Joseph J. Romm's Blog, page 1136

NASA reports hottest January-July on record, says that 2010 is "likely" to be warmest year on record and July is "What Global Warming Looks Like" - WMO: "Unprecedented sequence of extreme weather events ... matches IPCC projections of more frequent and mo

Both NASA and the World Meteorological Organization both have excellent posts I'm going to excerpt at length.  The first, from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies website, is titled

July 2010 — What Global Warming Looks Like

The July 2010 global map of surface temperature anomalies (Figure 1), relative to the average July in the 1951-1980 period of climatology, provides a useful picture of current climate. It was more than 5°C (about 10°F) warmer than climatology in the eastern...

NASA reports hottest January-July on record, says that 2010 is "likely" to be warmest year on record and July is "What Global Warming Looks Like" - WMO: "Unprecedented sequence of extreme weather events ... matches IPCC projections of more frequent and mo

Both NASA and the World Meteorological Organization both have excellent posts I'm going to excerpt at length.  The first, from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies website, is titled

July 2010 — What Global Warming Looks Like

The July 2010 global map of surface temperature anomalies (Figure 1), relative to the average July in the 1951-1980 period of climatology, provides a useful picture of current climate. It was more than 5°C (about 10°F) warmer than climatology in the eastern...

Energy and Global Warming News for August 12: LED bulb edges below $20; For parched farmers, a crop of electrons; Iceland looks to electric cars as hydrogen stalls

LED Bulb Edges Below $20

This week, Home Depot fired a new marketing salvo in what is expected to be a broader national effort to get home customers to adopt LED lighting.

The retail giant began selling one of the light bulbs in its highly energy-efficient lineup at a surprisingly affordable price of just under $20 online. Bricks-and-mortar stores will follow in September.

While $20 hardly sounds like a deal at first blush, such bulbs are expected to last as long as 30 years. Not long ago...

Media wakes up to Hell and High Water: Moscow's 1000-year heat wave and "Pakistan's Katrina" - BBC, Reuters, USA Today, Time link warming and extreme weather; Trenberth, Stott, and Masters explain the science

How hot is it?  So hot that even the status quo media is waking up to the fact that human emissions of greenhouse gases are changing the climate and causing  record-smashing extreme weather events, just  as scientist predicted decades ago.

It happened to CNN meteorologist Chad Myers, and  I have a roundup from other  major media outlets — please add links to ones I missed.

At the end is a discussion of the science of Hell and High Water in pieces by NCAR's Kevin Trenberth, The Met Office's...

The worst ethical scandal in Congress: Climate change?

Guest blogger Donald A. Brown is Associate Professor for Environmental Ethics, Science, and Law at Penn State University.  This cross-post is from his ClimateEthics blog.

What is the worst ethical scandal in the US Congress? Could it be climate change?

Although the US media has recently paid attention to the comparatively minor ethical stories unfolding in the US House of Representatives, there is not a peep in the US media about a much more momentous unfolding ethical failure in the US...

As world burns, CNN skeptic Chad Myers finally admits global warming 'is caused by man'

One of America's most influential global warming skeptics, CNN meteorologist Chad Myers, has finally admitted that global warming is "caused by man." Brad Johnson has the story.

During the hottest year ever recorded, following the hottest decade ever recorded, Russia is burning under heat not seen for at least 1000 years. Heat waves have set records throughout the United States and throughout the world. A monsoon season of unprecedented intensity has displaced tens of millions of people ...

Poison for profit: The forces behind California's Prop 23 are two of its most notorious polluters

CAP's Jorge Madrid has the latest in our series on the fossil fuel-funded Proposition 23 effort to repeal California's clean energy climate laws. Read more on Prop 23's economic impact, national repercussions, and funding from Texas oil companies.

Wonder what kind of company would want to repeal America's strongest and most forward-thinking environmental policy?

(Spoiler alert)

It's two of California's top polluters!  Last year these companies' California refineries were responsible for...

Poison for profit: The forces behind California's Prop 23 are two of most notorious polluters

CAP's Jorge Madrid has the latest in our series on the fossil fuel-funded Proposition 23 effort to repeal California's clean energy climate laws. Read more on Prop 23's economic impact, national repercussions, and funding from Texas oil companies.

Wonder what kind of company would want to repeal America's strongest and most forward-thinking environmental policy?

(Spoiler alert)

It's two of California's top polluters!  Last year these companies' California refineries were responsible for...

End the raids on clean energy funding - Congress shortchanges our clean energy future

Congress has rescinded $1.5 billion in Recovery Act clean energy loan guarantee funds to help pay for recently approved legislation for the federal medical assistance percentage or FMAP, which would increase federal funding for state Medicaid costs. This is a significant blow to the United States's capacity to meet its clean energy goals and confront volatile global warming, as explained in this cross-post by CAP's Jake Caldwell, and Richard W. Caperton.

FMAP is worthy legislation. But...

Unprecedented warming in Lake Tanganyika and its impact on humanity

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This post by physicist John Cook was first published in Skeptical Science . The figure is surface temperature from Lake Tanganyika paleorecord for the past 1,500 years. Orange shading is 95% error bars.

Lake Tanganyika, in East Africa, is the second largest lake in the world (by volume). The lake supports a prodigious sardine fishery which provides a major source of animal protein for the region as well as employment for around 1 million people. Direct observations over past 90 years find...