The effects of climate change on individual extreme events consist of thermodynamic changes and atmospheric circulation changes. In a new opinion piece in Nature Climate Change, Kevin Trenberth, John Fasullo, and Ted Shepherd (TFS) argue that we should be focusing on the thermodynamic changes. While I agree that such an […]

Checkin’ back on my favorite climate observation sites from last year. The ocean heat content increased from ~17 to ~18 (1022 Joules). They had to extend the vertical axis from 20 to 25 to accommodate the expected rise until 2020.   Sure enough CO2 broke the 400 ppm ceiling (as […]

Media Matters for America cannot be accused of false balance.  It’s one-sided.  It’s dedicated, as its website reports, to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. It’s entirely possible to be both one-sided and accurate.  But in this post, I’m going to look at a case where […]

Intro by Michael Quirke: I recently discovered this “What you need to know about climate change in 24 easy steps” video by Dr. Joe Hanson, a popular #SciComm writer & creator/host of PBS Digital Studios’ It’s Okay To Be Smart. It was published on YouTube six days ago and has […]

Summary of Comments — Dr. Bart Verheggen: “The albedo effect due to the response from the big ice sheets is excluded (or held constant) in estimating [equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS)]… That’s why e.g. Hansen and others call this the “fast feedback sensitivity”, since the really slow feedbacks (ice sheets and biosphere) […]

Antarctic sea ice is one of those things in the climate system that seems to confuse people. Antarctic sea ice, on average, is increasing. How can there be global warming if sea ice is increasing in the Antarctic? Some have gone so far as to average the Arctic sea ice […]