Greenland Melt

This year, Europe was hit with multiple extreme heat waves. After inflicting pain on Europeans, some of that heat sauntered over to Greenland. The result? Greenland showed greater melt this summer than ever before.

Florida Flooding, or why Donald Trump will lose the election in Florida

Twice a day (most of the time, in most places), the ocean rises and falls in a process we call the tides. If you build near the coast you have to take that into account; otherwise, a house that’s dry most of the time, might not be when high tide comes. It’s called “tidal flooding” — because it happens even when there’s no storm, no wind, no rain — just high tide.

Kids are on the March

Confessions of a Climate Change News Junkie: U.S. Presidential Edition

Now that Jay Inslee has ended his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, I have to choose a new candidate to support. To that end, I recently watched the CNN town hall on climate change, which actually consisted of a lot of town halls, one for each participating contender.

Methane Acceleration

A recent paper by Nisbet et al. notes that methane (CH4) in the atmosphere isn’t just increasing, it’s accelerating; the increase has gotten faster recently.

There was a time — from about 1999 until 2007 — when atmospheric methane wasn’t increasing at all. It had been, before 2000, but it remained steady for that 8-year period. But in 2007 it started rising again, as is plain to see in the following graph. What is not plain to see is that around 2014 it started rising even faster; the years 2014 through 2018 saw very rapid increase in CH4 levels.

Global Warming: How Fast?

Here’s the annual average temperature for the planet Earth, from 1880 to now, according to data from NASA:

Bet the Farm on Climate

Farmers know that weather is crucial, and unpredictable.

Climate Change: Important thoughts from an insightful thinker

Climate Change: here’s some fucking Mentos in a bottle of Coca-Cola

I agree with Bill Nye:

Climate Change: Joe Biden’s plan (that doesn’t exist)

The New York Times reports that I’m not the only one pissed off about Joe Biden’s “plan” to fight climate change. Biden’s campaing is now saying it was misrepresented. Here’s what Joe Biden himself had to say about it:

“I’m proud to have been one of the first to introduce climate change legislation,’’ he said on Twitter. “What I fought for in 1986 is more important than ever — climate change is an existential threat. Now. Today.”

He added: “We need policies that reflect this urgency. I’ll have more specifics on how America can lead on climate in the coming weeks.”

Joe, you just proved that you are clueless about climate change. If you really knew, you would never have to promise “I’ll have more … in the coming weeks.” You don’t even know what your plan is; your political spinmeisters are still putting it together.

Their guiding principle is choosing what will appeal to voters — that’s why they were salivating about catch-phrases like “middle ground” and “blue collar voters.” The guiding principle should be: fighting climate change.

Your attempt to claim you’re a leader on the issue has already backfired. All you showed us is that you are part of the problem. A word to the wise: the political climate has changed. Thanks to politicians (!) like Jay Inslee, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, thanks to teenagers like Greta Thunberg, Alexandria Villasenor, and Jamie Margoles, you can’t be a serious democratic contender without paying lip service to climate change. So you jumped on the bandwagon, Joe.

You will find that those of us who “get it” about climate change are smart enough to see through your pretense.