Posted on 11 May 2014 by John Hartz

SkS Highlights

As to be expected, Dana's Answers to the top ten global warming 'skeptic' arguments garnered the most comments of the articles posted on SkS during the past week. 

Special Announcements 

Beginning with this issue, the Daily Digest has been expanded to include three more sections: 1. El Niño Watch, 2, Poster of the Week, and 3. Mother Nature Always Bats Last. Be sure to check them out and provide feedback.

The Weekly News Roundup series has been discontinued. The volume of news about climate change has literally sky-rocketed iover the past couple of years. All of the quality news that is generated can no longer be properly sampled in two documents per week. There are alternative ways for SkS readers to stay on top of the news and recommendations will be posted on the comment thread to this Digest tomorrow morning. Rescinded by John Hartz on Tuesday, May 13, 2014

El Niño Watch

The huge Kelvin wave that formed in the Pacific a while back, and may bring us a big El Nino, is now reaching the surface.  It's huge, and it's one of the warmest ever recorded.  Here's the latest from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center.

Monster Kelvin Wave Is Barfing Heat Into The Atmosphere by pollywatcher, The Daily Kos, May 9, 2014

Toon of the Week

h/t to I Heart Climate Scientists 

Quote of the Week

"Change is in the air – I can sense it at all levels of society. Solutions exist. The race is on. My challenge to all political and business leaders, all concerned citizens and voters is simple: be at the head of the race. Don't get left behind. Don't be on the losing side of history. Let us work together to make climate change a top priority for all leaders – at home and in the global arena. Let us take advantage of the opportunities presented by climate action and lay the foundations for a more prosperous and secure future for all. "

Climate change affects us all. So what's stopping us joining forces to act on it?, Op-ed by Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, The Guardian, May 6, 2014

SkS in the News

In her HotWhopper Blog Post, Anthony Watts' bombshell goes pear-shaped. 82% of WUWT-ers aren't interested!  Sou skewers Wats and his ship of fools.  The topic du jour is the Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature, Cook et al, 2013 Environ. Res. Lett.

Cook (2013 was cited by Jonathan Chaitt in his New York magazine article, All Science Is Wrong, Concludes Esteemed Fox News Panel.  

In his FAIR article, Can Crossfire Have a Climate Change Debate Without Climate Change Denial?, Peter Hart cites the SkS response to the question, Is Antarctica losing or gaining ice?

SkS Spotlights

The third edition of the U.S. National Climate Assessment report was released by the White House on on Tuesday, May 6. 

Joe Romm and his colleagues at Climate Progress generated an excellent series of articles about key findings made in the report  The articles:

• Landmark Report Warns Time Is Running Out To Save U.S. From Climate Catastrophe by Joe  Romm, May 6, 2014
• Authors Of Major U.S. Climate Report: ‘The Old Normal Is Broken’ by Kiley Kroh, May 6, 2014
• U.S. Climate Report: For Some Native Groups, There’s Literally Nowhere To Run by Emily Atkin, May 6, 2014
• The Southeast U.S. Has Had More Billion-Dollar Disasters Than The Rest Of The Country Combined by Katie Valentine, May 7, 2014
• As Population Surges, Harsh Climate Of Southwest Will Only Get Harsher by Ari Phiilips,  May 8. 2014 
• Not Just Sea Level Rise: Northeast Faces Flooding From The Skies by Joanna M. Foster, May 8, 2014
• Ocean Acidification, Wildfires Are Taking Their Toll On The Pacific Northwest by Katie Valentine, May 9. 2014
• Are This Week’s Brutal Heat And Drought A Sign Of Things To Come For Plains States? by Jeff Spross, May 9, 2014

Poster of the Week

 h/t to I Heart Climate Scientists 

SkS Week in Review 

• 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #19B by John Hartz
• We can't count on plants to slow down global warming by John Abraham
• 2014 SkS News Bulletin #4: Third U.S. National Climate Assessment by John Hartz
• As Population Surges, Harsh Climate Of Southwest Will Only Get Harsher by Ari Phillips
• Gavin Schmidt TED talk on Climate Models by greeman3610
• 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #19A by John Hatz
• Answers to the top ten global warming 'skeptic' arguments by Dana
• Brandis confuses right to be heard with right to be taken seriously by Peter Ellerton

Coming Soon on SkS

• Sense and climate sensitivity – more evidence we're in for a hot future (Dana)
• Looking for connections (Marcin Popkiewicz)
• IPCC, AAS, NAS, Royal Society, Pentagon & USGCRP reports: Is it possible to have too much information about climate change? (Graham Wayne)
• High renewables ambition, but fossil fuels still dominate: UK and Germany electricity systems compared (Robin Webster)
• 75 per cent of Americans want to see climate change taught in schools, and four more graphs (Ros Donald)

Mother Nature Always Bats Last!

A first-ever World Health Organization assessment of the growing problem calls for rapid changes to avoid the misery and deaths of a potential "post-antibiotic era" 

Antibiotic Resistance Is Now Rife across the Globe by Dina Fine Maron, Scientific American, Apr 30, 2014

Magma levels are slowly rebuilding inside Mount St. Helens, a volcano in Washington state that erupted in 1980 and killed 57 people, although there was no sign of an impending eruption, U.S. scientists said.

Magma Rising in Washington State's Mount St. Helens Volcano by Eric M. Johnson, Reuters, May 1, 2014