Watts Up With That?

Bill Illis and Bob Tisdale will likely make use of this. h/t to WUWT reader Chris D.

NOAA Releases Expanded World Ocean Database

NOAA today released the World Ocean Database 2009, the largest, most comprehensive collection of scientific information about the oceans with records dating as far back as 1800. This product is part of the climate services provided by NOAA.

The 2009 database, updated from the 2005 edition, is significantly larger providing approximately 9.1 million temperature profiles and 3.5 million salinity reports.  The 2009 database also captures 29 categories of scientific information from the oceans, including oxygen levels and chemical tracers, plus information on gases and isotopes that can be used to trace the movement of ocean currents. Read the rest of this entry »

This is likely to cause a bit of a stir. Michael  from the Climate Skeptics Party in Australia writes in Tips and Notes:

The TCS ad campaign hit the airwaves last night in Australia. I thought you might be interested and post them on your website.

Here are the other TV advertisements: Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the latest global temperature plot from UAH:

From Dr. Roy Spencer - click to enlarge

From Eurekalert: Human emissions rise 2 percent despite global financial crisis

		IMAGE: Human emissions rise 2 percent despite the global financial crisis. Click here for more information.

Despite the economic effects of the global financial crisis (GFC), carbon dioxide emissions from human activities rose 2 per cent in 2008 to an all-time high of 1.3 tonnes of carbon per capita per year, according to a paper published today in Nature Geoscience.

The paper – by scientists from the internationally respected climate research group, the Global Carbon Project (GCP) – says rising emissions from fossil fuels last year were caused mainly by increased use of coal but there were minor decreases in emissions from oil and deforestation.

“The current growth in carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions is closely linked to growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP),” said one of the paper’s lead authors, CSIRO’s Dr Mike Raupach.

“CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel combustion are estimated to have increased 41 per cent above 1990 levels with emissions continuing to track close to the worst-case scenario of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“There will be a small downturn in emissions because of the GFC, but anthropogenic emissions growth will resume when the economy recovers unless the global effort to reduce emissions from human activity is accelerated.” Read the rest of this entry »

Guest post by Larry Fields

The last Ice Age razed all of the coniferous forests in Finland. After the ice sheet retreated, trees from elsewhere–like the Scots Pine–gradually colonized the vacant niches. On a smaller scale, the same thing happened in many high mountains of the Earth’s temperate regions, including the Sierra Nevada Range of California. We can learn a thing or two about climate history from Alpine dendrology.

Round Top Lake, at 9340 feet elevation in the Northern Sierra near Carson Pass, is my favorite place for informal climate history research. Whitebark Pine trees grow in tight clumps around the North half of the lake.

Other high altitude conifers–like Lodgepole Pine, Mountain Hemlock, and Red Fir–also grow in the Carson Pass area. But Whitebark Pines can grow at slightly high elevations than these other trees.

At Round Top Lake, the Whitebark Pines in any given group are nearly identical genetically, since they reproduce asexually. New tree trunks grow outward from an existing root system. This is called suckering. The seeds that do sprout can’t endure the harsh Winters at that altitude. Walking 100  yards downhill from the lake on the main trail, one can see Whitebark Pines that have grown in a more normal way.

Naturalist Jeffrey P. Schaffer mentioned Round Top Lake in the 1989 edition of his book, The Tahoe Sierra: A Natural History Guide to the 106 Hikes in the Northern Sierra. Here’s a link to a review of a more recent book by Schaffer.
http://www.amazon.com/Tahoe-Sierra-Natural-History-Northern/dp/0899972209
Read the rest of this entry »