Papers

1. -01 Climate Policy Is 20 Years Behind (Truth-Out.org)
   "The 2013 IPCC has acknowledged this great disconnection between climate science and current policy with a clear and unambiguous statement of fact: 'A large fraction of climate change is largely irreversible on human time scales, unless net anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions were strongly negative over a sustained period.'
   
   "For the best-case scenario, to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius while limiting carbon dioxide emissions to 390 parts per million (today it's 400 parts per million), we need to remove all the carbon dioxide that we emit every year, plus one-third more. For the worst-case scenario - and we are basically straddling the worst-case scenario today; carbon dioxide levels will reach 1,190 parts per million by 2100 without action - we need to remove over twice as much carbon dioxide as we emit every year. These amounts are four to six times greater than those put forth by the Clean Power Plan. (4)" 12-15
   
   
2. -2012 Is the Hottest Year in U.S. Recorded History (Time.com)
   "It’s official: 2012 was the hottest year on record in the continental U.S. — and it wasn’t even close. Last year beat the previous record holder — 1998, the summer of which I spent broiling to death as a New York intern — by a full 1ºF (0.56ºC). That’s a landslide, by meteorological standards.... It was really, really hot last year." 01-13
   
   
3. -A New Framework for Describing How the World Is Getting Warmer (Christian Science Monitor)
   "Trying to get beyond the standard scientific disclaimer that no single weather event can be pinned on global warming, government scientists on Tuesday unveiled a new framework: what are the odds of a specific event being impacted by warming?"
   
   "They tested it on several extreme events in 2011 -- a strong La Nina year -- and, in the case of the record Texas drought, concluded that such severe dry spells are 20 more times likely during a La Nina year today than a La Nina in the 1960s, before greenhouse gas emissions jumped. "
   
   "The 43 indicators tracked in 2011 -- ranging from thinning Arctic sea ice to more acidic oceans -- continued to show a warming trend, according to the State of the Climate report."
   
   " 'Those indicators,' said Thomas Karl, head of the National Climatic Data Center, 'show what we expect to see in a warmer world.' " 07-12
   
   
4. -Climate Change Basics (EPA.gov)
   "Earth's average temperature has risen by 1.4°F over the past century, and is projected to rise another 2 to 11.5°F over the next hundred years. Small changes in the average temperature of the planet can translate to large and potentially dangerous shifts in climate and weather." 03-13
   
   
5. -International Climate Panel Gives Warning (NBC News)
   "A draft of the UN’s upcoming climate report states what scientists have been warning about for several years: that the main cause of long-term global warming is carbon dioxide emissions." Another finding is that, even if we stop burning fossil fuels now, climate change will continue for hundreds of years because of past human activity. 08-13
   
   
6. -International Panel Finds That Climate Change Is Real (New York Times)
   "An international panel of scientists has found with near certainty that human activity is the cause of most of the temperature increases of recent decades, and warns that sea levels could conceivably rise by more than three feet by the end of the century if emissions continue at a runaway pace." 08-13
   
   
7. -Melting Himalayan Ice (IPCC)
   "The Synthesis Report, the concluding document of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (page 49) stated: “Climate change is expected to exacerbate current stresses on water resources from population growth and economic and land-use change, including urbanisation. On a regional scale, mountain snow pack, glaciers and small ice caps play a crucial role in freshwater availability. Widespread mass losses from glaciers and reductions in snow cover over recent decades are projected to accelerate throughout the 21st century, reducing water availability, hydropower potential, and changing seasonality of flows inregions supplied by meltwater from major mountain ranges (e.g. Hindu-Kush, Himalaya, Andes),where more than one-sixth of the world population currently lives.”"
   
   "This conclusion is robust, appropriate, and entirely consistent with the underlying science and thebroader IPCC assessment." 07-12
   
   
8. -Summary of Evidence of Climate Change (IPCC)
   "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level...." 01-13
   
   
9. Big Climate Change Could Be Soon (TG Daily.com)
   "New research from NASA into the Earth's paleoclimate history indicates we could be facing rapid climate change this century, including sea level rises of many meters."
   
   "According to Goddard Institute for Space Studies director James E Hansen, 'The paleoclimate record reveals a more sensitive climate than thought, even as of a few years ago. Limiting human-caused warming to two degrees is not sufficient,' he says. 'It would be a prescription for disaster.' " 12-11
   
   
10. Glaciers and Climate Change: Saving the Rhone Glacier (Daily Mail)
    "Using isotope measurements from rock newly exposed by the melting glacier, the scientists found that for most of the Holocene Epoch period, dating from the end of the last Ice Age about, 11,500 years ago, the Rhone was in fact smaller than it is today."
    
    "The data could also be used to predict the rate at which, given current trends in climate change, these giant formations will recede over time."
    
    "The scientists also warn that the revelation that the Rhone Glacier was once smaller than it is today, could be used as an example by climate change-skeptics, that there is no harm in things changing."
    
    "However, quoted in an article published by Columbia University's Earth Institute, Joerg Schaefer, a geochemist and Lamont associate research professor, said this is 'simply wrong'."
    
    "He said the findings show that even though the climate shifts were relatively mild during the Holocene period, 'we find that the glaciers really reacted strongly … telling us they are very, very sensitive to even very small (changes)."
    
    " 'With the addition of man-made warming, the glaciers will react catastrophically to what we are doing to the climate.' " 07-13
    
    
11. Study: Temperatures to Reach New Highs Within a Generation (CNN News)
    "Average annual temperatures will start to consistently exceed the highest levels previously recorded in as little as seven years in tropical hotspots and within four decades for the majority of the globe if nothing is done to stop climate change, according to a new study published Thursday in the journal Nature." 10-10
    
    
12. The Inevitable Climate Change (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
    "Climate change has almost extinguished life on earth on three occasions. Some 250 million years ago, a series of volcanic eruptions in Siberia altered the earth's atmosphere, wiping out 90 percent of plant and animal species. Next, 65 million years ago, an asteroid struck what is now Mexico and created an atmospheric catastrophe that eliminated 50 percent of the earth's species (including the dinosaurs). Finally, some 73,000 years ago, the eruption of Mount Toba, in Indonesia, caused a 'winter' that lasted several years, apparently killing off most of the human population." 03-14
    
    

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