Climate

Climate

Oceans warmed in recent decades

Measurements show a trend of rising temperatures along with a leveling off since 2003.

Chemistry

EPA issues greenhouse-gas rules for new factories and more

EPA released new rules on greenhouse-gas emissions for new power plants, factories and oil refineries — any big new facility, really that emits huge amounts of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, or any of several other classes of chemicals. Existing facilities can continue to spew greenhouse gases at current levels.

Climate

Alaskan peatlands expanded rapidly as ice age waned

The rapid growth of Alaskan wetlands before 8,600 years ago was due to hotter summers and colder winters, which could spell trouble in a warmer world, a new study suggests.

Chemistry

Methane-making microbes thrive under the ice

Antarctica’s ice sheets could hide vast quantities of the greenhouse gas, churned out by a buried ecosystem.

Climate

National academies to review IPCC procedures

Global science organizations asked to help evaluate processes that produced 2007 climate report.

Climate

Ancient Norse colonies hit bad climate times

Temperatures in Iceland plummeted soon after settlers arrived, a new chemical analysis suggests.

Earth

Arctic seafloor a big source of methane

Measurements show that Arctic undersea methane deposits, previously thought to be sealed by permafrost, are leaking into the atmosphere.

Climate

IPCC looks to vet, report climate-science better

Major U.S. science organizations aren’t the only ones to realize that the climate-science community has bungled – and badly – its portrayals of research on global change in recent months, if not years, and its responses to criticisms. Yesterday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (a group established by the United Nations and World Meteorological Organization) said: “we recognize the criticism that has been leveled at us and the need to respond.” So will be convening an “independent review” panel to investigate what the organization’s procedures should be to vet not only the data it uses and how to synthesize conclusions based on those data, but also how it should convey those conclusions (and any necessary caveats) in reports to the public and policymakers.

Climate

Climate science: Credibility at risk, scientists say

Publication of hacked emails exchanged by climate scientists. News accounts of problems in vetting data used in climate-assessment reports. Charges by critics that scientists won’t release their raw data so that others might independently vet published analyses of climate trends. Taken together, these events have marred the reputations of climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and perhaps science generally. Or so concluded a distinguished panel of science luminaries.

Earth

Sea levels erratic during latest ice age

Mineral crusts deposited 81,000 years ago in a Mediterranean island’s caves suggest an abrupt jump in sea level.

Climate

Water vapor slowed recent global warming trend

A decline in stratospheric water vapor has slowed Earth’s surface warming slightly in recent years.

Climate

Indian climatologist disputes charges over Himalayan projection

London’s Sunday Mail reported that it had reached the author of a chapter in a purportedly authoritative 2007 climate-change assessment and learned that this scientist – Murari Lal – deliberately used unsubstantiated sources for conclusions about the rate of glacier melting in the Himalayas. Lal doesn’t dispute that mistakes were made – ones that likely exaggerated projections of glacier melting. But he does challenge the newspaper’s charge that those mistakes were politically motivated.