Atmospheric
I found a problem where the original data from NCDC lost the tenth of a degree place during importing. So I corrected this problem and regenerated my graphs.
Also based on emails with Dr Roy Spencer, he suggested that I remove stations that are not present through the majority of the time period analyzed. This was done for NH,SH and Tropics charts, where to be included the station had to have 240 days of data over at least 40 years from 1940-2010.
These are the updated graphs.
Global averages all stations:
Plants help keep us cool by absorbing CO2 - sometimes too cool.
The arrival of the first plants 470 million years ago triggered a series of ice ages, according to a research team that set out to identify the effects that the first land plants had on the climate during the Ordovician Period, which ended 444 million years ago. During this period the climate gradually cooled, leading to a series of 'ice ages'. This global cooling was caused by a dramatic reduction in atmospheric carbon, which this research now suggests was triggered by the arrival of plants.
Okay, not despair. But frustration. This is my fourth year in this PhD program, and it's getting to be crunch time. Everything that influences and directs my degree program are pushing me formore work, more specialization, and less of everything else. The project I'm working on is so specific that there are probably only 3 or 4 people that would completely understand why I'm doing it. I'll try to explain the specifics, and their pros and cons and I perceive them.
Do we really care about climate change? Since we do very little to reduce or limit activities that we believe we know cause climate change one could argue that we - do - not - in - fact - care.
Come again?!
I can almost hear you say.
At a AGU Town Hall meeting in San Francisco last night a group of engaged scientists discussed
"Directions in Climate Change Education and Communication"
In the AGU program this meeting was introduced the following way:
Researchers using the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA's Aura satellite have confirmed major reductions in the levels of sulfur dioxide, a key pollutant generated by coal power plants which contributes to the formation of acid rain, in the eastern United States.
The climate change effect of CO2 released from peat may be far greater than assumed.
Drought causes peat to release far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than has previously been realized, according to new research.
New research in Nature has a surprising conclusion; the impact of deforestation on global warming varies with latitude, which at least explains a frustrating lack of warming in the U.S. even though global warming has been measured higher overall.
The researchers calculated that north of Minnesota, or above 45 degrees latitude, deforestation was associated with an average temperature decrease of 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit. On the other hand, deforestation south of North Carolina, or below 35 degrees latitude, appeared to cause warming. Statistically insignificant cooling occurred between these two latitudes.
During the last decade, the almost singular focus on CO2 has been something of a puzzle; leaving out methane, with 23X the warming impact of CO2, seemed like a mistake.
Estimates show that 2010 was by far a record year for CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel combustion and cement manufacture. Globally 9,139 Teragrams, a teragram is a million metric tons, of oxidized carbon (Tg-C) were emitted from these sources.
Converted to carbon dioxide, so as to include the mass of the oxygen molecules, this amounts to over 33.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. The increase alone is about 512 Tg-C, or 5.9%, over the 2009 global estimate. The previous record year was 2008, with 8,749 Tg-C emitted; the 2010 estimate is about 104.5% of that, or 391 Tg-C more.
Prevailing wind shear patterns prohibit cyclones in the Arabian Sea from becoming major storms but a new study says winds are weakening and that has enabled the formation of stronger cyclones in recent years -- including storms in 2007 and 2010 that were the first recorded storms to enter the Gulf of Oman.
