Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 34: ‘Sahel greening’ unlikely to benefit African biodiversity

The below graph comes from a new global temperature trend study that compares different established datasets for land and ocean temperature. The results emphasize an often-overlooked phenomenon: geographically ‘skewed warming’ – leading to planet-wide precipitation shifts. Possible effects not only … Continue reading

Understanding Sea Level Rise, p2: A short chronology of SLR forecasts for the year 2100 (showing they increase with time)

Sea level rise is a slow process. Other consequences of climate change are generally felt much sooner. But there is something odd about the forecasts. They seem to be catching up with us, bringing a distant future closer to our … Continue reading

Both historical and 60-year trend show Dutch winters are warming – these graphs tell you how, why – and what to expect

Falling snow flakes are humbling. Not just because of their beauty, but also because of their gentle ability to completely paralyse a developed and overpopulated country with traffic jams, clogged railroad switches and closed runways. But although that (together with … Continue reading

Arctic warming cold winter hypothesis loses one year

And it also loses a study, but then it gains two… We’ll just admit a small prejudice. Are gut feelings allowed in science?

Russian heat wave 2010: extreme weather or within new normal climate?

One could focus on the rise in average temperatures and wonder to what extent this will increase the chance of weather extremes. One can of course also walk the opposite route: take a witnessed extreme – and examine if that … Continue reading

Hellmann development Dutch winters shows cold declining

In climatology development of the average may differ substantially from the extremes – both as a characteristic of the normal distribution – and the possibility of skewness increases. On average the Dutch climate shows a clear warming trend – but … Continue reading

Lack of Arctic winter ice recovery explained: thermal inversion prevents infrared cooling to space

Is it the albedo effect? Is it increased ice dynamics? Dutch researchers add a third player to better understand why Arctic melting is happening as fast as it is. The clue is in the winter polar night skies, they say.

Lull in upper ocean warming explained through ENSO – warming trend continues

Shortly after an El Niño event there is elevated heat exchange from the upper ocean layers to the cosmos over the tropical Pacific Ocean. In the North Atlantic Ocean, variations in the ocean circulation affect the heat exchange to the … Continue reading