So let’s say, thanks to the reality challenged wingnut brigades and associated ingorati, climate change hits a tipping point. And now the whole world is looking down the barrel of a clathrate gun. Well, there might still be solutions. Afterall, this isn’t just a political problem, at its heart it’s a thermodynamics problem. Any second year engineering student can swear on a stack of tables six inches thick that thermodynamic problems often have solutions. In this case, the solution would have to be … err … large: [Read more…]

Scientists used a clever technique to pin down the temperature a thousand years ago during the medieval warm period. The results are both fascinating and a little depressing: [Read more…]

Paleoclimatologist extraordinaire Dr. Michael Mann will be in my home town of Austin next week. Mike has been invaluable again and again in helping me and dozens of other bloggers convey the subtleties of his field of study to thousands of readers over the years. In fact he and his cohorts created one of the first dedicated expert science blogs, Realclimate.

We’ll probably get together for a beer at some point on Tues or Weds. If you’re in Central Texas let me know below and I’ll keep you posted. I might need a ride home.

Ho ho ho, Santa’s gonna need a new workshop! Unless his entire Arctic operation can float in the new liquid ocean formerly known as the Arctic: [Read more…]

Going, going … when will it be gone? [Read more…]

It’s going, going … when will it be gone? [Read more…]

Richard Muller, a long standing cliamte change skeptic has finally accepted reality. Not only is climate chnge real, but human activity is causing most of it: [Read more…]

Climate change science is getting more accurate, in part becuase of building on past research like any other science, and in part because computers are able to handle more and more complex chaotic models. Where the exact tipping point might be for a specific weather event is now clearer, and in some cases, the models indicate that critical factor is indeed global warming: [Read more…]

I guess, in a weird way, science deniers and science aficionados share something in common when it comes to climate change: we’re all scared by the data. Deniers deal with the anxiety by escaping into elaborate fantasies and penalizing those who don’t readily follow them down the rabbit hole, the rest of us try to figure out how fast the world is warming and think about what might be done to slow it down. Greenland adds another data point for our consideration: [Read more…]