Climate & Environment Review: July 6, 2006

Climate & Environment Review
July 06, 2006

Climate & Environment Weekly is brought to you by The Center for Science and Public Policy (CSPP). CSPP is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy organization.

CSPP relies on scientific experts in many nations and the vast body of peer-reviewed literature to help lawmakers, policy makers, and the media distinguish between scientific findings that are agenda-driven and those that are based on accepted scientific methods and practices. In a timely manner, the Center's Science Watch Team alerts policy makers, the media, and the public to unreliable scientific claims and unjustified alarmism which often lead to public harm. We strive for a fair and balanced examination of science.

GREENLAND WARMING NORMAL - MORE EVIDENCE FOR NATURAL VARIABILITY OF CLIMATE CHANGE
We provide an analysis of Greenland temperature records to compare the current (1995-2005) warming period with the previous (1920-1930) Greenland warming. We find that the current Greenland warming is not unprecedented in recent Greenland history. Temperature increases in the two warming periods are of a similar magnitude, however, the rate of warming in 1920-1930 was about 50% higher than that in 1995 - 2005... >>Read More<<

COMING CLEAN OVER CLIMATE CHANGE ...
In their political heart-of-hearts, all Governments (including those in Europe) know that there is absolutely nothing we can do predictably about climate change, and, indeed, extremely little practically to curb the rise of 'greenhouse gas' emissions... >>Read More<<

Hockey Stick Shortened?
"We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?"... >>Read More<<

CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS IMPACTS: WHY YOU SHOULDN'T TRUST THE DOOM-MONGERS
Scientific debate continues regarding the extent to which human activities contribute to global warming and what the potential impact on the environment might be. Importantly, much of the scientific evidence contradicts assertions that substantial global warming is likely to occur soon and that the predicted warming will harm the Earth's biosphere... >>Read More<<

Arctic dips as global waters rise
A Dutch-UK team made the discovery after analysing radar altimetry data gathered by Europe's ERS-2 satellite... >>Read More<<

ENERGY INSUCURITY - EUROPE FACES NEW CRISIS
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Ukraine's Orange Revolution allies signed a new government coalition deal on Thursday (22 June), set to put hawkish former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko back in power but raising the risk of a fresh gas crisis that could impact the EU... >>Read More<<

The 20th-Century Behavior of Southeast Icelandic Glaciers
The authors examined the link between late Holocene fluctuations of Lambatungnajokull (an outlet glacier of the Vatnajokull ice cap of southeast Iceland) and variations in climate, using geomorphological evidence to reconstruct patterns of glacier fluctuations and using lichenometry and tephrostratigraphy to date glacial landforms created by the glacier over the past four centuries... >>Read More<<

GLOBAL WARMING WON'T HURT POLAR BEARS, WILDLIFE DIRECTOR SAYS
Global warming won't hurt polar bears, GN says They're "intelligent and quick to adapt to new circumstances"... >>Read More<<

USHCN Temperature Record of the Week - Mammoth Spring, AR
To bolster our claim that "There Has Been No Net Global Warming for the Past 70 Years," each week we highlight the temperature record of one of the 1221 U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) stations from 1930-2000... >>Read More<<

The Thermal Effect of Anthropogenic Aerosols in the Arctic
The authors employed five multisensor radiometric data sets from the North Slope of Alaska to study how enhanced concentrations of anthropogenic aerosols originating from industrial regions of lower latitudes alter the microphysical properties of Arctic clouds via a process known as the first indirect effect of aerosols... >>Read More<<

A 221-Year Temperature History of the Southwest Coast of Greenland
Combining early observational records from 13 locations along the southern and western coasts of Greenland, the authors extended the overall temperature history of the region - which stretches from approximately 60 to 73°N latitude - all the way back to AD 1784, adding temperatures for 74 complete winters and 52 complete summers to what was previously available to the public... >>Read More<<

HOW TO COOL A PLANET (MAYBE)
In the past few decades, a handful of scientists have come up with big, futuristic ways to fight global warming: Build sunshades in orbit to cool the planet. Tinker with clouds to make them reflect more sunlight back into space. Trick oceans into soaking up more heat-trapping greenhouse gases... >>Read More<<

PUT UP OR SHUT UP - CANADIAN OPPOSITION CHALLENGED TO FORCE ELECTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
"I say, 'Bring it on,'" Ambrose said Thursday in the House of Commons, responding to a question from the Bloc Quebecois. "Our government, in four months, is miles better than the 13-year Liberal record and the non-record of the Bloc."... >>Read More<<

HARLAN WATSON ON POST-KYOTO - "IF YOU LOOK BEYOND 2012, IT'S ALL SPECULATION"
LONDON - Washington cannot rule out joining any successor to the UN's Kyoto Protocol for curbing global warming beyond 2012 but such a move would face big legal hurdles, the US chief climate negotiator said on Monday... >>Read More<<

Is the Recent Greenland Temperature Increase Evidence of Man-Induced Global Warming?
Chylek et al. (2006) recently studied the characteristics of two century-long temperature records from southern coastal Greenland - Godthab Nuuk on the west and Ammassalik on the east, both close to 64°N latitude - concentrating on the period 1915-2005. What did they find?... >>Read More<<

NEW AGE NUCLEAR- THORIUM NUCLEAR REACTOR DESIGNS ADVANCING
The use of thorium to power nuclear reactors holds out the prospect of a huge reduction in nuclear wastes, a nuclear fuel cycle that is much more proliferation resistant, lower costs, and a fuel that is many times more plentiful than uranium... >>Read More<<

HOW THE CONSENSUS IS CONTRIVED AND SUSTAINED
From the blog of climate modeller James Annan - an example of how 'consensus' is contrived and sustained:
Another week, another rejection (without review) from Nature... >>Read More<<

Expectations of the company are changing
THE DEBATE over the role of business dates back at least a century, to the time when President Theodore Roosevelt broke the power of those "malefactors of great wealth."... >>Read More<<

ANOTHER SCARE DEBUNKED - MALDIVES MORE RESILIENT TO CLIMATE CHANGE THAN THOUGHT
A new model of reef-island evolution, based on detailed morphostratigraphic analysis and radiometric dating of three islands in South Maalhosmadulu Atoll, Maldives, is presented... >>Read More<<

KYOTO FOLLY: CARBON COSTS MENACE INVESTMENT IN EUROPE
MILAN - The rising costs of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by smokestack industries may trigger a shift in major investments in such sectors from Europe to countries where carbon controls are less strict, analysts said... >>Read More<<

Climatic Fluctuations Recorded in a Southeastern France Coastal Lagoon
The authors analyzed assemblages of minerals and microfossils from a sediment core taken from the Berre coastal lagoon in southeast France (~ 43.44°N, 5.10°E) in an effort to reconstruct environmental changes in that region over the past 1500 years... >>Read More<<

A 1500-Year Climate History of Northern Eurasia
In a special issue of Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, Solomina and Alverson (2004) review and synthesize the findings of a number of papers presented at a conference held in Moscow in May of 2002, which brought together more than 100 local paleoenvironmental researchers from Bellarussia, Estonia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, plus another 30 scientists from 18 additional countries... >>Read More<<

Methane (Emissions to the Atmosphere: Natural Vegetation) – Summary
What impact do global warming, the ongoing rise in the air's carbon dioxide (CO2) content and a number of other contemporary environmental trends have on the atmosphere's methane (CH4) concentration? The implications of this question are huge, in light of the fact that methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas, molecule for molecule, than is carbon dioxide. Hence, we here consider this question as it applies to methane emissions associated with natural vegetation... >>Read More<<