2012 SkS Weekly Digest #12
Posted on 26 March 2012 by John Hartz
SkS Highlights
Kate's poignant, An Open Letter to the Future, drew rave reviews and is worth reading again. Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton by Rob Honeycutt not only contains the text of Hadfield's letter, but also Hadfield's video of his response to Monckton. As to be expected, John Cook's Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online, generated the most comments this week.
Toon of the Week
Source: Code Green, a weekly editorial cartoon focused on the environmental emergency, by Stphanie McMillan.
Issue of the Week
From your perpspective, does SkS publish too many, just the right amount of, or too few, articles per week? Do you typically read each article that is posted? Do you typically read the comment threads? Do you typically post comments?
The Week in Review
A complete listing of the articles posted on SkS during the past week.
Coming Soon
A list of articles that are in the SkS pipeline. Most of these articles, but not necessarily all, will be posted during the week.
SkS Spotlights
The Center for Media and Democracy publishes SourceWatch, this collaborative resource for citizens and journalists looking for documented information about the corporations, industries, and people trying to influence public policy and public opinion. We believe in telling the truth about the most powerful interests in society—not just relating their self-serving press releases or letting real facts be bleached away by spin. With the help of volunteer editors, SourceWatch focuses on the for-profit corporations, non-profit corporate front groups, PR teams, and so-called "experts" trying to influence public opinion on behalf of global corporations and the government agencies they have captured.
This may be slightly off-topic, but i have a question triggered by the Toon of the week... This is a Weather question (but with a climate underpinning). Currently, the UK is experiencing an unseasonal heatwave. The proximate cause is a jetstream blocking event, so we are under perpetual high pressure. I note ( from NSIDC that Arctic Sea Ice extent is relatively high (compared to the last few years only!). Is this a flipside of the same jetstream cause?
[DB] If you look at the areas where the ice is concentrated, you'll note that much of the recent gains in ice cover are in those areas about to melt out abruptly in the next 6 weeks: The Sea of Okhotsk, the Bering Sea, the Kara Sea, portions of the Barents Sea, Baffin Bay and Hudson Bay.
[Source] [Map of the Arctic]
Get your popcorn ready, the show is about to begin (best watched from here). Relevant discussion is here, as well.
As for the other part of your question, Real Climate has a post up on this here and Dr. Kevin Trenberth also has a paper out on much the same topic here.
[Sph] Personally, I think the best show is here (only in the 21st century)