The fact that a full-fledged climate regulation bill has passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee is nothing less than monumental. It also means that we now have a baseline document to analyze – or criticize, as the case may be. Read more
Scientists have long debated how the global climate might be affected by thawing of the Arctic’s permanently frozen soils, known as permafrost. As permafrost melts, bacteria break down the organic matter in the soil, releasing greenhouse gases. But at the same time, plants flourish with access to warmer, deeper soils, taking in carbon dioxide. The overall affect on the climate was assumed to be the balance between the gassing and greening. Read more
The concept of active human efforts to artificially limit or reverse climate change has been around for some years. Collectively called geoengineering, many such plans, some more fanciful than others, have been proposed by the scientific community, and several were discussed during the final days of the AGU Joint Assembly in Toronto. Read more
Solving the climate problem is going to require a massive amount of human ingenuity, of all shapes and sizes – new scientific ideas, novel ways of problem-solving and fresh technologies. Those at the forefront of tackling climate change aren’t shy of sharing their suggestions – painting roofs white, for example, or burning biomass en masse. Read more
Russia has been a rather puzzling actor in the complicated diplomatic game which resulted in the Kyoto protocol, and which will be played out again in Copenhagen in December. Climate warming doesn’t make headlines, and has so far not been a big concern, between Moscow and Vladivostok. What prompted Russian leaders to ratify Kyoto was the prospect of making good money from emissions trading, rather than conviction that man-made climate change is a real phenomenon and a threat to society. Read more
Today, at the AGU Joint Assembly, I looked into two kinds of risk: of drought leading to civil violence and of the odds that extreme weather events may cause other types of disruption. Read more
Uncertainty in regional climate projections isn’t going away, and that’s an inconvenient truth the development community will have to face, says Christoph Müller of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research in Germany. Read more
Cement and pinot noir were among the highlights of the AGU Joint Assembly in Toronto Tuesday. Read more
Level 7 of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre is situated above Level 8, and Level 6 is higher still. Once you find your way around, it’s seems the perfect place to study atmospheric inversions and other climatological phenomena. That’s what is happening at the centre this week during the Joint Assembly of the American and Canadian Geophysical Unions, along with a half-dozen other Earth and space science societies. Read more
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