Tag Archives: Global Warming

Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for Soon

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A few days ago I suggested that Willie Soon’s career may be taking a nose dive soon. I was right. Tomorrow’s New York Times has a story that has as many leaks as an old canoe, so we can see it now in various outlets. The story is out and linked to below.

Before going into detail I just want to note that Justin Gillis is doing a great job at the New York Times.

Anyway, you can read the following items, the most recent listed here:

Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for a Doubtful Climate Scientist

Willie Soon Gate

Willie Soon, will he soon be fired?

It really looks like Willie Soon has been paid by Big Fossil to write papers, which generally suck as science, suggesting that Anthropogenic Global Warming isn’t much of a thing. A lot of us have known this for some time, and have been complaining about it. Climate science deniers have been denying. Now, major media is putting the story together. Suddenly, we are looking at a sea change, and it is pretty wavy, and Willie needs a bigger boat.

First, the most important fact:

Soon, in correspondence with his corporate funders, described many of his scientific papers as “deliverables” that he completed in exchange for their money. He used the same term to describe testimony he prepared for Congress.

So, our planet, his deliverables. To the tune of over $400,000 pieces of silver. Nice going, Willie, this makes you kind of an asshole.

Then, this from the big boss at Harvard Smithsonian Astrophysics:

Charles R. Alcock, director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center, acknowledged on Friday that Soon had violated the disclosure standards of some journals.

“I think that’s inappropriate behavior,” Alcock said. “This frankly becomes a personnel matter, which we have to handle with Dr. Soon internally.”

Soon is employed by the Smithsonian Institution, which jointly sponsors the astrophysics center with Harvard.

“I am aware of the situation with Willie Soon, and I’m very concerned about it,” W. John Kress, interim undersecretary for science at the Smithsonian in Washington, said Friday. “We are checking into this ourselves.”

Charles, I’m not that impressed with you either. You let this go on in your institution for many years, and Soon isn’t the only climate science denialist you are harboring. WTF? Well, thanks for finally getting on with this. I do hope you have the wits to suspend his activities until the end of the HR investigation, because that could take some time. Otherwise he might pinch off a few more papers under your aegis.

I asked climate scientist Michael Mann what he thought of this news. He told me, “Willie Soon (as amply documented in my book “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars”) was instrumental in the early attacks on the Hockey Stick by James Inhofe and other fossil fuel industry-funded politicians. Now we know for certain that his efforts were a quid pro quo with special interests looking to discredit my work as a means of calling into question the reality and threat of climate change.” (Mann’s book is here.)

UPDATE: Senator Edward Markey will launch an investigation of Big Fossil company funding of bogus climate change studies, according to the Boston Globe:

“For years, fossil fuel interests and front groups have attacked climate scientists and legislation to cut carbon pollution using junk science and debunked arguments,” Markey said in a statement. “The American public deserve an honest debate that isn’t polluted by the best junk science fossil fuel interests can buy. That’s why I will be launching this investigation to see how widespread this denial-for-hire scheme stretches within the anti-climate action cabal.”

Markey will be looking into over a million dollars of funding from such companies as ExonMobil, Southern Company, Texaco, etc.

Other posts of interest:

Also of interest: In Search of Sungudogo: A novel of adventure and mystery, set in the Congo.

The President’s Science Advisor Answers Your Climate Questions

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From here:

Since last November, Dr. John Holdren — the President’s science advisor — has been encouraging the public to ask him anything about climate change on social media using the hashtag #AskDrH. In his first set of answers, he covered a lot of ground — the connection between climate change and extreme weather, temperature trends, how we know that climate change is human-cased, and more.

Today, Dr. H is answering more of your questions — this time from students and classrooms across the country.

As the community leaders, city planners, innovators, and entrepreneurs of tomorrow, America’s students will be instrumental in efforts to tackle the climate change challenge. That’s why, this past December, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy launched the Climate Education and Literacy Initiative — aimed at ensuring a climate-smart citizenry, and connecting Americans of all ages with the best-available, science-based information about climate change.

Later today, we’ll be celebrating eight Champions of Change for Climate Education and Literacy — local heroes who are doing extraordinary work on the ground to enhance climate education and literacy in classrooms and communities across the country.

Brian Angliss takes on Tom Harris

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Regular readers of this blog will know Tom Harris, as he is an occasional commenter here. Tom is a climate science denier who wears an Invisibility Cloak of Concern. However, this particular Invisibilty Cloak was never worn by Ignotus Peverell; you can see right though it.

Isaac Asomov
“Demanding and unreasonable and absurd level of proof from scientists is not Harris’ only dishonest expectation … Harris is trying to make science appear to be mere opinion, presumably no better or worse than any other opinion. [But] some opinions matter more than others, and opinions based on knowledge matter more than those based on ignorance. Isaac Asimov noted this point, writing … “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge” represented a “cult of ignorance” that was fundamentally anti-intellectual.”
Brian Angliss, a journalist and engineer, is the science editor and climate and energy writer for the blog Scholars and Rogues. Brian has written an epic six part (five parts done so far, the sixth part will be an epilog) expose of Tom Harris’s previous commentary on climate science, prompted by a recent spate of Op Eds by Harris. I recommend visiting Brian’s posts not just to find out about Tom Harris, but to get a sense of how this particular brand of denialism works. You won’t be disappointed.

Here are links to the posts:

Tom Harris – hypocritical peddler of deceitful climate change editorials: Eight related commentaries written by Tom Harris of the International Climate Science Coalition since mid-December are packed them with distortions, errors, hypocrisy, and more.

Tom Harris’ recent commentaries rife with errors and illogic: If you’re going to attack climate realists for making supposedly illogical arguments, you’d best be sure that your own arguments are logically flawless.

Tom Harris places absurd limits on scientific truths and elevates ignorance to equal knowledge: Tom Harris asks his readers to put aside their common sense and reject knowledge and expertise in favor of ignorance and inexperience.

Tom Harris distorts the maturity of global warming science and imagines expertise where little exists: The science supporting global warming theory has a history going back almost 200 years, but readers of Tom Harris commentaries might come away thinking that it’s all brand new science.

Tom Harris’ commentaries intended to impede, not advance, public understanding of climate science: Tom Harris’ stated goal in his commentaries is to advance the public discussion on industrial climate disruption, yet his language and arguments say exactly the opposite.

Global Warming, Skiing, Bears, and Dog Sledding

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I don’t have a strong opinion on dog sledding, but if you are a musher you need to know that, like ice fishing and hockey, dog sledding is at risk from climate change. From Vice News, about Alaska’s Iditarod:

…on Tuesday, race organizers announced that the starting point of this year’s race will be moved due to a lack of snow, a change that has happened only one other time in the race’s 43-year history, in 2003.

“While some snow did fall east of the Alaska Range over the past couple of weeks, other parts of the trail, in very critical areas, did not get much or any of it,” Iditarod CEO Stan Hooley said.

Meanwhile, it appears likely that global warming is causing Grizzly Bears to come out of hibernation early, so be careful if you are in or near Yellowstone:

On Monday, park officials confirmed sightings of a grizzly in the center of the park, feeding on a bison carcass. The bears don’t usually begin to emerge from hibernation until the beginning of March, making this bear’s arrival about three weeks early.

“We have had bears observed in February before, in a few other years,” Kerry Gunther, Yellowstone National Park’s bear management biologist, told VICE News. “But this year, lately, it’s been unseasonably warm. Certainly springlike temperatures, almost summerlike temperatures.”

Several grizzlies have also been spotted beyond the park’s boundaries in Montana and Wyoming.

And if you are a ski bunny, Climate Change Could Decimate the American Ski Industry

…The Summit at Snoqualmie, near Seattle, closed its highest and last remaining open slope last week because of poor conditions. The situation there hues closely to what’s happening all across the West.

“Based on a 60-year record, the total amount of snow that we’ve lost in the West varies anywhere from 15 to 60 percent,” Noah Molotch, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, told VICE News.

… winter sports recreation generates $67 billion annually for the US economy, propping up 900,000 jobs. Its collapse could kill entire local and regional economies across the West or in New England.

We just had the warmest “year” again

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A year is 12 months long. It is also the period of time between January and December, inclusively. But you can use that first definition (we do it all the time) when appropriate. So, we can ask the question, how does the last 12 months, ending at the end of January 2015, compare to previous 12 month time periods in terms of global surface temperature?

We can do this using a moving average. A moving average for a series of values is the average of a certain number of values in sequence, calculated to correspond to each value. So a one year (12 month) moving average of temperature would be calculated by taking the average of the 12 months that end in January 2015, then the 12 months that end in December 2014, then November 2014, etc, going backwards in time.

In some ways this is a preferable measure than taking each year’s value. There are two reasons a 12 month moving average is good. First, it is 12 months long so the variation that happens across a year in surface temperature values is included in the average, so that relatively unimportant squiggling up and down of the data is dampened. Second, it lets us see the march of temperature change over time.

I used the NASA GISS data base, which just updated its value for January, to calculate a 12 month moving average for the entire record, which begins in 1880. January, as you will recall, was the second warmest January in the entire record. (For those keeping track, February of 2015 promises to be pretty warm too, and will without a doubt be warmer than February 2014, because that was an oddly cool month.) The temperature anomaly value for the last 12 months (up through January 2014) is about 68 (1/100ths of a degree C, the standard number) above the baseline used by NASA. That is the highest value ever for a 12 month period, so just as 2014 was the warmest year on record in that database, the last 12 months were also the warmest year (defined as a 12 month period) in that record.

Here’s the graph:
NASA-GISS_12_month_moving_average_surface_temperature_Jan_2015

There is nothing surprising here. Global warming is happening. We’ll continue to have many 12 month periods which are the warmest ever, along with the occasional 12 month period which is not, because the temperature squiggles up and down as it trends upward.

Also covered HERE.

So, how warm was January?

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January was warm, globally. A fun fact of limited importance is that January’s average global temperature, in the NASA GISS database, has a value of 75 (that’s anomaly above a baseline expressed in the standard hundredths’s of a degree C) of 75, which is higher than the average for any year in that dat base. (Lot’s of months are higher than the average, but only recent ones!)

January 2015 was the second warmest January in this data set. The graph above also indicates which of the Januarys in the data base are in the top ten, and obviously, they are all recent.

So, we’ll do this 11 more times and see how the year goes. Since 2014 was the warmest year in most data sets, it is going to be hard to beat. But you never know.

Climate Scientist Andrew Weaver Wins Key Lawsuit

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Andrew Weaver is a Canadian climate scientist with numerous publications. The National Post is a Canadian newspaper generally recognized as having a conservative and Libertarian leaning. Between 2009 and 2010, the Post published four articles that seemed defamatory of Dr. Weaver’s reputation as a scientist. Weaver sued the post over this, and yesterday, the B.C. Supreme Court agreed that the articles were in fact defamatory. The defendants in the case were Terence Corcoran, Financial Post editor, Peter Foster, National Post columnist, Kevin Libin, a contributor to the Financial Post, National Post publisher Gordon Fisher, and the National Post Inc. Justice Emily Burke ruled:

I conclude the defendants have been careless or indifferent to the accuracy of the facts. As evident from the testimony of the defendants, they were more interested in espousing a particular view than assessing the accuracy of the facts.

A PDF of the ruling can be found here

Andree Lau of the Huffington Post writes:

The newspaper defended itself by saying the statements were about Weaver’s public actions and words, not his character.

The judge disagreed, saying, “The reality is the combination and cumulative effect of these articles is such as to adversely impact on Dr. Weaver’s reputation and integrity as a scientist.”

Yesterday morning, Weaver posted on his Facebook page:

I am absolutely thrilled with today’s BC Supreme Court judgment in my libel case against the National Post, Terence Corcoran, Peter Foster, Kevin Libin and Gordon Fisher.

I initiated the lawsuit in April 2010 after the National Post refused to retract a number of articles that attributed to me statements I never made, accused me of things I never did, and attacked me for views I never held.

I felt I had to take this matter to court to clear my name and correct the
public record. This judgment does precisely that.

I look forward to the defendants publishing a complete retraction and removing the offending articles from electronic databases. I further look forward to them withdrawing consent given to third parties to re-publish the articles and to require them to cease re-publication.

Weaver’s remarks mirror the B.C. Supreme Court’s directive.

Lawrence Torcello is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Rochester Institute of Technology. He has researched and written about the attacks on climate science and climate scientists by various entities (see “Climate Science Denialists Target Academic in Hate Campaign”). I asked Torcello to comment on the Weaver case, and he told me:

Andrew Weaver’s legal victory over Canada’s National Post is an important precedent in the emerging world of climate change litigation. The court’s ruling reflects an understanding that the press has a primary responsibility to report facts and disentangle propaganda. The decision affirms that facilitating smear campaigns against scientists and other academics is devoid of journalistic merit. We can expect critics of the court’s decision to claim it puts too great a burden on news outlets to police how their stories are used across social media; that it will have a chilling effect on journalism. To the contrary, defamation tactics against scientists are calculated to undermine the public’s trust in legitimate expertise and to intimidate researchers into media silence. Media outlets that facilitate disinformation campaigns against science and scientists make the work of responsible journalists more difficult. News sources that continue to take their professional obligations seriously should be cheered by this ruling. It is ethically important that scientists not be intimidated into silence but instead fight back against defamatory assaults on their character. In a world threatened by climate change the public’s safety depends on the ability of politicians and others to discern and be informed by credible experts. Dr. Weaver and other researchers taking a legal stand against defamation tactics should be commended for reminding us that science is not the only realm where facts matter.

Dr. Peter Gleick, of the Pacific Institute, told DeSmogBlog, that this is…

…a victory for climate scientists everywhere. [There is] an extremely long history of efforts by climate deniers and contrarians to attack not just climate science, but climate scientists: to smear their scientific reputations, to distort their statements, and to make false and defamatory accusations. [Defamation] has been a standard tactic for years, especially as the science of climate change has continued to strengthen and solidify. While I’m sure the ruling will not stop the continued assault on climate science and scientists, it should certainly put people on notice that there is a responsibility to avoid such irresponsible attacks and a real cost for failing to do so. I hope this ruling has that effect.

In the US, there is a parallel lawsuit in process, filed by Dr. Michael Mann against the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the National Review, Mark Steyn, and Rand Simberg. For details on that suit see these posts and this search on the Climate Science Search Engine. Obviously, Canadian legal decisions have no role in establishing precedence in US courts, but the Andrew Weaver suit’s outcome does bode well for the idea advanced (above) by Dr. Torcello. Strategies employed by anti-science, especially anti-climate science, individuals and organizations are potentially costly, not only in the harm they do to stewardship of the planet, but also to the overall quality of journalism, and in some cases, the individuals and organizations that carry out that form of political activism.

On Sea Level Rise

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Sea levels are rising with increasing global temperatures. It seems that whenever there is a new estimate of the rate of melting of one or more major parts of the polar ice caps, that estimate is higher than previously thought. By the end of the century, the most aggressive estimates suggest that we will have close to 2 meters (6 feet) of sea level rise along the coasts.

So,here are three sea level rise items for you.

First, the Obama Administration will begin to plan for sea level rise in all major federal projects to which this variable pertains. See this item in the Washington Post.

The order represents a major shift for the federal government: while the Federal Emergency Management Administration published a memo three years ago saying it would take global warming into account when preparing for more severe storms, most agencies continue to rely on historic data rather than future projections for building projects.

The new standard gives agencies three options for establishing the flood elevation and hazard area they use in siting, design and construction of federal projects. They can use data and methods “informed by best-available, actionable climate science”; build two feet above the 100-year flood elevation for standard projects and three feet above for critical buildings such as hospitals and evacuation centers; or build to the 500-year flood elevation.

Second, not breaking news but something you may want to know about, is the US Army Corps of Engineers report on risk management for coastal communities, here.

Third: you may remember a while back I made a map that showed North American coast lines under the extreme scenario where all of the polar ice on Earth melts. That would represent about 80 meters of sea level rise. Well, the data I used to do that, from the USGS, had a problem, and with new data I’ve redone the map (and focused on the eastern part of the continent because it is more interesting). See: How high can the sea level rise if all the glacial ice melted?

That is all, thank you very much.

The Tide is Turning on Climate Change

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If you are running for office, note that the majority of Americans think global warming is real, important, and can and should be addressed by government.

This has been happening since two elections back, when we started to see candidates threatened, if only to a limited degree, based on an untenable position on climate change. Last election cycle this became even more important as organizations like ClimateHawksVote had remarkable successes in supporting climate hawk candidates — candidates that place climate change at the top of the list of important issues. Since then even more has happened, including changes in the way broadcast media addresses climate change (the false balance is melting away) and various and sundry activities in the US Congress (see this). All along the way polls have indicated that Americans are increasingly accepting of the consensus climate science, and increasingly concerned about climate change. Having 2014 as the warmest year on record, and all of the 10 or 15 warmest years (depending on how you like to count) having happened in the most recent decades has probably added to this.

Now, there is a new poll by the New York Times and Stanford University that shows that most Americans support “government action to curb global warming.” Not only that, but a large number of Republicans, who are generally directed by their leaders to not accept climate change science, are on board as well.

According to the poll, 78% of Americans believe that global warming will be a serious problem in the future. Only 10% think it is not serious at all. Similarly, 83% of Americans indicate that global warming will be serious world wide. 56% of Americans think global warming has hurt them personally, though most of them feel it has done so to a moderate amount or “a little.” 78% of Americans think global warming has not helped them. A full 85% of Americans think global warming will hurt future generations.

About 42% of those polled think that doing something in the US about global warming will help the US economy, 24% think it would be neutral, and only 30% think it would hurt.

Regarding elections, and candidates, 66% would be more likely (21% say no effect) to vote for a candidate that has a strong issue statement on global warming, saying it is real, matters, and that we need to shift to new forms of energy.

13% of Americans, by contrast, would be more likely to vote for a candidate that expresses the position that global warming is a hoax and a fraud. 67% would be less likely to vote for such a candidate.

78% think greenhouse gasses should be limited.

The poll asks far more questions than I just summarized.

When these questions are asked of just Republicans, similar but weaker support for the reality of the science and the importance of taking action are found.

For example, when asked if global warming be a problem for the United States:

Of all respondents, 78% say somewhat to very serious. Of Republicans, 54% say somewhat to very serious. Also, among all respondants, among the youngest age group (18-29) 85% say somewhat to very serious, with 47% indicating very serious.

That pattern, with something close to a majority of Republicans, a strong majority of all respondents, and a very strong majority of younger respondents, stating that global warming is real, should be addressed, should require government action, and matters in their voting preferences, holds.

The bottom line is that accepting the science and calling for action is the position that will garner more support among Americans, though as expected, this does not hold for the Tea Party. A majority of Tea Party “members” do think global warming is serious, and even feel that it will hurt. But a strong majority also feel that if nothing is done to reduce global warming that this will not help future generations. A slim minority of Tea Parties would support a Climate Hawk candidate. Candidates claiming global warming is a hoax do not garner huge support from the Tea Party. But, 49% would be more likely to vote for a candidate who claims “I am not a scientist.” So I guess that ploy plays.

Willie Soon Gate

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The Willie Soon Controversy

There’s been a lot of talk about the Willie Soon Controversy. Bottom line: Soon was an author on a paper that failed to disclose his extensive funding by the petroleum industry and its friends (over a million dollars to date, I believe) as required. I don’t have time to craft a detailed expose or commentary, but I wanted to get a bunch of resources in one place. I should mention that this is not all about Willie Soon, but rather, about climate science denialists more generally, a few specific others besides Soon, about how crap gets published now and then much to the giddiness of the denialist community, and about the ethical issues plaguing Soon, which have led to, among other things, tens of thousands of people signing a petition to get him sacked from his position at Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysics lab.

The Monckton-Soon-Legates-Briggs paper

It all starts with this paper:

Why models run hot: results from an irreducibly simple climate model, published in the Science Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

The paper is by Christopher Monckton, Willie Soon, David Legates and William Briggs.

The paper has been examined by a number of scientists and others, and found wanting. Here is a selection of the critiques:

On getting bad climate science published in peer reviewed journals

About Soon’s apparent failure to follow disclose, and his funding sources:

The Great Blizzard of 2015: Fair to say it is AGW amplified.

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About 20 million people are currently under a blizzard warning, and double that under a winter weather advisory, for a storm moving into the Northeast today and tomorrow, with snow falling though Wednesday. Thousands of flights have been cancelled. Wind will be at tropical storm force, and occasionally, hurricane force, and coastal flooding is expected to be epic. The total amounts of snowfall will be over a foot for a very large area, and well over that here and there, though this is very difficult to predict.

This is a strong low pressure system that will gather significant energy from a warm sea surface as it moves into the Atlantic.

This is a system that would normally not produce a lot of snow, but the odd configuration of the jet stream (once again) is moving the low pressure system through a pattern that will create an epic blizzard.

Storms of roughly this magnitude, in this the New York City area, have occurred in 1888, 1947, 1978, 1993, 1996, 2003, 2006, 2010. A similar pattern would emerge if the focal area was Boston. Weather Wunderground lists these snow events for New York City, indicating that half of the heavy events since the mid nineteenth century have occurred in the last 12 years:

  1. 26.9″ Feb 11-12, 2006
  2. 25.8″ Dec 26-27, 1947
  3. 21.0″ Mar 12-14, 1888
  4. 20.9″ Feb 25-26, 2010
  5. 20.2″ Jan 7-8, 1996
  6. 20.0″ Dec 26-27, 2010
  7. 19.8″ Feb 16-17, 2003
  8. 19.0″ Jan 26-27, 2011
  9. 18.1″ Jan 22-24, 1935
  10. 18.1″ Mar 7-8, 1941

Both the odd jet stream and the warm sea surface temperatures can be pegged as likely effects of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). This added to the clear pattern of more of these storms happening very recently strongly suggest that it is reasonable to characterize this storm as a “global warming amplified storm.” This is not unexpected.

I’m not sure if the sea surface temperatures in the region are at a record high, but they are very high. Over time, North Atlantic sea surface temperatures have certainly risen:

(a) Global annual mean sea-surface temperature (SST) anomalies from HadISST for the period 1870–2008 (Ref. 58)(thin black line). (b) Annual mean North Atlantic SST anomalies for the period 1870–2008 (ref. 58; thin black line). (c) The Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO) index for the period 1870–2008. The modern AMO index4 is defined by subtracting the global mean SST anomalies (a) from the North Atlantic SST anomalies (b). Five-year running means are shown by heavy black lines with fill in all panels.
(a) Global annual mean sea-surface temperature (SST) anomalies from HadISST for the period 1870–2008 (Ref. 58)(thin black line). (b) Annual mean North Atlantic SST anomalies for the period 1870–2008 (ref. 58; thin black line). (c) The Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO) index for the period 1870–2008. The modern AMO index4 is defined by subtracting the global mean SST anomalies (a) from the North Atlantic SST anomalies (b). Five-year running means are shown by heavy black lines with fill in all panels.

And here is the current sea surface temperature anomaly map for the region, showing current temperatures off New York and New England in the upper range:

NOAA_SST_anomwnc

There has been an increase in extreme precipitation in the Northeast, with a 71% change in the region:

CS_very-heavy-precip_V8-1

This is inline with predictions the IPCC has been making for some time now. According to climate scientist Michael Mann, “The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has found that Nor’easters like this one may grow stronger w/ human-caused climate change, as they are driven by the contrast between cold Arctic air masses and ever-warming ocean surface temperatures. We also know that ocean surface temperatures off the U.S. east coast right now are unusually warm, and there is no doubt that a component of that anomalous warmth is due to human-caused climate change. Those warm ocean temperatures also mean that there is more moisture in the air for this storm to feed on and to produce huge snowfalls inland. Climate change is making these sorts of storms more common, much as it is making Sandy-like Superstorms and unusually intense hurricanes more common. Asking whether these storms were caused by climate change, however, is asking the wrong question. What we can say is that they were likely made worse by climate change.”

Kevin Trenbeth, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research notes that the main reason there is a big blizzard coming to the northeast is that it is winter, but “it is warm over the oceans and the contrast between the cold continent and the warm Gulf Stream and surrounding waters is increasing. At present sea surface temperatures are more than 2F above normal over huge expanses (1000 miles) off the east coast and water vapor in the atmosphere is about 10% higher as a result. About half of this can be attributed to climate change.” I would add that the actual anomolies over large areas of the sea where this low pressure system will track are closer to 4 degrees.

There is a live blog at Weather Underground that you may want to keep an eye on, here. There, we see that current predictions for the region are:

New York City, NY: 18 – 24″
Boston, MA: 20 – 30″
Providence, RI: 20 – 30″

The National Weather Service has a page on the storm here.

And, yes, folks, this is a trend:

CEI-Winter15-638x474

NOAA Paraguay Data Accusation

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A video by Kevin Cowtan about Christopher Booker‘s accusations of data tampering.

A quick response to an article by Christopher Booker in the Telegraph.

The video features a prototype tool for investigating the global temperature record. This tool will be made available with the upcoming MOOC, Making Sense of Climate Science Denial (http://gci.uq.edu.au/mooc), where we will interactively debunk myths regarding surface temperature records.