In reading the news this week, I was struck by how many reports there were from around the world of problems related to global warming. Here’s what I found:

Warming poses threat to Chesapeake
Washington Post, July 20, 2007

China says climate change drying up major rivers
Yahoo! News – Reuters, July 16, 2007

Warming may bring hurricanes to Mediterranean
Yahoo! News – Reuters, July 16, 2007

Glacier in retreat
New York Times, July 17, 2007

Climate change threatens Italy’s Po River delta
Yahoo! News – AFP, July 17, 2007

I also came across an interesting article in the Washington Post about by a guy who went around the world visiting places affected by global warming. The descriptions are, um, chilling.

The author of today’s post, Lisa Moore, is a scientist in the Climate and Air Program.

In March of this year, British TV Channel 4 aired a 72-minute diatribe called "The Great Global Warming Swindle". The program is filled with old data, data taken out of context, data misattributed, and general misinformation, and at the time it aired we thought it not worth responding to.

But people keep mentioning it, so here are the program’s main arguments and why they’re wrong. Now the next time someone brings this up, you’ll have the facts to give them.

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Many people have asked me whether global warming and the ozone hole are related. The short answer is "no". The long answer starts with "tangentially". Here’s the scoop.

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The author of today’s post, Lisa Moore, is a scientist in the Climate and Air Program.

This week’s scientific journals brought three interesting stories about climate change. The first is a sneak peek at an upcoming paper about global warming and the Sun. The second talks about an unexpected environmental benefit of hurricanes, and the third reports that climate change is drying up important biodiversity hotspots in the Arctic.

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Three stories caught my eye this week. The first study adjusts earlier estimates of carbon uptake by land plants. In the other two articles, scientists document the biological effects of Europe’s record-breaking temperatures, and estimate the risk of severe Mediterranean heat waves due to global warming.

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In scanning the climate news each week, I come upon interesting items I’d like to share. This week I found some alarming new studies about carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels in the atmosphere and ocean.

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Yesterday, President Bush stated that carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in 2006 declined 1.3 percent, "putting us well ahead of what is needed annually to meet my greenhouse gas intensity reduction goal of 18% by 2012." There are two problems with what he said:

1. The so-called "decline" is most likely a short-term dip in an upward trend.
2. The President’s goal is insufficient to halt global warming.

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Our guest blogger, Sheryl Canter, is an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense.

If you have a garden, you know the climate is warming. In temperate zones, the last frost in spring comes earlier, and the first frost in fall comes later. The longer growing season may allow you to grow vegetables you never could grow before. But you also may have noticed your weeds are more aggressive, insect pests are more of a problem, and pollen plagues you all summer long. You’re not imagining things!

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Today’s Guest Blogger, Lisa Moore, is a scientist in the Climate and Air Program.

The fiery centers of volcanoes burn carbon-containing rocks from deep within the earth, and thus emit the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂). There are a fair number of volcanoes in this world, all emitting CO₂, so couldn’t this be the cause of global warming?

In a word, no. Here’s how scientists know that climate change is not from volcanic activity.

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ignoratio elenchi n.
A logical fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but has nothing to do with the proposition it purports to prove. Also known as “irrelevant conclusion”. [Lat. ignorance of refutation.]

As the fact of climate change becomes ever more apparent, the science skeptics have come up with a new one: Sure climate change has some unfortunate consequences, but there are good aspects, too. For example, read Myron Ebell’s recent piece in Forbes magazine titled "Love Global Warming". For that, Mr. Ebell wins our latest Ignoratio Elenchi Award.

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