Free Republic

Try to avoid making this face when dealing with a climate change skeptic this holiday. bark/flickr, CC BY By Will J Grant, Australian National University and Rod Lamberts, Australian National University The end of the year is nigh and it’s a time for Christmas and New Year parties and gatherings. In the southern hemisphere that means barbecues and beaches. In the northern hemisphere it’s mulled wine and cozy fireplaces. But for all of us, it probably means we’ll be subjected to at least one ranting, fact-free sermon by a Typical Climate Change Denier (TCCD). You know the drill. Make an...

".....Yuma,Colorado, a farming town of 3,500 people near the Kansas border, celebrated last month as homegrown Republican Cory Gardner was elected to the U.S. Senate. Gardner, a high school football player and the son of a farm equipment dealer, defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Udall to help the GOP gain control of the Senate in the second-most expensive congressional race of all time.Gardner represented Colorado’s 4th Congressional District for four years, an expansive territory that covers the mostly flat and rural eastern third of the state. Farmers there mostly grow corn to feed cattle, and water comes from the quickly...

Changing Weather and Climate in the Great Lakes Region: A University of Wisconsin-Madison MOOC UW-Madison's Margaret Mooney and Steve Ackerman teach this MOOC. She is Director of Education and Public Outreach at the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies; he is Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. Click the image to watch their overview of the class. The University of Wisconsin-Madison invites you to join us February 23, 2015 for a unique, free online learning experience: our Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Changing Weather and Climate in the Great Lakes Region. The 4-week MOOC will feature a new season each...

The hunt for Manbearpig continues. Amusing Alarmist predictions have ranged from the apocalyptic to the bizarre, but the latest is downright idiotic. According to a couple of scientists from Columbia University, air travel might be relegated to the trash bin of history in the future because of the supposed global warming that is occurring today. According to Breitbart.com:The two scientists, Coffel and Horton, looked at a phenomenon known amongst pilots as ‘density altitude’, which affects a plane’s ability to take off. Essentially, on hotter days the air is less dense, making it harder to get a plane airborne.Okay… So warm air...

NOAA says that the first 10 months of the calendar have been the warmest in more than 130 years. The weather outside has been frightful, but not because it’s cold. According to a new report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this year is shaping up to be the hottest since scientists began keeping record more than 130 years ago. The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature from January to October was 1.22 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 20th century average of 57.4 degrees Fahrenheit. “Record warmth for the year-to-date was particularly notable across much of northern...

Uh oh… The evil, hate filled, GOP now has control of the US Senate. Clearly the world will soon end. (Lucky for me, I have stocked up on guns and ammo… So I’m feeling better prepared than my Diana DeGette-loving neighbor.) Ben Adler, the former Newsweek.com editor, was among the more frantic examples of post-election meltdown. Appearing somewhat like Chris Matthews during a Republican victory, Ben scrambled to express his frustration at conservative gains with over-the-top rhetoric. He even went so far as to say that conservatives should not be mistaken for “rational human beings” or “patriotic Americans”.Super classy. Adler insisted...

Density altitude is the biggest factor in aircraft take off on a given runway length, temperature, and altitude. I know this from firsthand experience as I used to be a private pilot – until my hearing got so bad that I decided I was a danger to myself and others. This study published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society claims the number of days with a density altitude issue at some airports will increase per RCP model scenarios in 2050-2070. Of course they are assuming that the RCP models produce an accurate output, and that airplanes of the...

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, locked a final tow on the Upper Mississippi River Thursday, shutting the navigation channel down for the season because ice conditions on the river are becoming difficult for vessels to navigate. Traditionally, the last tow heading south of Lock and Dam 2 has marked the unofficial end of the navigation season for the Twin Cities portion of the St. Paul District, the Corps said. The navigation season started April 16. The spring start was the second-latest start to navigation in the district's history, the Corps said, as ice thicknesses in Lake...

As we speculate about the next election, a fun thing for us Cowboys fans to do on a "bye weekend" is to speculate that 2016 could be the perfect campaign to revive former VP Al Gore. Let's start by saying that Mr. Gore is the perfect alternative to Hillary Clinton. He is liked by the left and can claim to have "won" an election. Furthermore, I think that a lot of the left knows that Senator Warren is charming but unelectable. There is also a real vacuum in the Democrats' bench. Who else is out there? Gov. Brown of California?...

And you’ll never guess why! Well, unless you guessed “global warming,” which is what you did the moment you saw Al Gore’s name. He cannot and will not shut up about it. And I, for one, don’t want him to.Here’s the President of the Environment: It’s time for a national policy on food. Brilliant essay in today’s Washington Post: http://t.co/bvGjpej5wN— Al Gore (@algore) November 9, 2014 If Al Gore thinks it’s brilliant, it must be hilarious. Let’s take a look!

With the spectacular cold event now spreading over much of the contiguous U.S. (and still expected to bring 30 below zero temperatures in Yellowstone Lake, WY tomorrow morning) the snow forecast for the next 8 days shows only 6 states that should miss snow (graphics courtesy of Weatherbell.com, click for full-size):

The cost of fighting climate change will only climb if industrialized nations don't take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the United Nations' panel on the matter warned Sunday in its wrap-up report. In its "synthesis report," the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that the hundreds of authors involved in the study were even more certain than before that the planet is warming and humans are the cause."If left unchecked, climate change will increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems," the report said.The report said there are solutions to keeping the rise in...

The Environmental Protection Agency released a grim report Friday that said it must start planning for the worst possible effects of climate change, and predicted a future world filled with rising sea levels, raging wildfires and more severe storms. All of these factors will combine to create droughts, expose humans to dangerous chemicals and create other conditions that will put the human race at risk.

The percentage of US HCN stations to reach 90 degrees was the smallest on record this year, with four of the five coolest years occurring above 350 PPM CO2. The most widespread heat occurred in 1931, when more than 98% of stations were over 90 degrees.

The earliest snow spotting in Chicago is Sept. 25, which occurred in 1928 and again in 1944, according to the National Weather Service. Saturday’s snowflakes mark the third earliest snow sighting since the city began recording.

Environmental scientists want to introduce a new system to prove that adverse weather events are directly linked to climate change to counter global warming sceptics. Under the new plan, a heatwave or major storm will be linked scientifically to man made climate change immediately after the event to prevent critics from blaming it on natural variations in the weather. Scientists want to be able to provide proof of whether an event was caused by climate change within three day rather than the current system which can take up to a year. Experts claim that such a long wait for proof...

The savage heat waves that struck Australia in 2013 were almost certainly a direct consequence of the human release of greenhouse gases, researchers said Monday. It is perhaps the most definitive statement climate scientists have made that ties a specific weather event to global warming. Five groups of researchers, using distinct methods, analyzed the heat that baked Australia for much of last year and continued into 2014. All five came to the conclusion that last year’s heat waves could not have been as severe without the long-term climatic warming caused by human activity. “When we look at the heat across...

Should the U.S. and other nations commit to a major international effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? yes. no.

A paper published today in Earth System Science Data Discussions analyzes the 2014 carbon budget and predicts man-made CO2 emissions from fossil-fuels and cement production have increased by 65% since 1990. However, atmospheric levels of CO2 have only increased by 11% since 1990, indicating that ~83% of man-made emissions have been absorbed by natural sinks, far greater than the IPCC belief that natural sinks absorb 50% of man-made emissions. Thus, natural sinks [such as the up to 30% greening of the planet over the past few decades] are expanding faster than the IPCC anticipated, CO2 lifetime in the atmosphere is...

The former vice president believes the politics of global warming are changing.Al Gore says Republicans seeking the White House in 2016 are in a bind on climate change. Asked if it would hurt the GOP nominee to be a climate skeptic or advocate against taking action on global warming, Gore replied: "Oh, yes. Definitely." "In a general election? At the national level, where moderate voters hold the balance? It would be extremely harmful to a Republican candidate," Gore told National Journal in an interview Wednesday. But Gore doubts that a "pro-climate" Republican can get the GOP nod, because "carbon polluters...