Sunday, November 30.

The verdict: Long and devastating -- a "top ten" season in terms of the total number of named storms and hurricanes. Hurricane expert and blogger Jeff Masters:

After two years of relative tranquility, the active hurricane period that began in 1995 returned in full force this year, living up to pre-season predictions.

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What’s the optimum level of atmospheric CO2 for humanity and nature? It’s less than the amount in the air today and must be taken back:

If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm, but likely less than that.

-- Dr. James Hansen et al, "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?"
The Open Atmospheric Science Journal, November 2008

The whole report is here. It’s worth a read. Its authors -- NASA climate scientist James Hansen and nine other scientists from the US, UK and France -- make the scientific case that most of the remaining fossil fuel carbon on the planet must never be emitted to the atmosphere, if we are to preserve a climate to which humanity is accustomed.

Three researchers at the DOE Berkeley Lab have gotten techie attention because they found a way to build the world's most accurate and efficient climate prediction supercomputer by using the same microprocessor technology of the iPod.

But there's something more fascinating about why the research was needed in the first place.

The super machines used to predict climate change today are the Hummers of the computer world.

The results of the Statistical Assessment Service’s (STATS) survey of 489 climate scientists were just announced.

And they highlight the triumph of scientific reason over climate denialism.

Again.

Nine of Earth's ecological systems are in danger of being "tipped" into irreversible, dangerous states -- beyond the point of repair. Obvious, to some. But what's staggering is just how quickly it could happen.

That's the latest finding from a prestigious group of climate scientists. It grabbed the attention of the mainstream media. And it could redefine the climate threat.