Climate & Environment Review: May 25, 2007

Climate & Environment Review
May 25, 2007

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.

A Science-Based Rebuttal to the Testimony of Al Gore Before the United States Senate Environment & Public Works Committee
On March 21, 2007, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore testified before a joint meeting of the Science and
Technology Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Environment and the Energy and Commerce’s
Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality in the House of Representatives, as well as the Senate’s
Environment and Public Works Committee on the subject of global warming...>>Read More<<

Study Finds Hurricanes Frequent in Some Cooler Periods
Over the last 5,000 years, the eastern Caribbean has experienced several periods, lasting centuries, in which strong hurricanes occurred frequently even though ocean temperatures were cooler than those measured today, according to a new study... >>Read More<<

Intense hurricane activity over the past 5,000 years controlled by El Nino and the West African monsoon
The processes that control the formation, intensity and track of hurricanes are poorly understood... >>Read More<<

Have Hurricane Intensities Increased as the World has Warmed?
As an important first step in confronting and resolving this problem, Kossin et al. "constructed a more homogeneous data record of hurricane intensity by first creating a new consistently analyzed global satellite data archive from 1983 to 2005 and then applying a new objective algorithm to the satellite data to form hurricane intensity estimates," after which they analyzed the resultant homogenized data for temporal trends over the period 1984-2004 for all major ocean basins and the global ocean as a whole... >>Read More<<

WG1 IPCC Chapter 1 - More Scientifically Erroneous Statements
Climate Science has selected two errors in Chapter 1 of the 2007 WG1 IPCC Report to highlight in this weblog... >>Read More<<

A Short Summary Of Why Skillful Climate Prediction is Much More Difficult Than Skillful Weather Prediction
Climate Science has already weblogged on the claim in the 2007 IPCC WG1 report that, “Projecting changes in climate due to changes in greenhouse gases 50 years from now is a very different and much more easily solved problem than forecasting weather patterns just weeks from now. To put it another way, long-term variations brought about by changes in the composition of the atmosphere are much more predictable than individual weather events”... >>Read More<<

US carbon emissions fell in 2006 despite growing economy
Washington- US carbon-dioxide emissions declined by 1.3 per cent in 2006 even as the world's largest economy expanded by 3.3 per cent, the White House announced late Wednesday. The US Energy Information Administration issued a so-called flash estimate of carbon-dioxide emissions that showed a decline of 78 million metric tons last year in the United States... >>Read More<<

UK Carbon Emissions Up 3.6 Percent in 2006
LONDON - The UK's carbon emissions rose by 8.8 million tonnes or 3.6 percent in 2006, exceeding its quota set by the European Commission and forcing companies to purchase extra allowances, the government said on Thursday... >>Read More<<

Smoke alarm: EU shows carbon trading is not cutting emissions
Brussels lambasted the US and Australia yesterday for their inaction in cutting carbon dioxide emissions and stressed Europe's leading role in the battle against global warming... >>Read More<<

Oil Industry Says Biofuel Push May Hurt at Pump
Gas prices are spiking again — to an average of $3.22 a gallon, and close to $4 a gallon in many areas... >>Read More<<

Gasoline Prices: Conspiracy or Plot?
Just as robins return in the spring, so too do worries about the price of gasoline. For example, a March 20 headline in Rhode Island's Providence Journal headline warns "Gasoline prices continue to rise." The newspaper notes that prices have risen 37 cents per gallon since February and the national average price is now $2.55 for a gallon of gas... >>Read More<<