NRDC, May 2015: “Biomass is often described as a clean, renewable fuel and a greener alternative to coal and other fossil fuels for producing electricity. But recent science shows that many forms of biomass—especially from forests—produce higher carbon emissions compared to fossil fuels. In particular, a growing body of peer-reviewed, scientific studies shows that burning… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Climate Change
Fair Weather or Foul? The Macroeconomic Effects of El Niño
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Globalization and Monetary Policy Institute Working Paper No. 239. Fair Weather or Foul? The Macroeconomic Effects of El Niño. Paul Cashin, International Monetary Fund; Kamiar Mohaddes, Faculty of Economics and Girton College, University of Cambridge; Mehdi Raissi, International Monetary Fund. May 2015. “This paper employs a dynamic multi-country framework to… Continue Reading
Congressional Primer on Responding to Major Disasters and Emergencies
CRS – Congressional Primer on Responding to Major Disasters and Emergencies. Francis X. McCarthy, Analyst in Emergency Management Policy; Jared T. Brown, Analyst in Emergency Management and Homeland Security Policy. May 19, 2015. “The principles of disaster management assume a leadership role by the local, tribal, and state governments with the federal government providing coordinated… Continue Reading
Clean Water Rule Protects Streams and Wetlands Critical to Public Health, Communities, and Economy
“In an historic step for the protection of clean water, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army finalized the Clean Water Rule today to clearly protect from pollution and degradation the streams and wetlands that form the foundation of the nation’s water resources. The rule ensures that waters protected under the Clean Water… Continue Reading
Atmospheric changes through 2012 as shown by iteratively homogenized radiosonde temperature and wind data
Atmospheric changes through 2012 as shown by iteratively homogenized radiosonde temperature and wind data (IUKv2) Steven C Sherwood and Nidhi Nishant 2015 Environ. Res. Lett. 10 054007 “We present an updated version of the radiosonde dataset homogenized by Iterative Universal Kriging (IUKv2), now extended through February 2013, following the method used in the original version… Continue Reading
Oceanic and atmospheric forcing of Larsen C Ice-Shelf thinning
Citation: Holland, P. R., Brisbourne, A., Corr, H. F. J., McGrath, D., Purdon, K., Paden, J., Fricker, H. A., Paolo, F. S., and Fleming, A. H.: Oceanic and atmospheric forcing of Larsen C Ice-Shelf thinning, The Cryosphere, 9, 1005-1024, doi:10.5194/tc-9-1005-2015, 2015. “The catastrophic collapses of Larsen A and B ice shelves on the eastern Antarctic Peninsula have caused their tributary glaciers to accelerate, contributing to sea-level rise and freshening the… Continue Reading
NASA – Cloudy Earth
NASA Earth Observatory – “Decades of satellite observations and astronaut photographs show that clouds dominate space-based views of Earth. One study based on nearly a decade of satellite data estimated that about 67 percent of Earth’s surface is typically covered by clouds. This is especially the case over the oceans, where other research shows less… Continue Reading
NOAA Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide – All Time High
“The graph shows recent monthly mean carbon dioxide globally averaged over marine surface sites. The Global Monitoring Division of NOAA/Earth System Research Laboratory has measured carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases for several decades at a globally distributed network of air sampling sites [Conway, 1994]. A global average is constructed by first fitting a smoothed… Continue Reading
U.S. Climate Change Policy
Directorate-General for Internal Policies (EU) – U.S. Climate Change Policy – April 2015 “This document reviews and updates the previous 2013 report providing an overview of the climate change policy in the United States. Starting with the emissions trend it then make some general remarks about policy making in the U.S. before entering into concrete… Continue Reading
A New Federal Guide to Infrastructure Planning and Design
“Today, the White House is convening the nation’s leading thinkers on infrastructure planning and design to highlight how projects like new roads and transit lines can be designed to foster economic opportunity and increase resilience to the impacts of climate change. To help communities seeking to expand their pipelines of well-designed projects, the Administration is… Continue Reading
Climate change could eventually claim a sixth of the world’s species
Sid Perkins – Science: “Up to one-sixth of the species on Earth could disappear if climate change remains on its current course, according to a new analysis of more than 100 smaller studies. “All the studies are in pretty good agreement: The more warming we have, the more species we’ll lose,” says Dov Sax, a… Continue Reading
NIST Releases Draft Community Resilience Planning Guide for Public Review
“The U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) today issued a draft guide to help communities plan for and act to keep windstorms, floods, earthquakes, sea-level rise, industrial mishaps and other hazards from inflicting disastrous consequences. NIST is requesting public feedback on the draft Community Resilience Planning Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure,… Continue Reading
