“some form of ecocatastrophe, if not thermonuclear war, seems almost certain to overtake us before the end of the century.” – Dr. John.P Holdren, 1971 (pdf)

More (PDF)

Barack Obama has only four years to save the world.

That is the stark assessment of Nasa scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who last week warned only urgent action by the new president could halt the devastating climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially, that action will have to be taken within Obama’s first administration, he added.

And he’ll get on that first thing Wednesday morning…

Using data from the EPA, environmentalist organizations, and various news accounts, the [Institute for Liberty] estimates more than 500 million pounds of CO2 will be released during the four-day inaugural festivities. Among the offenders:
– The 600 private jets expected to fly visitors to and from the event will produce 25,320,000 pounds of CO2.
– Personal vehicles could account for 262,483,200 pounds of CO2.
– The horses in the parade will produce more than 400 pounds of CO2.
And if you don’t have an idea what a pound of CO2 really means, consider this: The average household would take 57,598 years to produce as much CO2 as Obama’s inauguration

Carbon Bigfoot (PDF)
Heh – “He created it in six days, so this shouldn’t be any problem…
Update – and just in the nicker of time!

That’s Maine, folks.

Global warming is….

Just regardez out votre window!

h/t Richard A.
More: Staying warm in Belgium…

CTV.ca – Dec.15/08

When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can’t avoid.

Daily Tech – Jan.1/09;

Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.
Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.
The data is being reported by the University of Illinois’s Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions

Related! “Birdwatchers’ delight as Arctic snowy owl is spotted in freezing England for first time”…
(By the way – who’s the designated global warming mouthpiece at CTV these days? A few hundred forwards of the DailyTech link would be a wonderful service to Canadians.)
*

“Solar cycle 24: where are you?”

Update – “Looking at the data to 1932, it was clear to me that what we are seeing today for levels doesn’t exist in the record.”

Click the image to start animation.

(Snow Water Equivalent)
More where that one came from at National Snow Analysis – “The ultimate source for snow information.”
h/t Todd B.

That big burning ball in the sky affects the earth in some way? How can that be?

…geographer Robert Baker of the University of New England, Armidale, in Australia, has linked solar magnetic activity to Earth’s climate–at least regionally. Using sunspot counts and Australian meteorological data, as well as NASA satellite data for more recent years, he tracked sunspots and rainfall in Australia from 1876 to 2006. In this month’s issue of Geographical Research, Baker reports that the amount of rainfall in most regions of the country tracked the 22-year magnetic cycle almost exactly. “It was unbelievable,” Baker says. At the height of magnetic activity, rainfall across most of the country was plentiful. At the other end of the cycle, many of those same regions experienced severe droughts. The findings are particularly compelling, Baker says, because even though the lengths of the magnetic cycles are not precise and can vary by several years, the rainfall patterns followed them.
So what’s behind the connection? Baker thinks it has to do with the amount of ultraviolet (UV) radiation hitting Earth. When the reversing of polarity approaches, he explains, the sun’s magnetic field weakens, allowing more UV energy to reach our planet. More UV radiation kills off some of the oceans’ plankton, which produce dimethyl sulfide, one of the primary atmospheric chemicals involved in cloud formation, and fewer clouds mean less rainfall.
[…]
“This could be an important paper,” says climatologist John Christy of the University of Alabama, Huntsville. He explains that current climate models don’t give the solar effect much weight in general, because scientists think it is overwhelmed by the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But if there’s a mechanism by which the sun’s variations are tied directly to weather patterns, such as the effect of UV radiation on cloud formation, he says, the sun may have a greater impact than the models are showing. As a result, the models might not be creating an accurate picture for the future.

Man, just when you think you’ve heard everything…

h/t

El Guardian, Monday, 22 December 3208 – Researchers in Greenlandistan have discovered something unexpected during a detailed analysis of six ice cores retrieved during study of rapidly growing ice fields that began began advancing about 1,200 years ago. “We were surprised to find small chunks of primitive plastic material imbedded within the cores, some of them microscopic, others nearly as large as a human thumb. Most of the fragments are yellow, although one of the larger pieces has been nicknamed by our researchers as “the duck’s beak” due to its orange colour and unusual shape.” a spokesman said.

(Click here to enlarge)

CTV – “Never let the facts get in the way of a big scary story“.

“At first I didn’t believe it,” says THEMIS project scientist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. “This finding fundamentally alters our understanding of the solar wind-magnetosphere interaction.”

“Earth’s Magnetic Field Has Massive Breach – scientists baffled”

First we have the interplanetary magnetic field that took an abrupt dive in October 2005 and has not recovered since and remains at very low level:
Then we have the recent discovery that the ionosphere has dropped in altitude to unexpected and unexplained low levels.
We have a solar cycle 24 (driven by the solar magnetic dynamo) which can’t seem to get out of the starting gate, being a year late with forecasts for activity from it being revised again and again.
And finally we have this, this discovery that Earth’s magnetic field can be ripped open and our atmosphere laid bare to the solar wind, much like Mars.

Meanwhile, over at the Doomsday Shoe Media, reporters are scrambling to link this to SUV’s…

A 20% emissions reduction as calculated in poodle years.

In their free time, attendees could choose between The Goracle’s dire warning to a German audience that ‘the entire North Polarized cap will disappear in 5 years” or one of the earliest starts to the European ski season in years.

Just look out the bayou…

More pics.
From the comments – “I’m 181 miles from new orleans on a deepwater drilling rig. This snow is part of the reason I can’t get back to the beach. Sea states are 15 foot waves with 45 knot winds.
But we got internet so it’s all good.”
h/t maz2

I’ll see your CBC Fruit Fly Guy and raise you….

“I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion.” – Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.
“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical.” – Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.”
Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” – UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.
“The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds… I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists,” – Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.
“The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC “are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity.” – Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico
“It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.” – U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.

“UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims.”

Just look out your window.

Houston, Texas.

Computer models have predicted the end of civilization as we know it will be pre-empted by the end of the economy as we know it.