The Week: Most Recent Climate Change

Heartland's ballsy attack on climate-change theory: The fallout

The Week — Mon, 07 May 2012 14:43:00 -0400

The conservative Heartland Institute was going for shock value when it mounted a digital billboard in Chicago that combined a mug shot of the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, with the message: "I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?" (See the full image below.) After the group faced a fiercer backlash than expected, however, it promptly took down the sign and canceled plans for similar ads. Here's what you should know:

What was the point of this billboard?
The Heartland Institute was trying to be "deliberately provocative," the institute's president, Joseph Bast, said in a statement, "to turn the tables...

Do wind farms actually cause climate change?

The Week — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:00:00 -0400

Here's a curveball on climate change: New research published in the journal Nature Climate Change suggests that large wind farms might have a warming effect on the local climate. Many countries are rapidly expanding their capacity to generate electricity using wind-driven turbines as they try to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases created by the burning of fossil fuels. But are wind farms contributing to the very problem they're supposed to help solve? Here, a brief guide:

How much do wind farms heat up the air?
Researchers at the State University of New York at Albany...

Global warming mystery: Why are some glaciers growing?

The Week — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:20:00 -0400

Glaciers around the world are slowly melting, and scientists are quick to point their fingers at manmade climate change. But new research suggests that a few glaciers aren't shrinking at all, and may even be growing. Here, a brief guide to this counterintuitive phenomenon:

Which glaciers are growing?
A few glaciers in the Karakoram mountain range along the India-China-Pakistan border are gaining mass, according to a report published in the April issue of the journal Nature Geoscience. "The rest of the glaciers in the Himalayas are mostly melting," lead researcher Julie Gardelle tells LiveScience...

The warmest March in history: By the numbers

The Week — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:44:00 -0400

Temperature records were scorched last month, which will go down as the warmest March in history. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), more than 15,000 temperature records were broken or tied in the U.S., continuing a year-long streak of hotter-than-average temperatures that many scientists are linking to global warming. "Everybody has this uneasy feeling," says scientist Jerry Meehl. "It's a guilty pleasure. You're out enjoying this nice March weather, but you know it's not a good thing." Here's how it all breaks down:

15,292
Temperature records that were...

How global warming is changing winemaking

The Week — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 18:04:00 -0500

As global temperatures rise, the grapes in Australia's wine regions are ripening ever earlier, according to a new study in Nature Climate Change. That's a problem for vintners, says lead researcher Leanne Webb, because early ripening "often has undesirable impacts on wine quality." The earlier the grapes mature, the hotter the weather at the time of harvest, and "hot vintages are not good for quality wines," says co-author Snow Barlow. Here's what you should know:

How much is climate change affecting grape harvests?
On average, Australian wine grapes are ripening 20 days earlier than in 1985...

Will global warming make us shorter?

The Week — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 15:30:00 -0500

The size of mammals is directly linked to the planet's temperature, paleontologists say, and the hotter it gets, the smaller beasts become — suggesting that humans could shrink if the Earth continues its feverish course. Here's what you should know:

How did researchers reach this conclusion?
They studied Sifrhippus, a 56-million-year-old ancestor of the modern-day horse. Secretariat he was not: When Sifrhippus first cantered into existence, he weighed only 12 pounds. Researchers from Florida and Nebraska led a team that used the fossilized teeth of the Sifrhippus, which they...

The 'secret, corporate-funded' plan to make Americans doubt climate change

The Week — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:02:00 -0500

The war over climate change flared up again this week, after an anonymous tipster leaked a trove of documents from the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, a libertarian group known, among other things, for opposing regulation of greenhouse gases. In a sort of funhouse-mirror image of "Climategate" — the giant 2009 leak of supposedly conspiratorial emails among climate scientists — the Heartland document dump outlines one group's efforts to sow doubts about the scientific consensus that humans are dangerously changing the long-term climate through gas emissions. The Heartland Institute...

Has climate change 'blocked' the next ice age?

The Week — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:00:00 -0500

Earth isn't due for another ice age for 1,500 years. But by then, say researchers from Cambridge University, carbon dioxide emissions appear likely to have raised the planet's temperature so much that the ice sheets will be unable to form. Will climate change "block" the next ice age? Here, a brief guide:

Wait — an ice age?
Yup. The planet experiences regular ice ages — scientists have discovered evidence of five of them — and we're due for another one. "The period between the end of an ice age and the beginning of the next is typically about 11,000 years," says Britain's Telegraph...

The U.N.'s last-minute climate deal: 'Pitiful'?

The Week — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 09:53:00 -0500

After three sleepless nights, delegates at a United Nations climate conference in Durban, South Africa, reached a last-minute compromise on Sunday. Among other things, they finalized an agreement, spelled out at a meeting last year, to create a fund transferring billions of dollars from rich countries to poor ones. That money will help poor countries make the switch to cleaner energy sources. But the negotiators failed to establish strict new targets to limit global warming. Does that make the deal a failure?

This compromise accomplishes nothing: How "pitiful," says Damian Carrington at Britain...

Climate change: Forcing polar bears to become cannibals?

The Week — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:45:00 -0500

Is global warming driving polar bears to cannibalism? It certainly appears that way, say wildlife experts. And a jarring set of photographs published in the journal Arctic has provided a rare piece of evidence to support the theory. Here's what you should know:

What happened?
Wildlife photographer Jenny Ross was on a boat floating through a stretch of water in the Svalbard archipelago when she came across an adult polar bear tearing into what she thought was a seal. But upon closer inspection, it turned out to be the fresh carcass of a juvenile polar bear cub. "It's been known that polar bears...

The record jump in global carbon emissions: By the numbers

The Week — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:08:00 -0500

During the global economic downturn, cash-strapped factories slowed their production, and sometimes closed altogether, reducing global carbon emissions — a rare bright spot of sorts in the recession's darkest days. Now, it's clear that decline was an outlier. New figures released by the Global Carbon Project, which creates an annual report card of the world's CO2 output, show that 2010 saw a "record" jump in emissions from fossil-fuel burning, thanks mostly to unprecedented leaps from developing nations. Here, a quick look at the report, by the numbers:

7
Percent that CO2 emissions dropped...

'Climategate 2.0': Inside the 'dynamite' new email leaks

The Week — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:34:00 -0500

Two years after an unknown hacker released about 1,000 private emails between climate scientists, he or she struck again Tuesday, dumping a collection of about 5,000 more emails and documents from Britain's University of East Anglia. As with the original "Climategate" dump, this batch appeared via a Russian server a few days before a United Nations climate summit. Climate change skeptics are already digging through the emails, looking for correspondence that casts doubt on the scientific consensus that the earth is warming due to human activity. Have they hit pay dirt with "Climategate 2.0"?

... More

Can white roofs really reduce global warming?

The Week — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 08:00:00 -0400

Energy Secretary Steven Chu, among others, has urged Americans to paint their roofs white to reflect sunlight skyward, on the theory that this will help cool off cities and fight climate change. But Stanford University researchers have tried to quantify, for the first time, how much cities, or "heat islands," actually contribute to global warming, and they've concluded that the well-intentioned practice of whitewashing the tops of buildings might do more harm than good. Here's what they found:

How much do "heat islands" contribute to climate change?
Not much, according to this new study. Global...

Will climate change turn Starbucks into a juice bar?

The Week — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:44:00 -0400

Starbucks is warning that climate change is threatening the world's coffee supply. What's more, the company is contemplating how it can survive if the trend continues and the beans it needs to satisfy its latte-crazy customers grow scarce. Is the coffee crisis really that bad? Here's what you need to know:

Are coffee growers really hurting?
They are, according to Starbucks sustainability director Jim Hanna. The farmers — most of them in Central America — who provide the company's Arabica beans are seeing their crops reduced by severe hurricanes, shifting rainfall patterns, and increasing...

Could Texas' mega-drought last until 2020?

The Week — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 06:45:00 -0400

Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon is predicting that Texas' devastating drought could last until 2020. The dangerously dry conditions have already caused $5.2 billion in damage to crops and livestock, along with a host of "out-of-control" wildfires. More than 95 percent of the state is experiencing either "severe" or "exceptional" drought, making this what many see as Texas' worst drought since a seven-year ordeal that ended in 1957. When will Texas see rain again?

It might really take a decade: "We've had drought in 2005, 2006, 2008, and 2009, though none as deep and widespread as this year...

Climate change: Will chocolate become a costly luxury?

The Week — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:48:00 -0400

Is the world's cocoa supply in danger? That's what a new study from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) suggests, singling out a familiar culprit: Global warming. The findings [see PDF] reveal that annual temperature increases will hamper the crop-production efforts in West Africa, which currently supplies half of the world's chocolate — at least if preventive measures aren't taken. Here's what you should know:

How hot are we talking?
The study, which consulted 19 climate-change models, indicates that a mere two degrees Celcius increase by 2050 will render areas...