Bits of Climate

After Copenhagen: Cancún, Kyoto… or Montreal?

Chlorofluorocarbons are up to 11,000 times as potent as greenhouse gases as CO2. The Montreal Protocol locked away some 4 years of regular CO2 emissions. And if we try really hard – and look for every old fridge on the … Continue reading →

Communicating climate science is defined activism

Renowned climatologist and Head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies James Hansen recently wrote a short essay, explaining the path from developing scientific understanding, to improving civil implementation of that knowledge – or how he became ‘an activist’:

Arctic ocean acidification faster than predictions

Cold water absorbs more CO2, so it is around the Poles that the consequences of ocean acidification are first felt. Pteropods – tiny swimming Arctic sea snails – have difficulty building their shells at CO2 levels very close to the … Continue reading →

NASA: temperature is all about CO2

Two new studies by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies help improve basic quantitative understanding of the Earth’s greenhouse system. The one, ‘CO2: The Thermostat that Controls Earth’s Temperature’, is a Goddard climate model based study (lead-author Andrew Lacis) to … Continue reading →