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Manmade climate change is now dwarfing the influence of natural trends on the climate, scientists say. Last year was the second or third hottest year on record - after 2016 and on a par with 2015, the data shows. But those two years were affected by El Niño - the natural phenomenon centred on the tropical Pacific Ocean which works to boost temperatures worldwide. Take out this natural variability and 2017 would probably have been the warmest year yet, the researchers say. The acting director of the UK Met Office, Prof Peter Stott, told BBC News: "It's extraordinary that temperatures...

The Australian city of Sydney has experienced its hottest weather in 79 years with temperatures in the region hitting as high as 47.3C (117F). In Penrith, west of Sydney, residents sweltered as the town bore the brunt of the heat on Sunday. Severe fire warnings were issued for the greater Sydney area and total fire bans were put in place across the city. Sunday's temperatures fell short of the scorching heat to hit the area in 1939, when the mercury reached 47.8C. The sweltering temperatures reached in Penrith were confirmed by the Bureau of Meteorology. ABC reported that one charity,...

Climate researchers are warning that a large chunk of the globe could become a desert if the goals of the Paris climate change accord are not met. The findings published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change show that more than 25 percent of the world's population will live in a perpetual state of drought and growing desertification if the Earth's temperature rises by 2 degrees Celsius by 2050. The report says the solution is to prevent global warming from rising above 1.5 degrees C, which the researchers say would significantly reduce the number of regions of the world affected...

Former “Jersey Shore” cast member Vinny Guadagnino shot back at President Trump on Thursday after Trump said the United States could use some “good old global warming” to heat up cold states. “I think climate change is more complex than global warming will make it hotter,” Guadagnino tweeted to Trump. “It has to do with disruptions of atmospheric conditions, ocean patterns, jet streams and s--t like that.” The former MTV reality star later responded to Twitter users who mocked him for replying to Trump, asking “why does having a summer shore house automatically make [you] stupid? Trump tweeted Thursday evening...

Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump chimed in on the weather Thursday, citing the cold wave sweeping across much of the central and northeastern United States as justification for his controversial move to leave the global climate change pact. "In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record," Trump tweeted from his Mar a Lago resort in Florida, where he is on holiday vacation. "Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!"...

Scientific studies used by the Obama administration to help justify tough environmental regulations are coming under intensifying scrutiny, with critics questioning their merit as the Trump EPA reverses or delays some of those rules. In one case, agencies determined the research used to prop up a ban on a particular pesticide was questionable. On another front, the Environmental Protection Agency never complied with a congressional subpoena for the data used to justify most Obama administration air quality rules. “EPA regulations are based on secret data developed in the 1990s,” Steve Milloy, who served on President Trump’s EPA transition team, told...

A recent study from Wellesley College economists, published in Science magazine  is a good example of how to torture data until you get the result you want.The mass murder at Sandy Hook took place on December 14, 2012. President Obama spoke of the need for more gun control on 19 December.  He talked about specific restrictions on 16 January, 2013.The events are so close to the end of the year, that an increase in accidental deaths should show in the annual data.WISQARS CDC data baseThe article in Science makes the following claim.From sciencemag.org: About 60 additional unintended shooting deaths,...

While most people think that mobile phones could cause cancer, this isn’t the only health hazard that has been reported. We all are probably so addicted to our phones that we are unknowingly destroying our health. Here are some health risks of mobile phones you should be aware of: Health hazards of mobile phones #1. Cancer As reported by the World Health Organisation (WHO), mobile phones emit radiofrequency (RF) fields a 1000 times greater than what is emitted from base stations. It’s obvious that this increased emission is likely to have some adverse effect on health of users. Although there...

Black holes are famous for their muscle: an intense gravitational pull known to gobble up entire stars and launch streams of matter into space at almost the speed of light. It turns out the reality may not live up to the hype. In a paper published today in the journal Science, University of Florida scientists have discovered these tears in the fabric of the universe have significantly weaker magnetic fields than previously thought. A 40-mile-wide black hole 8,000 light years from Earth named V404 Cygni yielded the first precise measurements of the magnetic field that surrounds the deepest wells of...

Less than a billion years after the Big Bang, two titans speed toward each other. NRAO/AUI/NSF; D. Berry ======================================================================= Just 780 million years after the universe formed in the Big Bang, two galaxies speed to confront each other in a head-on collision that will lead to a merger between the two—and one of them is towing along a clump of dark matter larger than any spotted before. The research paper, published today in Nature, highlights a little-understood era of the universe known as the Epoch of Reionization. This is when the first galaxies came together and lit up the universe...

Plans by the Trump administration to promote coal as a solution to climate change at a major UN meeting have angered environmentalists. An adviser to the president is expected to take part in a pro-coal presentation in Bonn next week. Separately, a group of governors will say that the US is still committed to climate action despite Mr Trump's rejection of the Paris agreement. The talks begin on Monday and aim to flesh out the rules for the Paris pact This meeting, officially known as COP23, will be the first full gathering of climate negotiators since President Trump vowed to...

The White House has sought to downplay a major climate change report, which was compiled by 13 US federal agencies. The study is at odds with assertions from President Donald Trump and several members of his administration. It says it is "extremely likely" human activity is the "dominant cause" of global warming. A spokesman for the White House said it supported "rigorous scientific analysis and debate" but added that the climate was "always changing". White House principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah said it was not certain how sensitive the Earth's climate was to greenhouse gas emissions. Mr Trump, who...

The White House has sought to downplay a major climate change report, which was compiled by 13 US federal agencies. The study is at odds with assertions from President Donald Trump and several members of his administration. It says it is "extremely likely" human activity is the "dominant cause" of global warming. A spokesman for the White House said it supported "rigorous scientific analysis and debate" but added that the climate was "always changing". White House principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah said it was not certain how sensitive the Earth's climate was to greenhouse gas emissions. Mr Trump, who...

A group of feminist professors will publish a new anthology in November extolling the merits of the emerging field of “queer feminist science.” The anthology, Queer Feminist Science: A Reader, will be released on November 16, and is edited by a team of Women’s Studies professors including New York University’s Cyd Cipolla, Wake Forest University’s Kristina Gupta, South Florida University’s David A. Rubin, and Mount Holyoke College’s Angela Willey, who specifically teaches “feminist science.

Houston has barely begun to dry out from Hurricane Harvey, and Florida faces a massive rebuilding effort after the Irma catastrophe. These two storms, among the most powerful in American history, are typical of the extreme weather events that are likely to become more common as the planet warms. So why isn’t the public heeding scientists and demanding climate action by politicians that could help deal with these destructive extremes? You can point fingers at the influence of fossil fuel companies, at misinformation from climate deniers and at political obstructionism, notably from a fragmented Republican party. But a much deeper...

The 'slowdown' in global warming is over, the Met Office has said. While the world remained at near-record levels of warmth in the early 2000s, analysis of rolling 15-year trends shows that the rate of warming slowed between 1999 and 2014, the experts confirmed. But a change in the natural pattern of warm and cool phases in Pacific Ocean surface temperatures, which have an impact on global temperatures, has brought the slowdown to an end.

It’s like something out of George Orwell’s 1984. Canada’s Competition Bureau, an arm’s length agency funded by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to the tune of almost $50 million annually, investigated three organizations accused of denying mainstream climate science for over a year, following a complaint from an environmental group. The bureau discontinued its 14-month probe in June, citing “available evidence, the assessment of the facts in this case, and to ensure the effective allocation of limited resources”, according to Josephine A.L. Palumbo, Deputy Commissioner of Competition, Deceptive Marketing Practices Directorate. But it will re-open its investigation should it receive...

The victims of Hurricane Harvey have a murderer - and it’s not the storm. The horrors hurled at Houston and the Himalayan lowlands in late August were heartbreaking - but also infuriating. How many times must we see this disaster movie - titled Hurricane Harvey in 2017 - before we intervene and change the ending? And how long before we hold the ultimate authors of such climate catastrophes accountable for the miseries they inflict? What makes this so infuriating is that it shouldn’t be happening. Experts have warned for decades that global warming would increase these sorts of weather extremes...

Let's not dance around the issue: Hurricane Harvey was a direct consequence of global warming, which in turn is a direct consequence of human activities. It's ironic that Texas (and Houston in particular) has an economy that is dominated by on oil and fossil fuels. Burning these fuels is what got us in this mess. It's also ironic that Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who is now at the front of the line asking for a federal government rescue package, is a scientifically illiterate climate change denier. Maybe with cooler temperatures, we'd have had a hurricane anyway–but it would have been...

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