Tag: climate change
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Continued coral reef accretion requires vastly reduced CO2 emissions
An important new modeling study (Kennedy et al 2013 download PDF) forecasts the structural decay of Caribbean reefs based on emission scenarios from the new ‘representative concentration pathways’ (RCPs). Excerpted Authors Summary: Coral reefs face multiple anthropogenic threats, from pollution and overfishing to the dual effects of greenhouse gas emissions: rising sea temperature and ocean…
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Debunking National Review’s lies about climate change
In response to Obama’s historic speech and new policy on climate change, the American conservative media has gone, well, predictably bonkers. Check out this editorial from National Review, which starts off with a lie: It is remarkable that when the scientific consensus on global warming is at its weakest state in years, President Barack Obama…
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Obama’s climate action plan
This has been a massive news week. We started off with unrest in Brazil, more unrest in Turkey, more bloodshed and chaos in Syria, Snowden fleeing Hong Kong, the bombshell that the “IRS war on conservatives” was another GOP fantasy, and the SCOTUS overturning portions of the Voting Rights Act. Then yesterday afternoon came Obama’s…
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Climate Change and Marine Communities 7: Blue Carbon
This is the 7th installment of my serialization of a new book chapter on “Climate Change and Marine Communities” written with Chris Harley and Mike Burrows. It is for a new book “Marine Community Ecology and Conservation” that I’m co-editing with Mark Bertness, Brian Silliman, and Jay Stachowicz. Blue Carbon To avoid long-term ecological degradation, it is becoming…
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Shrink That Footprint
I’m a sucker for carbon accounting and carbon source graphics and I love this simple one from shrinkthatfootprint.com which came from Lindsay Wilson’s post A short history of carbon emissions and sinks at Skeptical Science.
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Where greenhouse gases come from
Ecofys released a new, nice graphic depicting where greenhouse gases come from: It generally seems accurate and they say it is based on 2010 data, although I have not been able to find their methodology. This chart updates an important, earlier one from WRI here. In 2000 18.2 % of emissions were attributed to land use…
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Sea level rise in North Carolina
This is a post for my Marine Ecology class. We covered estuaries yesterday and will get to climate change impacts on the oceans soon. Sea level rise due to greenhouse gas emissions is one of the main ways climate change is affecting us Tar Heels. (And yes, this will all be on the final exam)…
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The 97% consensus on human-caused climate change
If you believe the climate is changing and that human activties are the cause, then you can probably go back to cleaning your house or whatever you were doing when you took a break to check in with SeaMonster. But, if you are one of the hundred million or so Americans that still don't believe in this…
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Global warming since 1999
Climate change deniers like to claim there has been “no warming since 1998” which was an especially warm year due to an intense El Nino. Well that ain’t true. Global warming has indeed continued, especially in the deep sea due to the prevalence of several La Nina events recently. Here is how much the land…
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Humans are causing more strong hurricanes
The possible effect of global warming on the frequency or severity of cyclonic storms has been debated quite intensely among scientists (not only between scientists and climate change deniers) for over a decade. Several new studies are helping to clarify (somewhat) whether we are already experiencing (or will soon) more intense storms. Dana Nuccitelli has a…