Arguments
2014 SkS Weekly Digest #50
Posted on 14 December 2014 by John Hartz
SkS Highlights
Tamino's Guest blog post, Is Earth’s temperature about to soar?, drew the most comments of the articles posted on SkS during the past week. California just had its worst drought in over 1200 years, as temperatures and risks rise by Dana attracted the second highest number.
El Niño Watch
Japan’s weather bureau said on Wednesday that an El Niño weather pattern, which can trigger drought in some parts of the world while causing flooding in others, had emerged during the summer for the first time in five years and was likely to continue into winter.
That marks the first declaration by a major meteorological bureau of the much-feared El Niño phenomenon, which had been widely expected to emerge this year.
First El Niño in five years declared by Japan's weather bureau, Reuters/The Guardian, Dec 10, 2104
Toon of the Week
h/t to I Heart Climate Scientists
Quote of the Week
Another organizer at COP 20 is the Nigerian environmental leader Nnimmo Bassey. He said: “Before I left Nigeria, my temperature was gauged twice, to determine if I have high fever or if I have Ebola. Now, the temperature of the Earth has gone 0.8 degrees above preindustrial levels. If the Earth was to go through the same process ... it would’ve been quarantined because the Earth would’ve been judged to have high fever or Ebola. But, we can’t quarantine the Earth. We need to find who are the climate criminals and quarantine them.”
Fighting for the Climate in the Heart of the World by Amy Goodman, TruthDig, Dec 10, 2014
SkS in the News
In his Bad Astronomy (Slate) blog post, Global Warming: It’s OK to Be Smart About It, Phil Plait references his prior blog post New Study: Climate Scientists Overwhelmingly Agree Global Warming Is Real and Our Fault which highlights The Consensus Project (TCP).
Plait's article also includes the following:
Not bad! He covers a lot of the basic knowledge you need to counter most of the silly global warming denier claims. If you need more, I suggest Skeptical Science’s amazing list of climate myth debunkings, and Hank Green’s video debunking of ten common claims.
SkS Spotlights
Coming Soon on SkS
- Two degrees: The history of climate change’s ‘speed limit’ (Mat Hope & Rosamund Pearce)
- Two degrees: Will we avoid rdangeous (Simon Evans)
- 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #51A (John Hartz)
- What happens if we overshoot the two degree target for limiting global warming? (Roz Pidcock)
- Record-Breaking Sea Surface Temperatures in 2014: Has the Climate Shifted? (Rob Painting)
- High renewables ambition, but fossil fuels still dominate: UK and Germany electricity systems compared (Robin Webster)
- 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #51B (John Hartz)
- 2014 SkS Weekly Digest #51 (John Hartz)
Poster of the Week
h/t to I Heart Climate Scientists
SkS Week in Review
- 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #50B by John Hartz
- Skeptical Science at the 2014 AGU Fall Meeting by Dana
- Global warming continues despite continuous denial by John Abraham
- Is Earth’s temperature about to soar? by Tamino
- 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #50A by John Hartz
- How the world's economic growth is actually un-economic by Robert Costanza,
- California just had its worst drought in over 1200 years, as temperatures and risks rise by Dana
- 2014 SkS Weekly Digest #49 by John Hartz
It seems a bit 'over the top' to claim that El NIno is much-feared.
There are some potentially significant regional weather consequences of an El Nino and people in those regions do need to be concerned, and everyone else should be concerned about their plight.
However, the people most-fearful of an El NIno are those who wish to dismiss the climate science and delay growth of popular support for the required global reduction of CO2 emissions. They know they will lose their ability to abuse the recent La Nina influenced global average surface temperatures to further their interests. And nobody who cares should shed any tears about the concerns of that group.
Well I imagine California and Texas would welcome El Nino as drought-breaker, but I think South American fisherman would be the most fearful. Effects of El Nino on child health discussed here. Somewhat more scary than losing an argument.
In reply to scaddenp here in Australia we certainly wouldn't welcome an El Nino as it means severe dry weather and droughts. While "ever cloud has a silver lining" it is the lack of silver lined clouds that worry us!