Your Tax Dollars at Work

Courtesy of Gristmill, here's how the current administration protects its environment:

Why do climate denialists hate America?

Midnight update: WaPo has an article by national security correspondent Walter Pincus on A2 of Thursday's high-fiber edition: Climate Issues Tied to U.S. Security

Those wacko commie enviro-Nazis are at it again. Less than a year after the CNA Corporation published a report on the security implications of global warming (as noted at the time in PM Update), an official report from the National Intelligence Council, "a center of strategic thinking within the US Government, reporting to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI)," has expounded further on that theme. In testimony (21-page pdf) today before a joint hearing of the House Committees on Intelligence and on Energy Independence and Global Warming, council chairman Dr. Thomas Fingar presented the unclassifed portion of the report's key observations. The Republicans' response, expressed by Rep. Issa? More drilling!

For more analysis, see:

• Associated Press: Report: Climate change linked to national security
  
• USNews: Climate Change Will Have Destabilizing Consequences, Intelligence Agencies Warn
  
• AFP: Climate change will impact US national security
  
• Reuters: Climate change may strain U.S. forces
  
• WSJ: Report Says U.S. Security Faces
  Challenges From Global Warming
  
• NPR: Intelligence Agencies: Climate Threatens Security
  
• NYTi's Dot Earth: Reports: Energy Thirst Still Topping Climate Risks
  
• WaPo (dead-tree and online): MIA

Gas Pains: A Perfect Storm?

Think gas prices are too high already? Friday morning CNBC reported on the likely impact of even the threat of a hurricane strike on energy prices (additional report, including a tour of Shell's real-time operations center here). After two seasons of few storm landfalls on the U.S. coast, traders have apparently not factored in the effect of possible disruption to oil supplies and refining operations from storm activity in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Greenhouse Gas Increases Accelerating

Global average CO₂ concentrations since 2004 (monthly values in red, long-term trend in black). Click here to enlarge. Credit: NOAA




The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced last week that increases in two major greenhouse gases accelerated in 2007.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂), the primary contributor to global warming, increased by 0.6%, which represents an addition to the atmosphere of 19 billion tons, or 2.4 parts per million (ppm). This brings the total atmospheric concentration to about 385 ppm, an increase of 37.5% from the pre-industrial level of 280 ppm prior to 1850. The annual increases of 2 ppm -- common since 2000 -- are up from 1.5 ppm annually in the 1980s and less than 1 ppm per year in the 1960s.

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Shoveling Out From a Snow Job

At a recent dinner seminar that I attended, upon hearing that I was a Capital Weather Gang member, an otherwise respectable appearing gentleman asked me how global warming could be occurring in light of the "record-breaking cold winter." I must admit that I was a bit mystified at first, since that claim was not at all consistent with any data I had seen.

I soon discovered, however, that the reports of snowfall records which were being broken in certain northern areas from Wisconsin across southern Canada and into northern New England were being spun into another of the seemingly endless series of politically motivated "proofs" that there is no such thing as global warming. Even the NYTi's normally circumspect science writer Andrew Revkin was drawn in to the hype with an article titled, Skeptics on Human Climate Impact Seize on Cold Spell.

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School Colors: Turning Green

DC's Sidwell Friends School was featured this week on The Weather Channel's Forecast Earth program for being the first LEED Platinum certified K-12 school building in the world. Although there are now three more such schools, Sidwell's Middle School is still the only Platinum level building in the District of Columbia. The new building reduces energy consumption by 60% and municipal water consumption by 93%. The use of energy for lighting in particular is only 10-15% as much as that of a comparable building. Energy saving features include:

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Model Muttering

Note: This post is rated "G", suitable for all audiences; does not contain the weather "s" word.


Weather model skill as a function of year, from The Emergence of Numerical Weather Prediction, Peter Lynch, Cambridge University Press, 2006. Chart © ECMWF. Click image to enlarge.



In the nearly 60 years since the modern era of numerical weather prediction began, many orders of magnitude improvements have been made in both computer technology and the formulation and methods of solution of the equations describing the atmosphere. As a result, huge improvements have been made in the accuracy of daily weather forecasts. As good as the models have become, however, it's important to realize what they can and cannot do.

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