New study confirms reality of global warming

A broad-based new study of climate change has confirmed earlier evidence of a global rise in average land temperatures of 1 degree Centigrade since the 1950′s. However, it draws no conclusions as to whether this warming is man-made.

The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study, released on Thursday, analyzed data from fifteen different sources, some going back more than two centuries, to answer doubts raised by climate change skeptics in response to earlier studies.

Previous studies had been able to rule out certain sources of possible error, including the urban heat island effect and poor station quality, but they had been based on a limited number of data sources, and skeptics had continued to claim that the results might have been skewed as a result. The new study, which includes almost all available data, is intended to counter that claim.

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5 Reasons the Right Is Terrified of Occupy Wall St.

The Occupy Wall Street Movement is so frightening to the Right because it may directly affect voter behavior in the upcoming election.

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Bill Nye the Science Guy: Climate change deniers are ‘unpatriotic’

Frozen water fell from the sky today, therefore thousands of scientists the world over are liars. Just go with it.

That's the narrative coming from Fox News in their coverage of the heavy snow blanketing the eastern coast of the United States this winter. Thankfully, there's Bill Nye the Science Guy, ready to explain the complexities of climate science in terms easy enough for even a child to digest.

Nye, however, jacked his assessment of meteorology into the realm of partisanship, scoffing on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show on Wednesday night that climate change deniers are "unpatriotic" in parroting simple minded, anti-science propaganda.

"[We] remind you that global warming was the first term for this phenomenon that we now call can climate change," he said. "So it‘s very reasonable that a snowstorm in Washington that‘s this severe is a result of climate change."

"There‘s more energy in the atmosphere, and this is stirring things up," Nye continued. "If you want to get serious about it, these guys claiming that the snow in Washington disproves climate change are almost unpatriotic. It's really, they're denying science."

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Winter Doesn't Disprove Global Warming

The Arctic's geological record indicates warming is human-caused

Close study of the sediment timeline shows that increased ice melt coincides with the birth of the Industrial Age. It's strong evidence that global warming is man's work, researchers say.

It’s not too difficult to understand the argument that people have against anthropomorphic global warming – that we, as humans, are simply too small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things to cause such changes in the earth and its natural balance. After all, nature is quite an amazing force.

But, to believe that we aren’t capable of causing global warming is to ignore the massive destruction we have unleashed upon this planet as we rose to the top of the food chain and began industrializing. We have changed the atmosphere. We have destroyed ecosystems and decimated much of the rainforest that would otherwise be helping to balance the greenhouse gases we’re pumping into the air.

It’s real, it’s happening, and we did it. Now we have to find a way to make up for it.

Obama administration reveals evidence of global warming kept secret under Bush

From Think Progress:

The Obama administration has “released more than a thousand intelligence images of Arctic ice,” following a declassification request by the National Academy of Sciences. These high-resolution spy photos of rapid sea ice loss off the northern coast of Alaska, kept classified by the Bush administration, show “the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic”:




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The Final Days of the Carteret Pacific Islanders

Due to devastating changes from global warming, the Carteret people must move to a new home. See their story in the new film Sun Come Up.

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Large 2009 Gulf Of Mexico 'Dead Zone' Predicted

University of Michigan aquatic ecologist Donald Scavia and his colleagues say this year's Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" could be one of the largest on record, continuing a decades-long trend that threatens the health of a half-billion-dollar fishery.

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Giant Carbon Clock Unveiled in Center of New York City

Deutsche Bank has erected a seven-story sign in the heart of New York City that ticks off the tons of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere — a public relations
move designed to raise awareness of global warming.

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7 American Species Threatened by Global Warming

* Sugar maple
* Monarch butterfly
* Leatherback sea turtle
* American pika
* Canada lynx
* Tufted puffin
* Polar bear

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Global warming has already changed oceans

In Washington state, oysters in some areas haven't reproduced for four years, and preliminary evidence suggests that the increasing acidity of the ocean could be the cause. In the Gulf of Mexico, falling oxygen levels in the water have forced shrimp to migrate elsewhere.

Though two marine-derived drugs, one for treating cancer and the other for pain control, are on the market and 25 others are under development, the fungus growing on seaweed, bacteria in deep sea mud and sea fans that could produce life-saving medicines are under assault from changing the ocean conditions.

Researchers, scientists and Jacques Cousteau's granddaughter painted a bleak picture Tuesday of the future of oceans and the "blue economy" of the nation's coastal states.

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Burger King Corp says Global Warming is Only Baloney in Memphis

Bad news for Memphis fast food junkies: Locally appearing Burger King signs reading “Global Warming is Baloney” aren't a tone-deaf marketing campaign for some delicious new Whopper-loni sandwich. Darn it.

On the other hand ecologically-minded consumers can breathe a little easier knowing that Burger King Corp. (BKC), the company that licenses BK franchises, isn't going on the warpath against global warming science.

On Friday, May 29 Susan Robison, Vice President, Corporate Communications for the Burger King Corporation, dropped The Flyer an email containing BKC's official — if not fully informed — statement regarding the signs.

This statement [“Global Warming is baloney”] does not reflect a Burger King Corp. (BKC) opinion or view. The two restaurants where these signs appeared are independently owned and operated and were not authorized to display this statement. The signs have since been removed.

BKC believes in operating as a socially responsible company and is committed to making a positive impact in the communities where it lives and works.

When asked if the message had been removed from the other Burger Kings in the region, Robison said she would look into the situation but was only aware of the two locations mentioned at the Memphis Flyer's SING ALL KINDS blog.

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Global Warming Causes 300,000 Deaths a Year

Global Warming is already responsible for 300,000 deaths a year and is affecting 300m people, according to the first comprehensive study of the human impact of global warming.

[A family wades through flood waters to catch a relief boat, north-east of Patna, India. Photograph: Manish Swarup/AP]A family wades through flood waters to catch a relief boat, north-east of Patna, India. Photograph: Manish Swarup/AP
It projects that increasingly severe heatwaves, floods, storms and forest fires will be responsible for as many as 500,000 deaths a year by 2030, making it the greatest humanitarian challenge the world faces.

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Rare animals 'to be moved from native habitats because of climate change'

Conservationists fear that rapid climate change could see animals and plants "trapped" in homes that become too hot or dry for them, raising the possibility of extinction.

But now for the first time experts have been evaluating ways to help species adapt to rapid climate change.

They are considering a controversial strategy called "managed relocation".

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Study: Worldwide surface temperatures will rise more than 9 degrees (F) by 2100

Global warming will be twice as severe as previous estimates indicate, according to a new study published this month in the Journal of Climate, a publication of the American Meteorological Society.

The research, conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), predicts a 90% probability that worldwide surface temperatures will rise more than 9 degrees (F) by 2100, compared to a previous 2003 MIT study that forecast a rise of just over 4 degrees.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 forecast a temperature rise of anywhere from 2 to 11 degrees by 2100 based on a variety of different greenhouse-gas-emissions scenarios.

Unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, "there is significantly more risk than we previously estimated," says study co-author Ronald Prinn of MIT. "There's no way the world can or should take these risks."

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Chilean scientists are investigating three mysterious ecological disasters that have caused the deaths of hundreds of penguins, millions of sardines and about 2,000 baby flamingos in the past few months.

The events started to unfold in March, when the remains of about 1,200 penguins were found on a remote beach in southern Chile. Then came the sardines -- tons of them -- dead and washed up on a nearby stretch of coastline. The stench forced nearby schools to close, and the army was called in to shovel piles of rotting fish off the sand.

Farther north, thousands of rare Andean flamingos abandoned their nests on a salt lake in the Atacama Desert. The eggs failed to hatch and, over a period of three months, all 2,000 chicks died. The extent of the damage was discovered in April, during an inspection.

No one knows for sure what caused these three apparently unrelated ecological tragedies, although there are many theories. Global warming has been blamed, as have overfishing, pollution and bacterial disease. In the north, ecologists have accused mining companies of fatally altering the flamingos' habitat by draining the area of subterranean water.

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Will Global Warming Doom Maple Syrup?

As the change of seasons unfolds unpredictably, the first farmers to feel the pain of climate change may be maple tree tappers.

CON GAMES: Double-Whammy Puts Right on Thin Ice

Michael Conniff

The ability of conservatives to remain numb and number to climate change runs into a cold hard slap in the face with a double dose of data from the ends of the earth.

Word that the ice bridge holding the Wilkins Ice Sheet to Antarctica had shattered would be damning enough within a normal news cycle, but it comes at the same time as a study from some of the same scientists showing that only ten percent of Arctic ice is more than two years old as of February 2009 -- an accelerated thinning that brings gloom and doom to scientists.

"We've been watching it all summer," said British Antarctic Survey glaciologist David Vaughan, "waiting for it to go, and bang -- now it's gone."

Data from NASA, the University of Colorado's (CU) National Snow and Ice Data Center, and other research organizations -- encompassing both Antartica and the Arctic -- is about as damning as can be to those who prefer to bury their heads in the snow.

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Climate Disaster in Australia

Australia is undergoing a huge climate crisis at the moment-with prolonged drought and bush fires on one end of the continent, to flooding and mosquito fevers on the other, along with the widespread decline of wildlife, it's now a troubling example of the huge consequences of global warming. One paleontologist notes to the Los Angeles Times, "[The climate change is] tearing apart the life-support system that gives us this world." Nearly 400 people died earlier this year from fires and a heat wave, and because rainfall has remained at 50 percent for the last decade, many farmers have been forced to abandon their land. Even the Great Barrier Reef is expected to be "functionally extinct" by 2050.

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