With a database of over 5,000 scientists, from Nobel prize winners to postdocs and PhD students,
Sense About Science works in partnership with scientific bodies, research publishers, policy makers, the public and the media, to change public discussions about science and evidence.
They make these scientists available for questions from civic organizations and the public looking for scientific advice from experts,
campaign for the promotion of scientific principles in public policy, and
publish neat guides to understanding science intended for laypeople. [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb
on Feb 28, 2013 -
9 comments
...and the news ain't good: "Evidence for climate change abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans. This evidence has been compiled by scientists and engineers from around the world, using satellites, weather balloons, thermometers, buoys, and other observing systems. The sum total of this evidence tells an unambiguous story: the planet is warming."
Overview letter is
here, Executive Summary is
here, and the full download is
here. [WARNING: Full download runs to 147MB).
posted by BillW
on Jan 13, 2013 -
195 comments
In a report released [Tuesday], the World Bank analyzed the consequences of allowing temperatures to reach 4°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. ... the report's authors admit that predications are a challenge. Still, they do their best to try to paint a picture, and boy, is it grim.
posted by Egg Shen
on Nov 20, 2012 -
84 comments
October 2012 is the 332nd consecutive month with an above-average temperature. If you were born in or after April 1985, if you are right now 27 years old or younger, you have never lived through a month that was colder than average.
State of the Climate: Global Analysis October 2012 (NOAA). While $50 billion Sandy has had the spotlight, the biggest natural disaster of 2012 (in the US) has been the
Great Drought still ongoing which is expected to cut America's GDP by 0.5 to 1% for the year. The death toll from the heat waves that accompanied this year's drought will exceed that of Sandy. This Sunday and Monday, Ken Burns premiers his new documentary
"The Dust Bowl", on PBS. (
via)
posted by stbalbach
on Nov 16, 2012 -
42 comments
A Message from a Republican on Climate Change: I'm going to tell you something that my Republican friends are loath to admit out loud: climate change is real. I'm a moderate Republican, fiscally conservative; a fan of small government, accountability, self-empowerment and sound science. I am not a climate scientist. I'm a Penn State meteorologist, and the weather maps I'm staring at are making me very uncomfortable.
posted by spacewaitress
on Apr 5, 2012 -
120 comments
Sunspots, first observed by Galileo, normally follow an 11-year cycle. We are into a few years into (recorded) cycle number 24 but according to NASA it's looking rather
underpowered. Nobody is certain exactly what the consequences will be, but one distinct possibility is a
cold period; a previous low in solar activity, the
Maunder minimum, is correlated with a brief
Little Ice Age. Nobody really knows how this unusual solar weather pattern might interact with human-caused climate change.
Previously, albeit somewhat controversially.
posted by anigbrowl
on Jun 14, 2011 -
28 comments
Australia is copping another pounding from natural disasters.
After the floods across Brisbane (
previously) in South-east Queensland,
North Queensland is in the firing line for a
Category 5 cyclone called
Yasi.
The official warning: THIS IMPACT IS LIKELY TO BE MORE LIFE THREATENING THAN ANY EXPERIENCED DURING RECENT GENERATIONS.
[more inside]
posted by bystander
on Feb 1, 2011 -
183 comments
"...Arctic sea ice – frozen seawater that floats on the ocean surface – is now at its lowest physical extent ever recorded for the time of year, suggesting that it is on course to break the previous record low set in 2007.
...
Earth has been 0.65C warmer over the past 12 months than during the 1951 to 1980 mean, and that the global temperature for 2010 will exceed the 2005 record."
2010 set to be the
warmest year on record.
posted by p3on
on Jun 20, 2010 -
306 comments
Weather History Offers Insight Into Global Warming. Weather History Offers Insight Into Global Warming. The problems that often haunt other weather records — the station is moved, buildings are constructed nearby or observers record data inconsistently — have not arisen here because so much of this place has been frozen in time. The weather has been taken (at
Mohonk House, [map] )
in exactly the same place, in precisely the same way, by just a handful of the same dedicated people since Grover Cleveland was president... That extremely limited number of observers greatly enhances the reliability, and therefore the value, of the data. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu
on Sep 16, 2008 -
11 comments
