Free Republic

Since 1998, there has been an unexplained "standstill" in the heating of the Earth's atmosphere. Writing in Nature Geoscience, the researchers say this will reduce predicted warming in the coming decades. But long-term, the expected temperature rises will not alter significantly. The slowdown in the expected rate of global warming has been studied for several years now. Earlier this year, the UK Met Office lowered their five-year temperature forecast. But this new paper gives the clearest picture yet of how any slowdown is likely to affect temperatures in both the short-term and long-term. An international team of researchers looked at...

A funny thing happened on the way to the global warming apocalypse. First, temperatures stopped rising, defying the projections of supposed environmental experts. Then, increased oil-and-gas drilling, opposed by climate change true believers, helped reduce U.S. production of carbon dioxide emissions. While environmental alarmists should express relief in being proven wrong, we doubt they'll take that tack. Even some global warming proponents now acknowledge that warming trends stalled beginning in the late 1990s, in spite of increased carbon dioxide emissions. The cause-and-effect link argued by climate-change believers has come under question. New data show the revolution created by hydraulic fracturing...

Theft, deceit and outright lies: How ugly can climate science get? Prominent climate scientist Peter H. Gleick relied on deceit and subterfuge to solicit a cache of sensitive internal documents from conservative think tank The Heartland Institute before leaking them to the press -- a fresh scandal that further darkens the highly charged debate on planetary climate change. Gleick -- an internationally recognized hydroclimatologist and author of the respected annual report “The World’s Water” -- said he received an anonymous document in the mail that tipped him off to what he described as Heartland’s efforts to muddy public understanding of...

Despite significant pyrotechnics and air travel disruption last year, the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull simply didn't put that many aerosols into the stratosphere. In contrast, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, put 10 cubic kilometers of ash, gas and other materials into the sky, and cooled the planet for a year. Now, research suggests that for the past decade, such stratospheric aerosols—injected into the atmosphere by either recent volcanic eruptions or human activities such as coal burning—are slowing down global warming. "Aerosols acted to keep warming from being as big as it would have been," says atmospheric scientist John Daniel...

From the safety of the political sidelines, former Vice President Al Gore is venturing into a touchy topic, presenting his holistic view of how to curb the buildup of greenhouse gases warming the planet. Besides improving technology to reduce fossil fuel emissions, he is advocating "educating and empowering girls and women." "That's the most powerful leveraging factor," Gore said in a speech Monday in New York. "When that happens, then the population begins to stabilize and societies begin to make better choices." Although not entirely spelled out in the speech, Gore's thinking goes this way: If women are confident their...

Global greenhouse gas emissions have risen even faster during the past decade than predicted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other international agencies. According to alarmist groups, this proves global warming is much worse than previously feared. The increase in emissions “should shock even the most jaded negotiators” at international climate talks currently taking place in Bonn, Germany, the UK Guardian reports. But there’s only one problem with this storyline; global temperatures have not increased at all during the past decade. The evidence is powerful, straightforward, and damning. NASA satellite instruments precisely measuring global temperatures...

Former Vice President Al Gore is picking a fight with Fox News over a year-old management memo that he says betrays a bias against global warming science. "Fox News has consistently delivered false and misleading information to its viewers about the climate crisis," Gore wrote on his website. "The leaked e-mails now suggest that this bias comes directly form the executives responsible for their news coverage." Gore was referring to a Dec. 8, 2009 memo attributed to Fox News' Washington Managing Editor Bill Sammon and posted by the liberal-leaning website Media Matters, according to The Hill newspaper. In the memo,...

At a candidate forum here last week, Representative Baron P. Hill, a threatened Democratic incumbent in a largely conservative southern Indiana district, was endeavoring to explain his unpopular vote for the House cap-and-trade energy bill. It will create jobs in Indiana, reduce foreign oil imports and address global warming, Mr. Hill said at a debate with Todd Young, a novice Republican candidate who is supported by an array of Indiana Tea Party groups and is a climate change skeptic. “Climate change is real, and man is causing it,” Mr. Hill said, echoing most climate scientists. “That is indisputable. And we...

One hurricane, two tropical storms and five tropical depressions. That describes the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season so far. But, don't let your guard down. All signs point to a rapid increase in hurricane activity in the next two to three weeks. Above normal temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean would tend to favor hurricane growth and strength. This, plus the fact that water temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean are cooling. It's called La Nina and it means less wind shear in the Atlantic Ocean. Less wind shear gives Atlantic Hurricanes a favorable environment for rapid growth....

The Northeast is seeing more frequent "extreme precipitation events" in line with global warming predictions, a study shows, including storms like the recent fierce rains whose floodwaters swallowed neighborhoods and businesses across New England. The study does not link last week's devastating floods to its research but examined 60yrs worth of National Weather Service rainfall records in nine Northeastern states and found that storms that produce an inch or more of rain in a day — a threshold the recent storm far surpassed — are coming more frequently. "It's almost like 1 inch of rainfall has become pretty common these...

Climatologists are unanimous in the belief that human activity is causing global warming, but their warnings are going unheeded as sea levels continue to rise. Does their public-relation strategy need a makeover? The bungling on the part of the climatologists never seemed more obvious than in the run-up to the Copenhagen Summit in December – eleven days that brought together hundreds of global leaders to address the issue of global warming and how to combat it. Read more In November, one month before the much-anticipated meeting convened, a media story broke over the discovery of some 1,000 emails stolen from...

This record-breaking cold is no joke. Yet, along with frozen pipes and bitter complaining, this Arctic front has swept in plenty of watercooler humor, including the wintry variation on the unfortunate summertime classic, “Hot enough for ya?” “Cold enough for ya?” Ugh. No, actually it's not cold enough, now that you've got me thinking about how miserable I am. It's not cold enough for me until my nerves freeze so I can no longer feel the cold. Then there's this trendier line: “All this cold weather. Must be global warming, right?” Ha ha ha. I'm sure all the sad-looking polar...

We may be at the cusp of an event that could reshape the season to be jolly for eons. With all the talk about global warming, no one has yet asked the most important question: What will happen to the white Christmas in a warm world? What about Santa, the sleigh, tiny reindeer, and chimneys? The dire consequences from the impact of a balmy life on earth will surely put a damper on good will toward men. Laying off the winter legend because there’s no more winter would be just awful. Don’t get me wrong. I hate winter, and Christmas...

<p>The snows of Kilimanjaro may soon be gone. The African mountain's white peak — made famous by writer Ernest Hemingway — is rapidly melting, researchers report.</p> <p>Some 85 percent of the ice that made up the mountaintop glaciers in 1912 was gone by 2007, researchers led by paleoclimatologist Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.</p>

About half (48%) of white mainline Protestants believe the earth is warming as the result of human activity -- roughly the same proportion as among all Americans (47%) -- but only a third of white evangelical Protestants (34%) share that belief. In fact, white evangelical Protestants are the most likely to say there is no solid evidence that global warming is occurring (31%). While only 39% of black Protestants say global warming is a result of human activity, they are, however, the least likely of the religions studied to deny global warming (15%). The unaffiliated (58%) are the most likely...

Here’s the first thing you shouldn’t do in front of Al Gore. Be skeptical about catastrophic, human-caused global warming. He will rip your reputation apart, just as he once did to reputable, honorable scientists in congressional hearings. Here’s the second thing you shouldn’t do in front of Al Gore. Ask him whether he himself might have the kind of conflict of interest that he takes for granted in others. For heaven’s sake, do not get into the question of whether he might make a lot of money with the passage of a global warming cap-and-trade tax that he has been...

Climate change would force Australia's Aborigines off their traditional lands, resulting in "cultural genocide" and environmental degradation, a human rights watchdog warned Monday. Australia's original inhabitants, whose cultures stretch back many thousands of years, Aborigines would be deeply affected by the impact of global warming, the government-funded Human Rights Commission said. Rising sea levels and soaring temperatures would make their homelands uninhabitable, severing spiritual links and laying waste to the environment, according to the commission's annual Native Title Report. "Problems that indigenous Australians will encounter include people being forced to leave their lands, particularly in coastal areas," the report said....

In response to the many redundant, errant letters from Alan Journet, the following facts will be useful to your readers in making a wholly informed opinion on the subject of global warming. Our planet has warmed and cooled in countless cycles over the last four billion years, often at rates faster and more extreme than those recorded since the "explosion" of greenhouse gases. The research of a significant number of renowned climate scientists strongly suggests that our human contribution is of much less significance than Mr. Journet and his ilk would have you believe. Consider this: Mars and Earth are...

The five countries that ring the Arctic on Thursday declared climate change the single greatest threat to polar bears, calling for urgent action to curb global warming. Months ahead of a crucial global climate conference, the five countries -- Canada, Denmark (with Greenland), Norway, Russia and the United States -- expressed their "deep concern" at the end of a three-day meeting in the northern Norwegian town of Tromsoe. "The parties agreed that long-term conservation of polar bears depends upon successful mitigation of climate change," they wrote in a joint statement following discussion on threats to the white bear that have...

For those who have endured this winter's frigid temperatures and today's heavy snowstorm in the Northeast, the concept of global warming may seem, well, almost wishful. But climate is known to be variable -- a cold winter, or a few strung together doesn't mean the planet is cooling. Still, according to a new study, global warming may have hit a speed bump and could go into hiding for decades. Earth's climate continues to confound scientists. Following a 30-year trend of warming, global temperatures have flatlined since 2001 despite rising greenhouse gas concentrations, and a heat surplus that should have cranked...