Were they unusual during the 20th century? No, not during the past two millennia, as this study suggests that modern warming cannot be distinguished from warming induced by “natural processes,” which ultimately suggests there is no compelling reason to attribute modern warming to anthropogenic CO2 emissions... Read More [2]
Cyanobacteria of the Subtropical North Atlantic Ocean (25 December 2012)
How do they respond to atmospheric CO2 enrichment? Quoting the team of researchers that conducted the study, their results for Trichodesmium, along with the similar results of several other marine scientists, suggest that “ocean acidification would likely result in a positive feedback on the growth and physiology of natural populations, resulting in a positive change in their role in ocean carbon and nitrogen cycles,” which is, of course, great news for the biosphere!... Read More [3]
The Greenland Ice Sheet: What It’s Been Doing Lately (25 December 2012)
A new report “challenges predictions about the future response of the Greenland Ice Sheet to increasing global temperatures”... Read More [4]
Ocean Acidification Effects on Two Predator-Prey Relationships (25 December 2012)
In which direction do they shift as acidification occurs: in favor of the predator or its prey? ... or do they shift at all? Results of this study “illustrate that different stress effects on interacting species may not only enhance but also buffer community level effects,” further emphasizing that “when stress effects are similar (and weak) on interacting species, biotic interactions may remain unaffected”... Read More [5]
Marine Reserves May Ameliorate the Negative Consequences of Both Local and Global Stressors of Sea Life (26 December 2012)
Is there actually something out there in “we-should-do-it land” that climate alarmists and skeptics can agree upon? It would seem they both would deem it wise to establish more marine reserves throughout the world’s oceans, in order to help prevent the deleterious effects of (1) verified local threats and (2) postulated global threats to the well-being of Earth’s marine life... Read More [6]
Just How Icy was the Little Ice Age? (26 December 2012)
The question is very important, as the interglacial record cold of the Little Ice Age was the springboard from which modern global warming was launched... Read More [7]
Earth’s Land and Water Surfaces: Net Sources or Sinks for CO2? (26 December 2012)
Real-world evidence trumps coupled climate/carbon-cycle models ... and in a really big way, as “although present predictions indicate diminished C uptake by the land and oceans in the coming century, with potentially serious consequences for the global climate, as of 2010 there is no empirical evidence that C uptake has started to diminish on the global scale.” In fact, as their results clearly indicate, just the opposite appears to be the case, with global carbon uptake actually doubling over the past half-century... Read More [8]
The Ability to Identify Category 4 and 5 Atlantic Hurricanes with Mid-20th-Century Tools (1 Jan 2013)
Were the tools of that earlier age good enough to do a good enough job? In a word, no. And that discrepancy may very well temper the historicl hurricane counts... Read More [9]
Lake Restoration in a Warming World (1 Jan 2013)
Do rising temperatures help or hinder human efforts to restore freshwater planktonic ecosystems to more primitive and species-rich conditions? The present analysis suggests “that climate warming and re-oligotrophication may favor an increase in spatial (depth) heterogeneity in the water column of deep lakes, enhancing the potential for phytoplankton species co-existence and an increase in plankton richness”... Read More [10]
Eight Decades of Glacier