Posted on 8 November 2015 by John Hartz

SkS Highlights

Q&A: Is Antarctica gaining or losing ice? by Robert McSweeney (Carbon Brief) attracted the highest number of comments of the artilces posted on SkS during the past week. The thermometer needle and the damage done by Andy Skuce (Critical Angle) drew the second highenst number of comments.  

Toon of the Week

Hat tip to I Heart Climate Scientists

Quote of the Week

Michael E. Mann, a climate expert at Pennsylvania State University, said the current level of warming of about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit around the globe (and somewhat more over North America and the Arctic) “has fundamentally influenced all meteorological events,” not just those that get written up in a study.

Dr. Mann said the work and the debate about it were useful. “If anything, this particular debate underscores that the question is no longer whether there is an influence of climate change on extreme weather events. The debate is simply over the magnitude and extent of that influence.”

Scientists Study Links Between Climate Change and Extreme Weather by John Schwartz, New York Times, Nov 5, 2015

He Said What?

Ben Carson on Wednesday (Oct 11) responded to a question about climate change with a long diatribe about the planet, science, evolution, and even wondered aloud where gravity comes from.

“You don’t believe in evolution or climate change, I believe,” the Republican presidential candidate was asked at a town hall at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. “And I was just wondering, do you seriously not believe that climate change is happening?”

“Is there climate change? Of course there’s climate change,” Carson replied. “Any point in time, temperatures are going up or temperatures are going down. Of course that’s happening. When that stops happening, that’s when we’re in big trouble.”

Ben Carson On Climate Change: “Gravity, Where Did It Come From?” by Rebecca Leber, New Republic, Oct 12, 2015 

SkS in the News

The new Wikipedia article, Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand  is about the book, Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand by Hayden Washington and John Cook.

In his article, It’s just common sense - the depressing charts behind global warming, posted on The Australian, Tristan Edis highlights The Consensus Project (TCP):

The chart below is the result of a survey of 12,000 peer-reviewed scientific journal abstracts on the subjects of 'global warming' and 'global climate change' published between 1991 and 2011, which found that of those papers taking a position on the cause of global warming, over 97 per cent agreed that humans are causing it.

And in case you thought those judging the abstracts might have a political agenda, emails were sent to 8547 authors of these papers, asking them to rate the papers themselves. They managed to receive self-ratings from authors for 2142 papers, for which 97 per cent were assessed as supporting the conclusion that human activity was leading to global warming.

In his letter-to-the-editor, Who's behind climate change denial?, posted in the York Daily Record, Lynn Goldfarb recommends that readers check out the "award-winning Skeptical Science website" for additional information. 

Coming Soon on SkS 

• By rejecting Keystone, President Obama cements his climate legacy (John Abraham)
• Graphene (Agnostic)
• Lamar Smith, NOAA Witch Hunter (John Abraham)
• Why were the ancient oceans favorable to marine life when atmospheric carbon dioxide was higher than today? (Rob Painting)
• Republicans are starting to accept the reality of climate change (Dana)
• 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #46 (John Hartz)
• 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #46 (John Hartz)

Poster of the Week

SkS Week in Review

• 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45 by John Hartz
• The thermometer needle and the damage done by Andy Skuce (Critical Angle)
• Scientists warned the US president about global warming 50 years ago today by Dana Nuccitelli (Climate Consensus - the 97%)
• Q&A: Is Antarctica gaining or losing ice? by Robert McSweeney (Carbon Brief) 
• Arbitrary focus on hurricane wind speed has birthed a new climate myth by John Abraham (Climate Consensus - the 97%)
• Homogenization of Temperature Data: An Assessment by Kevin C
• 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #44 by John Hartz

97 Hours of Consensus: Andrew Weaver

Andrew Weaver's bio page

Quote derived with author's permission from:

"We know that the world is warming, we've known that for a long time. We know that much of that warming, in fact the overwhelming majority of that warming is due to human activity, that is the combustion of fossil fuels and other GHGs going into the atmosphere."