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According to David Wasdell, who leads on feedback dynamics in coupled complex global systems for the European Commission's Global System Dynamics and Policy (GSDP) network, "Every word and line of the text previously submitted by the scientific community was examined and amended until it could be endorsed unanimously by the political representatives." In a detailed paper critiquing the WG1 Summary for Policymakers, Wasdell revealed that…

Labour supported Arthur Scargill's determination to keep pits open. The party prevented Tony Blair from building any nuclear power stations, instead tipping subsidies into wind, which merely encouraged Britain's dependency on coal, now at 38% and rising. Global coal consumption is at its highest level since 2006, and mocks all attempts at emissions discipline. The past two decades of a "rush to renewables" remains a…

Professor Judith Curry, of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said it had the potential to do as much damage to climate science as the ‘climategate’ scandal, where the University of East Anglia was accused of manipulating data and attempting to suppress critics. In the past year the journal has also been criticised for promoting a paper which suggested that 97 per cent of climate change…

Amphibians, such as frogs and salamanders, are suffering greatly from climate change and other outside impacts. Invasive species, such as non-native fish being introduced in the American West's mountainous areas, are further impacting native amphibians. "Amphibians predominantly use mountainous areas' small, shallow ponds to breed and feed," said Maureen Ryan, one of the researchers, in a news release. "These kinds of wetlands are at the…

The research indicates that the world is indeed getting warmer, but historical records show that it hasn't happened everywhere at the same rate. And that new information even took scientists by surprise. "Global warming was not as understood as we thought," said Zhaohua Wu, an assistant professor of meteorology at FSU. Wu led a team of climate researchers including Fei Ji, a visiting doctoral student…

"We found rising levels of CO2 are affecting human nutrition by reducing levels of very important nutrients in very important food crops," said Prof Samuel Myers, an environmental health expert at Harvard University, Boston, and lead author of the study. "From a health viewpoint, iron and zinc are hugely important." Myers said 2 billion people already suffer iron and zinc deficiencies around the world. This…

The observatory is NASA's first satellite mission dedicated to studying carbon dioxide, a critical component of Earth's carbon cycle that is the leading human-produced greenhouse gas driving changes in Earth's climate. It replaces a nearly identical spacecraft lost due to a rocket launch mishap in February 2009. OCO-2 will provide a new tool for understanding both the sources of carbon dioxide emissions and the natural…

"Polar regions have gained substantial attention because they are experiencing a very high temperature increase. Polar climates will shrink in area, providing reduced habitat for arctic and subarctic species, but climate change is more than melting ice. Warming in the tropics will create entirely novel climatic conditions, currently not experienced by species anywhere else on Earth. Whether species will be able to adapt to these…

"These are alarm bells," said Nina Bednarsek, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle who helped lead the research. "This study makes us understand that we have made an impact on the ocean environment to the extent where we can actually see the shells dissolving right now." Scientists from NOAA and Oregon State University found that in waters near the West…

Researchers studied the behavior of coral reef fish at naturally occurring CO2 vents in Milne Bay, in eastern Papua New Guinea. They found that fish living near the vents, where bubbles of CO2 seeped into the water, “were attracted to predator odor, did not distinguish between odors of different habitats, and exhibited bolder behavior than fish from control reefs.” The gung-ho nature of CO2-affected fish…

Strapped school budgets, concerns about overburdening teachers and political opposition to what in some places is a contentious subject have complicated the spread of lessons on climate change. Nonetheless, many nations are adding or expanding such offerings, convinced that young people must learn about a phenomenon likely to have a big impact on their lives. Schools, advocates say, can play an important role in fighting…

When phytoplankton use carbon dioxide to make new cells, a substantial portion of that cellular material is released into the sea as a buffet of edible molecules collectively called "dissolved organic carbon." The majority of these molecules are eventually eaten by microscopic marine bacteria, used for energy, and recycled back into carbon dioxide as the bacteria exhale. The amount of carbon that remains as cell…

While biofuels are better in the long run, the study says they won't meet a standard set in a 2007 energy law to qualify as renewable fuel. The conclusions deal a blow to proponents of cellulosic biofuels, which have received more than a billion dollars in federal support but have struggled to meet volume targets mandated by law. About half of the initial market in…

World’s longest-running rice experiment Since 1962, the LTCCE has been working to determine the impact of continuously growing irrigated rice on overall crop productivity and soil health. This year marks the 150th harvest taken from the same soil from the same field in all those 52 years: each year, the field is harvested three times instead of the usual two. In a typical year, this…

But the United Kingdom is still a long way behind other European countries in using solar technology. To power the whole country we'd need solar panels on every rooftop. The problem is that it is still quite expensive and over the past few years the incentives have been reduced. The "feed-in-tariff" rates - or the money paid for electricity generated - have been reduced year…

However, the IPCC, a UN panel, also said that "in a low crop productivity scenario, producers in food exporting countries, such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, would benefit from global food price rises and reduce poverty." The Philippines mainly exports coconut oil, banana, tuna, and pineapple. However, the country also imports rice, wheat, soy bean, and milk products. The threat: climate change without adaptation…

The report, sadly, is massive and excruciatingly hard to digest. Our hats go off to the good folks at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), who summarized it with easy-to-read infographics on what to expect over the next several decades. The bottom line: Climate change probably will hurt food production, raise food prices and increase hunger, especially in the tropics. At the same…

"We were astonished that biodiversity changes were so strongly affected by soil texture and that it was such an overriding factor," said Thomas Crowther, a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and lead author of the study. "Texture overrode the effects of all the other variables that we thought might be important, including temperature, moisture, nutrient concentrations, and soil pH."…

Below are some of the costliest impacts, according to a 49-page summary from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which met in Yokohama near Tokyo this week. — ENERGY Demand for residential air conditioning in the summer will rise from 300 terawatt hours a year in 2000 to about 4,000 terawatt hours in 2050 and more than 10,000 terawatt hours in 2100. Rising incomes will…

Greenpeace demands governments to come to the climate summit of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in September with serious offers that will help achieve a 100-percent RE system. Solar, wind and other clean energy are already challenging the old system, but governments must accelerate the transition, the group said. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), for its part, said the latest IPCC report “gives…