Tag Archives: climate change
Will ice sheets collapse in a warming world? – probably not
Collapsing ice sheets and rising sea levels are often described as a feature of a warming world and many climate scientists predict that this will happen thanks to climate change. But a recently published study could quite literally blow those predictions out of the water. One of the ways to look to the future is [...]
Most mammals will benefit in a warming Arctic
As the climate around the world changes a new study in PlosOne has demonstrated that most mammal species in the Arctic and subArctic regions will benefit as the environment changes – if they get passage to the new habitats. Only the highly specialised cold region mammal species are likely to be threatened – but the [...]
Did the wet year lead to the surge in winter vomiting bug?
2012 may have been the second wettest on record in the UK but did it do more than just make people feel frustrated and down in the dumps. A European research project is looking into waterborne diseases and the changing climate. As the weather gets wetter we could see people suffering more from bugs such [...]
Big trees rule the forests
A new study has shown that in the forest all trees are not equal when it comes to contributing to ecosystem services such as carbon capture. The study of trees in the Yosemite National Park demonstrated that the largest trees made up a substantial proportion of the biomass in the study area. The study indicated that [...]
Life as a male when 19 in 20 turtles are female
Temperatures play an important part in turtle reproduction. When temperatures are high the eggs will produce more females than males. With rising global temperatures this could pose some problems for turtles. Too many females and not enough males could lead to inbreeding as the genetic diversity reduces. New research led by the University of Exeter though seems to show that nature [...]
Butterflies move faster than birds in response to climate change
A new study published by a team of European researchers have followed the movement of butterflies and birds in relation to a warming European climate. It found that butterflies are responding quicker to the climate than birds – a worrying trend if butterflies and caterpillars move out of the range of the birds during breeding time. The [...]
IPCC – too much hype and not enough science?
The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently announced another doomsday prediction about the consequences of man made climate change, this time we’ll all be submerged by floods, blown away by storms and then suffer lingering droughts and all because of our carbon emissions. Sadly once again it appears they’ve got it wrong. Not content with predicting [...]
Last chance to see Northern Lights for a generation or more?
The Northern Lights are one of the most fascinating natural shows to watch and experience. The shows that the aurora borealis puts on very much depends on the Sun’s activity and in particular it’s sun spot cycles. There are many short term and long term cycles that influences the number and strengths of the sunspots and flares. [...]
Climate alarmists getting hot under the collar
The pressure is mounting on the man-made climate change propagandists as 0ne by one their claims about a fast approaching doomsday fail to materialise. The initial panic that the scientists and politicians installed in the public is dying down as the general public becomes more aware of the flaws in the claims. Was Al Gore’s [...]
Polar bear scientist suspended and under investigation.
It’s a powerful image that climate change groups like to use – one of a polar bear tired and hungry swimming to it’s death as the ice floes retreat in the Arctic. One of the co-authors of the original 2004 discovery has been suspended and is being investigated on ‘integrity issues’. Major climate scientist suspended. Charles Monnett was suspended [...]
UN makes another attempt at climate doomsday predictions
Not content with their failure to make correct climate doomsday predictions previously the UN are making another attempt to hype up potential catastrophes caused by the changing climate. This time it’s not tens or hundreds of millions of people on the move (by last year) now it’s world peace at risk. The new move to include climate change in the [...]
BBC to be enrolled into climate change propaganda war
There are reports that the review of BBC science reporting undertaken by Professor Steve Jones has concluded that the BBC should give less reporting time to climate change critics and challenge them more in their views. Professor Jones recommends that time should not be given to reporting scientific views that are not the predominate view [...]
2010 was the second warmest year on record
The annual state of the climate report covering 2010 has just been released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The detailed peer reviewed report highlighted a number of natural weather and climate patterns that led to extreme weather around the world. The consequences affected people and wildlife alike. Despite there being a number of individual weather [...]
IPCC – its time to shut it down or clean it up.
It appears that things are not getting any better at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). First we went from ‘climategate’ to ‘glaciergate’ then onto ‘amazongate’ and now we find that so called impartial reports on renewable energies have been co-authored by a far from impartial Greenpeace employee. The last two or three years have [...]
The Arctic Ocean – where life depends on a single organism
At first glance the Arctic Ocean appears to be a biologically diverse area. Whales, sea birds and a myriad of species of fish all live in this pristine wild environment. Take a closer look and you discover that this diversity is reliant on 1 species, the zoo-plankton Calanus glacialis. Calanus glacialis is important to the [...]
Green taxes to hit 39.6 billion pounds a year by 2020
Yesterday the OECD published it’s Towards Green Growth: A summary for policy makers document and parts of it makes interesting reading. Tucked away in one of the annotations was the prediction that by 2020 green taxes revenue would equate to 3% of a nations GDP.
Science under attack: horizon BBC2
Horizon really does deliver some exceptional science programmes and last night was no different. In the programme Sir Paul Nurse – President of the Royal Society and Nobel Prize winner – took a look at a claim that science is coming under attack. While it went under the title of Science Under Attack it really [...]
Risk of climate change to tropical forests could be overstated
Normally when you want to get a balanced view of the impacts of climate change on the environment you need to read the geological journals rather than climate change journals. While the climate change and mainstream journals tend to be politically or ideologically motivated the papers you get in geological journals tend to just deliver [...]
A noisy reef is a healthy reef
A study of sounds emitted from coral reefs could provide a new way to monitor the health of coral reefs around the world. The study undertaken on reefs off the coast of Panama showed that types of noise could be used to distinguish between coral and fish. The study also confirmed that healthy reefs produce more noise [...]
Most penguin species still in decline
Life for penguins at the moment is pretty tough. Of 18 species around the world 10 are still in decline and some are at real risk of extinction this century. Over fishing, pollution and climate change are all having an impact on these sea birds. For many penguins introduced mammals are also a threat as they [...]