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SUMMARY: Low altitude cloud cover closely follows cosmic ray flux; that the galactic cosmic ray flux has the periodicities of the glacial/interglacial cycles; that a decrease in galactic cosmic ray flux was coincident with Termination II; and that the most likely initiator for Termination II was a consequent decrease in Earth’s albedo. The temperature of past interglacials was higher than today most likely as a consequence of a lower global albedo due to a decrease in galactic cosmic ray flux reaching the Earth’s atmosphere. In addition, the galactic cosmic ray intensity exhibits a 100 kyr periodicity over the last 200 kyr that is in phase with the glacial terminations of this period. Carbon dioxide appears to play a very limited role in setting interglacial temperature.

KEY CITATION: Sime, L. C., et al. “Evidence for warmer interglacials in East Antarctic ice cores.” Nature 462.7271 (2009): 342. Stable isotope ratios of oxygen and hydrogen in the Antarctic ice core record have revolutionized our understanding of Pleistocene climate variations and have allowed reconstructions of Antarctic temperature over the past 800,000 years (800 kyr; refs 1, 2). The relationship between the D/H ratio of mean annual precipitation and mean annual surface air temperature is said to be uniform ±10% over East Antarctica³and constant with time ±20% (refs 3–5). In the absence of strong independent temperature proxy evidence allowing us to calibrate individual ice cores, prior general circulation model (GCM) studies have supported the assumption of constant uniform conversion for climates cooler than that of the present day^3,5. Here we analyse the three available 340 kyr East Antarctic ice core records alongside input from GCM modelling. We show that for warmer interglacial periods the relationship between temperature and the isotopic signature varies among ice core sites, and that therefore the conversions must be nonlinear for at least some sites. Model results indicate that the isotopic composition of East Antarctic ice is less sensitive to temperature changes during warmer climates. We conclude that previous temperature estimates from interglacial climates are likely to be too low. The available evidence is consistent with a peak Antarctic interglacial temperature that was at least 6 K higher than that of the present day —approximately double the widely quoted 3 ± 1.5 K (refs 5, 6).

1. ABSTRACT: The existing understanding of interglacial periods is that they
   are initiated by Milankovitch cycles enhanced by rising atmospheric
   carbon dioxide concentrations. During interglacials, global temperature is
   also believed to be primarily controlled by carbon dioxide concentrations,
   modulated by internal processes such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
   and the North Atlantic Oscillation. Recent work challenges the
   fundamental basis of these conceptions.
2. INTRODUCTION: The history of the role of carbon dioxide in climate begins with the work of Tyndall 1861 and later in 1896 by Arrhenius. The concept that carbon dioxide controlled climate fell into disfavor for a variety of reasons until revived by Callendar in 1938. It came into full favor after the work of Plass in the mid-1950s. Unlike what was believed then, it is known today that for Earth’s present climate water vapor is the principal greenhouse gas with carbon dioxide playing a secondary role. Climate models nevertheless use carbon dioxide as the principal variable while water vapor is treated as a feedback. This is consistent with, but not mandated by, the Assumption that—except for internal processes—the temperature during Interglacials is dependent on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. It now appears that this is not the case: interglacials can have far higher global temperatures than at present with no increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide.
3. GLACIAL TERMINATIONS AND CARBON DIOXIDE: Even a casual perusal of the data from the Vostok ice core gives an appreciation of how temperature and carbon dioxide concentration change synchronously. The role of carbon dioxide concentration in the initiation of interglacials, during the transition to an interglacial, and its control of temperature during the interglacial is not yet entirely clear. Between glacial and interglacial periods the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide varies between about 200-280 ppm being at ~280 ppm during interglacials.
4. OCEAN-ATMOSPHERE CO2 EXCHANGE: The details of the source of these variations is still somewhat controversial, but it is clear that carbon dioxide concentrations are coupled and in equilibrium with oceanic changes. The cause of the glacial to interglacial increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is now thought to be due to changes in ventilation of deep water at the ocean surface around Antarctica and the resulting effect on the global efficiency of the “biological pump”.
5. INTERGLACIAL CO2 CONCENTRATION: A perusal of the interglacial carbon dioxide concentrations tell us that the process of increased ventilation coupled with an increasingly productive biological pump appears to be self-limiting during interglacials, rising little above ~280 ppm, despite warmer temperatures in past interglacials. This mechanism for glacial to interglacial variation in carbon dioxide concentration is supported by the observation that the rise in carbon dioxide lags the temperature increase by some 800-1000 years—ruling out the possibility that rising carbon dioxide concentrations were responsible for terminating glacial periods.
6. MILANKOVITCH INSOLATION THEORY: As a consequence, it is now generally believed that glacial periods are terminated by increased insolation in polar regions due to quasi-periodic variations in the Earth’s orbital parameters. And it is true that paleoclimatic archives show spectral components that match the frequencies of Earth’s orbital modulation.
7. PROBLEMS WITH THE MILANKOVITCH THEORY: This Milankovitch insolation theory has a number of problems associated with it, in particular, the so called “causality problem”; i.e., what came first—increased insolation or the shift to an interglacial. This would seem to be the most serious objection, since if the warming of the Earth preceded the increased insolation it could not be caused by it. This is not to say that Milankovitch variations in solar insolation do not play a role in changing climate, but they could not be the principal cause of glacial terminations.
8. THE PENULTIMATE ICE AGE: Consider the timing of the termination of the penultimate ice age (Termination II) some 140 thousand years ago. The data from Devils Hole (DH), Vostok, and the d18O SPECMAP record show  that Termination II occurred at 140±3 ka; the Vostok record gives 140±15 ka; and the SPECMAP gives 128±3 ka.9. The latter is clearly not consistent with the first two. The reason has to do with the origin of the SPECMAP time scale. The SPECMAP record was constructed by averaging d18O data from five deep-sea sediment cores. The result was then correlated with the calculated Insolation cycles.
9. Devils Hole (DH) is an open fault zone in south-central Nevada. A superposition of DH-11, Vostok, and SPECMAP curves for the period 160 to 60 ka in comparison with June 60N insolation over the last 800,000 years shows that sea levels were at or above modern levels before the rise in solar insolation often thought to initiate Termination II. The SPECMAP chronology must therefore be adjusted when comparisons are made with records not dependent on the SPECMAP timescale. The above considerations imply that Termination II was not initiated by an increase in
   carbon dioxide concentration or increased insolation. The question then remains: What did initiate Termination II?
10. Kirkby, et al. found was that “the warming at the end of the penultimate ice age was underway at the minimum of 65N June insolation, and essentially complete about 8 kyr prior to the insolation maximum”.
11. ROLE OF COSMIC RAY FLUX: The data strongly imply that Termination II was initiated by a reduction in cosmic ray flux. Such a reduction would lead to a reduction in the amount of low-altitude cloud cover thereby reducing the Earth’s albedo with a consequent rise in global temperature.
12. There is another compelling argument that can be given to support this hypothesis. Sime,et al found that past interglacial climates were much warmer than previously
    thought. Their analysis of the data shows that the maximum interglacial temperatures over the past 340 kyr were between 6C and 10C above present day values. Past interglacial carbon dioxide concentrations were not higher than that of the current interglacial, and therefore carbon dioxide could not have been responsible for this warming.
13. The fact that carbon dioxide concentrations were not higher during periods of much warmer temperatures confirms the self-limiting nature of the process driving the rise of carbon dioxide concentration during the transition to interglacials; that is, where an increase in the ventilation of deep water at the surface of the Antarctic ocean and the resulting effect on the efficiency of the biological pump cause the glacial to interglacial rise carbon dioxide.
14. If it is assumed that solar irradiance during past interglacials was comparable to today’s value (as is assumed in the Milankovitch theory), it would seem that the only factor left—after excluding increases in insolation or carbon dioxide concentrations—that could be responsible for the glacial to interglacial transition is a change in the Earth’s albedo. During glacial periods, the snow and ice cover could not melt without an increase in the energy entering the climate system. This could occur if there was a decrease in albedo caused by a decrease in cloud cover.
15. THE EARTH’S LOW CLOUD ALBEDO: The Earth’s albedo is known to be correlated with galactic cosmic-ray flux. This relationship is clearly seen over the eleven-year cycle of the sun. There is a very strong correlation between galactic cosmic rays, solar irradiance, and low cloud cover. Note that increased lower cloud cover (implying an increased albedo) closely follows cosmic ray intensity.
16. VARIATION IN GALACTIC COSMIC RAY FLUX: It is generally understood that the variation is galactic cosmic ray flux is due to changes in the solar wind associated with solar activity. The sun emits electromagnetic radiation and energetic particles known as the solar wind. A rise in solar activity—as measured by the sun spot cycle—affects the solar wind and the inter-planetary magnetic field by driving matter and magnetic flux trapped in the plasma of the local interplanetary medium outward, thereby creating what is called the heliosphere and partially shielding this volume, which includes the earth, from galactic cosmic rays—distinct from solar cosmic rays, which have much less energy.
17. When solar activity decreases, with a consequent small decrease in irradiance, the number of galactic cosmic rays entering the earth’s atmosphere increases as does the amount of low cloud cover. This increase in cloud cover results in an increase in the earth’s albedo, thereby lowering the average temperature. The sun’s 11 year cycle is therefore not only associated with small changes in irradiance, but also with changes in the solar wind, which in turn affect cloud cover by modulating the cosmic ray flux.
18. CLOUD ALBEDO: This, it is argued, constitutes a strong positive feedback needed to explain the significant impact of small changes in solar activity on climate. Long-term changes in cloud albedo would be associated with long-term changes in the intensity of galactic cosmic rays. The great sensitivity of climate to small changes in solar activity is corroborated by the work of Bond, et al., who have shown a strong correlation between the cosmogenic nuclides 14C and 10Be and centennial to millennial changes in proxies for drift ice as measured in deep-sea sediment cores covering the Holocene time period.
19. MODULATION OF GALACTIC COSMIC RAY FLUX: The production of these nuclides is related to the modulation of galactic cosmic rays, as described above. The increase in the concentration of the drift ice proxies increases with colder climates. These authors conclude that Earth’s climate system is highly sensitive to changes in solar activity. For cosmic ray driven variations in albedo to be a viable candidate for initiating glacial terminations, cosmic ray variations must show periodicities comparable to those of the glacial/interglacial cycles (Kirkby, etal).
20. The mechanism for the modulation of cosmic ray flux discussed above was tied to solar activity, but the 41 kyr and 100 kyr cycles seen correspond with the small quasiperiodic changes in the Earth’s orbital parameters underlying the Milankovitch theory. For these same variations to affect cosmic ray flux they would have to modulate the geomagnetic field or the shielding due to the heliosphere.
21. Although the existence of these periodicities and the underlying mechanism are still somewhat controversial, the lack of a clear understanding of the underlying theory does not negate the fact that these periodicities do occur in galactic cosmic ray flux. If cosmic ray driven albedo change is responsible for Termination II, and a lower albedo was also responsible for the warmer climate of past interglacials—rather than higher carbon dioxide concentrations—the galactic cosmic ray flux would have had to be lower during past interglacials than it is during the present one. That this appears to be the case is suggested by the record.
22. ORBITAL FORCING OF GEOMAGNETIC FIELD INTENSITY: With regard to orbital forcing of the geomagnetic field intensity, it is found that “Despite some indications from spectral analysis, there is no clear evidence for a significant orbital forcing of the paleointensity signals”, although there were some caveats. In terms of the galactic cosmic ray flux, Kirby, et al. maintain that “. . . previous conclusions that orbital frequencies are absent were premature”. An extensive discussion of “Interstellar-Terrestrial Issues” has also been
    given by Scherer, et al.
23. Using the fact that the galactic cosmic ray flux incident on the heliosphere boundary is known to have remained close to constant over the last 200 kyr, and that there exist independent records of geomagnetic variations over this period, Sharma was able to use a functional relation reflecting the existing data to give a good estimate of solar activity over this 200 kyr period.
24. The atmospheric production rate of 10Be depends on the geomagnetic field intensity and the solar modulation factor—the energy lost by cosmic ray particles traversing the heliosphere to reach the Earth’s orbit (this is also known as the “heliocentric potential”, an electric potential centered on the sun, which is introduced to simplify calculations by substituting electrostatic repulsion for the interaction of cosmic rays with the solar wind).
25. SUMMARY: It has been shown above that low altitude cloud cover closely follows cosmic ray flux; that the galactic cosmic ray flux has the periodicities of the glacial/interglacial cycles; that a decrease in galactic cosmic ray flux was coincident with Termination II; and that the most likely initiator for Termination II was a consequent decrease in Earth’s albedo. The temperature of past interglacials was higher than today most likely as a consequence of a lower global albedo due to a decrease in galactic cosmic ray flux reaching the Earth’s atmosphere. In addition, the galactic cosmic ray intensity exhibits a 100 kyr periodicity over the last 200 kyr that is in phase with the glacial terminations of this period. Carbon dioxide appears to play a very limited role in setting interglacial temperature.
26. GERALD MARSH is a physicist, retired from Argonne National Laboratory, who has worked and published widely in the areas of science, nuclear power, and foreign affairs. He was a consultant to the Department of Defense on strategic nuclear technology and policy in the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations, and served with the U.S. START delegation in Geneva. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
27. SOURCE DOCUMENT: Arxiv.org: Source Document

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Climate Change: Late Bronze Age Collapse

1. Sir GEORGE SIMPSON
2. Sir Simpson noted that the first place he thought it was not sufficiently realized by non-meteorologists who came for the first time to help the Society in its study, that it was impossible to solve the problem of the temperature distribution in the atmosphere by working out the radiation. The atmosphere was not in a state of radiative equilibrium, and it also received heat by transfer from one part to another.
3. In the second place, one had to remember that the temperature distribution in the atmosphere was determined almost entirely by the movement of the air up and down. This forced the atmosphere into a temperature distribution which was quite out of balance with the radiation. One could not, therefore, calculate the temperature effect of changing any one factor in the atmosphere, and he felt that the actual numerical results which Mr. Callendar had obtained could not be used to give a definite indication of the order of magnitude of the effect.
4. Thirdly, he thought Mr. Callendar should give a little more information as to how he had calculated the results shown in Fig. 2. These contained the crucial point of the paper, but the paper did not explain how they were obtained.
5. In Table 5 Mr. Callendar had given the effect of doubling the CO2, in one band, 13 to 16, which included nearly the whole of the energy connected with the C02. The increase of temperature obtained by calculation from these results, however, was not the same for a similar increase in CO2, as that shown in Fig. 2. This sort of discrepancy should be cleared up.
6. Lastly he thought that the rise in CO2 content and temperature during the last 50 years, must be taken as rather a coincidence. The magnitude of it was even larger than Mr. Callendar had calculated, and he thought the rise in temperature was probably only one phase of one of the peculiar variations which all meteorological
   elements experienced.
7. Dr. F. J. W. WHIPPLE
8. Dr. Whipple expressed the hope that the author would give the Society an account of his investigation of the natural movements of carbon dioxide. It was not clear how the calculations regarding the gradual diffusion of C02 into the sea were carried out.
9. The calculations embodied in Table IV depended on the assumption of high lapse rates of temperature everywhere. The inversions it seemed necessary to make additional calculations to allow for the varying circumstances. Other processes besides radiation are involved in the exchange of normal energy between ground and atmosphere, but it may be justifiable to ignore these other processes in an investigation of the effect of variations in the amount of CO2.
10. Prof. D. BRUNT
11. Prof. Brunt referred to the diagrams showing the gradual rise of temperature during the last 30 years, and said that this change in the mean temperature was no more striking than the changes which appear to have occurred in the latter half of the 18th century, and whose reality does not appear to be a matter of defective instruments.
12. The long series of pressure observations made in Paris showed clearly that there had been great changes in the mean path of depressions coming from the Atlantic.
13. Prof. Brunt agreed with the view of Sir George Simpson that the effect of an increase in the absorbing power of the atmosphere would not be a simple change of temperature, but would modify the general circulation, and so yield a very complicated series of changes in conditions. He was not quite clear how the temperature changes had been evaluated. He appreciated, however, that Mr. Callendar had put a tremendous amount of work into his most interesting paper.
14. Dr. C. E. P. BROOKS
15. Dr Brooks said that he had no doubt that there had been a real climate change during the past thirty or forty years. This was shown not only by the rise of temperature at land stations, but also by the decrease in the amount of ice in Arctic and probably also in Antarctic regions and by the rise of sea temperatures.
16. This rise of temperature could however he explained, qualitatively if not quantitatively, by changes in the atmospheric circulation, and in those regions where a change in the circulation could be expected to cause a fall of temperature, there had actually been a fall.
17. Moreover the rise of temperature was about ten times as great in the arctic regions as in middle or low latitudes, and he did  not think that a change in the amount of carbon dioxide could cause such a differential effect. The possibility certainly merited discussion, however, and he welcomed the paper as a valuable contribution to the problem of climatic change.
18. Mr. I,. M. G. DINES
19. Mr Dines asked Mr. Callendar whether he was satisfied that the change in the temperature of the air which he had found was significant, and that it was not merely a casual variation.
20. Mr. J. H. COSTE
21. Mr. Coste congratulated Mr. Callendar on his courage and perseverance. He would like to raise some practical issues.
22. Firstly, was the C02 in the air really increasing? It used to be given as 400 ppm then as methods of chemical analysis improved it went down to 300 ppm, and he thought it was very doubtful whether the differences which Mr. Callendar made use of were real. The methods of determining C02 thirty or forty years ago were not sufficiently accurate for making such a comparison.
23. A. Krogh
24. Mr Krogh calculated that for a constant difference in tension in the atmosphere between the air and the ocean, the latter being less rich, the annual invasion of C02 would be equal to 3 x 108 metric tons, which was about the annual contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere by the burning of fuel; to this absorption by the ocean must be added the effects of vegetation, by photosynthesis. Thermometers thirty years
    ago were not instruments of very high precision and one would hesitate to consider variations of fractions of a degree based on observations made with such thermometers.
25. G. S. CALLENDAR
26. in replying, Mr. G. S. Callendar said he realized the extreme complexity of the temperature control at any particular region of the earth’s surface and also that radiative equilibrium was not actually established, but if any substance is added to the atmosphere which delays the transfer of low temperature radiation, without interfering with the arrival or distribution of the heat supply, some rise of temperature appears to be inevitable in those parts which are furthest from outer space.
27. As stated in the paper that the variation of temperature with CO2 (Fig. 2), was obtained from the values of sky radiation, calculated for different amounts of this gas, substituted in expression 5. If the changes in S  shown in Table V are used for expression 5, it will be found that the temperature changes lie on the curve of Fig. 2 when the total sky radiation is 7/10 of the surface radiation. The sky radiation is calculated as a proportion of that from the surface, hence, at constant heat supply, a change of sky temperature involves an equilibrium change of surface temperature as in expression 5.
28. It was found that even the minimum numerical explanation of the method used for calculating sky radiation would occupy several pages, and as a number of similar methods have been published from time to time, it was decided to use the available space for matter of more direct interest.
29. In reply to Dr. Whipple, the author regretted that space did not permit an account of the natural movements of CO2 (old English for the Carbon Cycle). He had actually written an account of these, but it was eight times as long as the present paper (and therefore it was not included in the paper).
30. For the calculation of the diffusion of CO2 into the sea the effective depth was considered to be 200 meters at any one time.
31. The effect of CO, on temperatures has been calculated for a variety of lapse rates, including large inversions. In the latter case the effect on the surface temperature is small, but the protection for the warm middle layers remains.
32. In reply to Prof. Brunt, the author stated that the warm periods of 1780, 1797, and 1827 appeared to be of the nature of short warm intervals of up to 10 years, with some very cold years intervening, whereas recent conditions indicated a more gradual and sustained rise of temperature; this was perhaps best shown by a 40-year moving average.
33. In reply to Dr. Brooks, the author agreed that the recent rise in Arctic temperatures was far too large to be attributed to change of CO2. He thought that the latter might act as a promoter to start a series of imminent changes in the northern ice conditions. On account of their large rise he had not included the Arctic stations in the world temperature curve (Fig. 4).
34. In reply to Mr. Dines, the author said he thought the change of air appeared too widespread to be a casual change due to local variations of pressure.
35. In reply to Mr. Coste, the author said that the early series of CO2 measurements he had used were probably very accurate; he had only observed on days when strong and steady west winds were blowing at Kew. The actual CO2 added in the last 40 years was equal to an increase of 8%; the observed and calculated values agreed in
    giving an effective increase of about 6% at Kew.
36. The author is not aware of the solution coefficients for sea water used by A. Krogh to give the stated figure which appears to be far too high. It must be remembered that less than 1/1000 of the sea volume would be replaced at the surface in one year, and the annual increase of CO2 pressure in the air is less than 1/10^6 atmosphere.
37. About 98% of the CO2 used by vegetation appears to be returned by decay oxidation and respiration.
38. The author thought that very accurate temperatures were taken last century; if there was any doubt on this point the introduction to the long period tables from the Radcliffe Observatory (Met. Obs., Vol. 55, 1930), should set this at rest.
39. With regard to the effect of vertical motion on the “ geostrophic departure ” of the wind, in section 7 of our paper “ The importance of vertical motion in the
    development of tropical revolving storms (old English for tropical cyclones),” published in the lournal January, 1938, a general proposition is enunciated, which reads as follows: “ If vertical motion occurs in the atmosphere in a region of horizontal temperature gradient, then ascending motion gives a component
    of wind from warm to cold, and descending motion a component front
    cold to n arm. ”
40. We are indebted to Prof. Brunt for pointing out that the brief argument given in the paper does not stress at all adequately the type of air motion to which the proposition is intended to apply, and that it certainly does not apply to the case of a convection current rising by instability through an environment.
41. By not realizing this natural application of the proposition, we failed fully to appreciate Prof. Brunt’s contribution to the discussion of the paper, and in order to avoid further misunderstanding, we should like to amend the statement to read :
    “ If there is general vertical motion in a region where the winds
    are quasi-geostrophic, then the departure of the wind velocity from the
    geostrophic value has a component directed along the horizontal gradient
    of temperature, from warm to cold with ascending motion, and from
    cold to warm with descending motion.”
42. The proposition is believed to have an important bearing on general
    meteorological developments, where gradual ascending motion, as, for
    example, in a frontal zone, is associated with convergence or divergence,
    and with departures of the wind velocity from the geostrophic value.
    Although the departures are generally small compared with the
    geostrophic velocities (so that the whole motion may be described as
    qllasi-geostrophic) they are of fundamental dynamical significance.
    A further paper will shortly be presented, in which the mathematical
    and physical basis of the proposition will receive a more adequate treatment.
43. FULL TEXT OF THE PAPER IN PDF FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA, EDMONTON [LINK]
44. There is another link in the comment section. That link is broken. sorry.

[LIST OF POSTS ON THIS SITE]

1. At the close of the 19th century Svante Arrhenius and his co-workers expressed the heat trapping effect of the atmosphere in terms of its composition, specifically with respect to trace quantities of water vapor and carbon dioxide. They were working on very long time scales to explain the earth’s history of glaciation cycles (Arrhenius, 1896) (Hogbom, 1895) (Langley, 1889) (Tyndall,1861). Although his theory of glaciation cycles has long been discredited (Ewing, 1958) (Martinson, 1987), the warming effect of atmospheric CO2 put into the scientific literature by Arrhenius survived.
2. It was applied to a much shorter time scale of a century or less by Guy Callendar in 1938 (callendar_1938). Callendar was concerned about carbon dioxide emissions from the combustion of “large quantities” of fossil fuels by the industrial economy. His concern was that the carbon in fossil fuels dug up from deep under the ground by humans had been sequestered from the atmosphere for millions of years. He reasoned that this carbon does not belong in the current account of the carbon cycle and that therefore the injection of such external carbon into a delicately balanced carbon cycle is an artificial perturbation that could upset both the carbon cycle and climate system and cause runaway artificial warming with unknown and possibly catastrophic consequences (Callendar, 1938).
3. Soon after the publication of a series of global warming papers by Callendar, the world plunged into thirty-five years of cooling that lasted until at least 1975. During that time the Arrhenius warming effect of atmospheric composition and the related Callendar concern about fossil fuel combustion subsided. They were replaced by concerns about the cooling effects of aerosols in fossil fuel emissions (Rasool&Schneider, 1971) (Schneider, 1975) (Kukla, 1972).
4. That changed again in the late 1970s when the temperature curve reversed to a strong warming trend and two landmark papers by James Hansen and Andrew Lacis changed the narrative from cooling to man-made catastrophic global warming (Hansen, 1981) (Hansen-Lacis, 1984). These papers form the blueprint of the modern version of the theory of anthropogenic global warming and climate change (AGW) as the Arrhenius effect of carbon dioxide produced by the combustion of fossil fuels by humans.
5. The theory of surface warming due to absorption and re-radiation in the infrared band by atmospheric carbon dioxide (Pierrehumbert, 2010) yields the testable implication first proposed by Manabe, Wetherald, and Charney that surface temperature should be proportional to the logarithm of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (Charney, 1979). Called the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS), it was computed as the increase in temperature in Celsius units for each doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and that convention has persisted.
6. Jule Charney consolidated results from five climate models to report Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity variously as ECS=[2.0-3.5], [2.6-4.1], and [1.5-4.5]. Charney then declared without elaborating that the most likely value of the ECS = 3 with its uncertainty indicated by the range ECS=[1.5-4.5] (Charney, 1979). This range was adopted by the IPCC and has since become dogma in climate science.
7. However, the first significant paper on AGW in the modern era by James Hansen cited the first Charney estimate and reported ECS = [2.0-3.5] (Hansen, 1981). The IPCC uses the dogma Charney estimate and consistently reports climate sensitivity as ECS = [1.5-4.5] (IPCC, 2013) (IPCC, 2007).
8. Significant works on the estimation of the ECS with climate models and also from observations and paleo reconstructions have been reported in the last two decades (Andronova, 2000) (Gregory, 2002) (Forest, 2002) (Knutti, 2002) (Frame, 2005) (Murphy, 2004) (Stainforth, 2005) (Hegerl, 2006) (Kummer, 2017) (Johansson, 2015) (Stevens, 2016) (Aldrin, 2012) (Dressler, 2018). Their results are summarized here.
9. (Andronova, 2000) used 142 years of observations constrained by climate models and reported that ECS = [2.0-5.0] but found that more than half of that figure can be explained by solar variability with residual CO2 sensitivity ECS=[0.94-2.35]. Although not directly acknowledged by the climate science literature, this finding weakens the AGW argument that warming is human caused by way of the
   Arrhenius effect of fossil fuel emissions.
10. (Gregory, 2002) derived sensitivity from observations 1860-2000 constrained by models for ocean heat uptake and derived a probability distribution of ECS which shows that the symmetry of the ECS distribution assumed by Charney and the IPCC in reporting confidence intervals does not exist. Gregory’s results show a long tailed distribution that is skewed right. The author reports its properties as a median of ECS = 6 and a 90%CI of ECS = 1.1 to infinity. The high end is not bounded. However, it is shown that with certain assumptions and model constraints the range can be reduced to 90% CI of ECS = [1.7 – 2.3]. The motivation for these assumptions is described by the author as “a range as narrow as that would be a great improvement on the current state of knowledge”.
11. The ECS Probability distribution derived from climate model simulations constrained by recent observations (Gregory2002) (Forest, 2002) yield a fairly wide symmetrical distribution with a 90%CI for ECS = [1.4 – 7.7]. The spread of 6.3 is more than twice that assumed by Charney and institutionalized by the IPCC. Also the asymmetry with a bias toward higher values of sensitivity does not exist in the IPCC and in the institutionalized AGW narrative.
12. The (Knutti, 2002) authors use A climate model with both CO2 and aerosol forcing to generate Monte Carlo simulations and thereby to construct a probability distribution of climate sensitivity. They find that the IPCC has grossly underestimated the width and location of the 90%CI for ECS. with the underestimation described as “a 40 per cent probability that warming will exceed the rise predicted by the IPCC, and a 5 per cent probability that warming will fall below that range”. The 90%CI for climate sensitivity is reported as ECS = [2.7 – 8.7]. This distribution is twice as wide as the IPCC distribution and offset by 1.2C towards higher values.
13. (Frame, 2005) estimates model constrained climate sensitivity from observations and reports a 90%CI for ECS = [1.4–4.1] with the median skewed left at ECS = 2.4. The results are in good agreement with Charney and IPCC values.
14. (Murphy, 2004) used large ensemble climate model runs to estimate the climate sensitivity and its uncertainty. They find that the sensitivity is represented by a 90%CI range of ECS = [2.4–5.4] slightly higher than Charney/IPCC but with comparable uncertainty.
15. (Stainforth, 2005) is a unique paper. It presents results from the large ensemble model study carried out in the climateprediction.net event organized by Oxford University (climateprediction.net, 2004). Thousands of climateprediction.net members participated in a “grand ensemble of simulations” with a general circulation model. They discovered a surprisingly large uncertainty in sensitivity estimates. The authors report a 90%CI of ECS = [1.9 – 11.5]. The results indicate that both climate sensitivity and its uncertainty are much higher than the estimates presented by Charney and the IPCC.
16. (Hegerl, 2006) uses 700 years of paleo climate data constrained with models to report observed sensitivity as high as ECS = [7.7-9.0] but a 90% CI of ECS=[1.5-6.2]. The uncertainty is greater than the Charney/IPCC estimates and the range is skewed right toward higher values.
17. More recently, (Kummer, 2017) presented empirical estimates of observational climate sensitivity constrained by climate models in a doctoral dissertation and reported ECS = 2.3 with uncertainty given by the 90%CI of ECS = [ 1.6-4.1]. These results support the Charney/IPCC values although they are somewhat lower.
18. (Johansson, 2015) addresses the uncertainty issue in climate sensitivity and finds that uncertainty in ECS can be reduced with appropriate corrections for the ‘pause’ in warming 2000-2014. The pause was most likely due to ENSO effects or low solar activity. Its effect on the lower bound of the 90%CI for ECS has been incorrectly estimated by the IPCC. He finds that the lower bound of the 90%CI should remain at 2°C and that lowers uncertainty to ECS = [2.0 – 4.5].
19. (Aldrin, 2012) estimates model constrained ECS from observational data and reports an asymmetrical probability distribution for ECS that is skewed right similar to the Gregory 2002 distribution shown in Figure 1. The authors (co-authors include Gunnar Myhre) report 90%CI for observational sensitivity unconstrained by models as ECS ≈ [1.2 – 7.7] and model constrained intervals of ECS ≈ [1.0 – 2.7], [1.0 – 3.5], [1.0 – 4.2], [1.3 – 4.9], [1.5 – 7.8], [1.5 – 7.3], and [1.0 – 7.0].
20.  (Lewis and Curry 2018)  carried out a detailed analysis of observational climate sensitivity constrained by models. They report low sensitivity with 90%CI given by ECS=[1.05-4.05]. The uncertainty closely matches that of the IPCC with the range shifted towards lower values. The so called “uncertainty monster” in climate sensitivity research (Curry/Webster, 2011) is apparent in these findings in terms of the possibility of ECS<1.5 and ECS>4.5.
21. The confusion and uncertainty in the value for the ECS is further explored in “UNCERTAINTY IN EMPIRICAL CLIMATE SENSITIVITY ESTIMATES” downloadable from SERVER#1  or SERVER#2 . In this study, unconstrained observational ECS values are presented for the HADCRU temperature reconstruction 1850-2017. The results show a large range of ECS in a moving 60-year window. The observed ECS values range from small negative values to ECS>6. In addition, a split half test shows an unacceptable difference in ECS values between first and second halves of the study period. These results are not consistent with the existence of a climate sensitivity parameter that determines surface temperature according to atmospheric CO2 concentration. They are indicative of an unstable regression coefficient and therefore of the absence of the assumed correlation.
22. Statistically, the ECS is a linear regression coefficient that describes the responsiveness of surface temperature to the logarithm of atmospheric CO2 and its reliability depends on a correlation between these variables. The reason for the instability of this regression coefficient is that the assumed correlation is not found in the data. The correlation seen in the source data is shown to be spurious when the two time series are detrended. The details of the instability issue are described in a related post SPURIOUS CORRELATIONS IN CLIMATE SCIENCE and a downloadable paper posted on THE VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY OF CHARNEY CLIMATE SENSITIVITY downloadable from SERVER#1 or SERVER#2 . The study demonstrates that although regression coefficients may be computed without the assumed correlation, these coefficients will tend to be unstable with a wide range of possible values that have no interpretation because they are based on a sensitivity that does not exist.
23. It is now recognized that uncertainty in climate sensitivity is a serious issue in climate science and that it must be resolved. In (Stevens, 2016) Bjorn Stevens (co-authors include Steven Sherwood and Mark Webb) attempts to rescue the ECS concept and proposes ways to address the uncertainty issue in climate sensitivity research. The authors show that the IPCC sensitivity range of 90%CI(ECS) = [1.5 – 4.5] can be maintained and additional uncertainty controlled by addressing causes for extreme values. For example, aerosol forcing can yield values lower than 1.5 ECS and higher solar irradiance forcing can show higher values than 4.5 ECS. They argue that when such known effects are factored out, the correct CO2 effect can be extracted from the extreme values reported by purely observational estimates of ECS and ECS can be shown to lie within the Charney/IPCC range of ECS = [1.5 – 4.5].
24. A more radical proposal is found in (Knutti, 2017). Here the authors propose to abandon the ECS concept saying that the effort by climate science to address the uncertainty issue in climate sensitivity has failed and that this failure implies that the ECS must be abandoned because it has not proven to be a useful metric for presenting the essential relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature that is central to the theory of anthropogenic global warming or AGW.
25. Knutti et al (co-authors Rugenstein and Hegerl) suggest that the failed ECS parameter should be replaced with the more stable and reliable carbon climate response to cumulative emissions (CCR) described in (Matthews, 2009). The authors state that “estimates of the CCR are better constrained than those of the ECS in observed warming and are more relevant for predicting warming over the next decades”.
26. Three papers, all of them published in 2009, broke new ground for climate science along the lines described by Knutti et al 2017. Matthews et al 2009 (co-authors Gillett, Stott, Zickfield) demonstrated a stable linear relationship between cumulative emissions and surface temperature and argued that this proportionality, computed as the slope of the line and referred to as the Carbon Climate Response (CCR) is the appropriate metric to relate warming to carbon dioxide emissions; with the further claim that it is more stable and reliable than equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS).
27. However, the CCR, later called the TCR, also contains a statistical flaw in terms of a spurious correlation. The spuriousness of the correlation between temperature and cumulative emissions is described in a related post SPURIOUS CORRELATIONS IN CLIMATE SCIENCE . Additional information on this issue may be found in the corresponding downloadable papers LIMITATIONS OF THE TCRE  SERVER#1  SERVER#2 , SPURIOUSNESS OF CORRELATIONS OF CUMULATIVE VALUES  SERVER#1  SERVER#2 ,  and FROM EQUILIBRIUM CLIMATE SENSITIVITY TO TRANSIENT CLIMATE RESPONSE   SERVER#1 SERVER#2 .
28. A further statistical issue with the TCR is described in a related post [LINK]   as a “MATHMATICAL INCONSISTENCY”. Briefly, the ECS theory of anthropogenic global warming implies a logarithmic relationship between cumulative emissions and temperature while the TCR implies a linear relationship between cumulative emissions and temperature.
29. Establishing a functional correlation between time series data is fraught with complexity and traps for the unwary. Time series often contain long term trends in the data that, if allowed to remain, can generate spurious correlations at any given time scale that is smaller than the time span of the data SPURIOUS CORRELATIONS IN TIME SERIES DATA. In such cases, detrended correlation analysis is used to separate long term trend effects from fluctuations at the time scale of interest (Von-Storch, 1999) (Shumway, 2011) (Prodobnik, 2008)  ALEX TOLLEY’S LECTURE 
30. An additional issue in time series analysis is the use of moving windows or of cumulative values to derive a new time series from the source time series for further analysis. All such procedures require repeated use of the same data items from the source series to construct the target series. The repeated use of the same data items in the source series in the construction of the target series, reduces the effective sample size and the degrees of freedom in the target series. Reference: ILLUSORY STATISTICAL POWER IN TIME SERIES ANALYSIS (SERVER#1. SERVER#2
31. Cumulative value analysis can be described as the opposite of detrended fluctuation analysis because it does exactly the opposite. It overwhelms fluctuations at any short time scale with information about the overall drift in time so that fluctuations appear to vanish and an apparent high degree of correlation magically appears in the full span of the series. Yet it is the fluctuations at a given time scale that contain the correlation information relevant to a theory of causation at that time scale.
32. The repeated use of the same data values in the calculation of cumulative values erases both time scale and degrees of freedom from the time series by reducing the effective value of the sample size and the corresponding degrees of freedom. Source document:  SERVER#1 .  SERVER#2  . In the computation of cumulative values of a time series of length N, the first value in the series is used N times, the second value N-1 times and so on until the Nth value which is used once. In general, the Jth value is used N-J+1 times. Thus, in total, (N*(N+1)/2) numbers are used in the computation of cumulative values. Since there are only N distinct values in the source series, the average multiplicity of use is M = (N*(N+1)/2)/N or M = (N+1)/2.
33. Multiplicity reduces the effective sample size to EFFN = N/M. In the case of cumulative values, the effective samples size is EFFN = (2*N)/(N+1). For an infinitely large sample, the effective sample size of cumulative values will be EFFN ≈ 2 and for any finite sample size less than infinity, EFFN < 2. In the evaluation of the statistical significance of observed sample correlations and regression coefficients, the degrees of freedom parameter, DF = EFFN-2, has a maximum value of DF = 0 for an infinite series of cumulative values. This means that time series of cumulative values have no degrees of freedom and therefore no statistical power. This principle has been demonstrated with Monte Carlo simulation and also with examples drawn from climate data in the cited papers above SERVER#1 .  SERVER#2
34. These considerations imply that the apparent advantage the CCR and TCR over the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) in terms of stability, reliability, lower values, and tight confidence intervals is illusory. The CCR/TCR values have no interpretation because there is neither time scale nor degrees of freedom in the time series of cumulative values.
35. A complete list of my papers may be found at SSRN.COM . and also at ACADEMIA.EDU

[LIST OF POSTS ON THIS SITE]

1. Most of Europe was once covered with ice. A few million years ago, the present site of the city of Chicago was buried under three kilometers of frost. On Mars, and elsewhere in the solar system, we see features that could not be produced today, landscapes carved hundreds of millions or billions of years ago when the planetary climate was probably very different.
2. There is an additional factor that can alter the landscape and the climate of Earth: intelligent life, able to make major environmental changes. Like Venus, the Earth also has a greenhouse effect due to its carbon dioxide and water vapor. The global temperature of the Earth would be below the freezing point of water if not for the greenhouse effect. It keeps the oceans liquid and life possible. A little greenhouse is a good thing. Like Venus, the Earth also has about 90 atmospheres of carbon dioxide; but it resides in the crust as limestone and other carbonates, not in the atmosphere. If the Earth were moved only a little closer to the Sun, the temperature would increase slightly. This would drive some of the CO2 out of the surface rocks, generating a stronger greenhouse effect, which would in turn incrementally heat the surface further. A hotter surface would vaporize still more carbonates into CO2, and there would be the possibility of a runaway greenhouse effect to very high temperatures. This is just what we think happened in the early history of Venus, because of Venus’ proximity to the Sun. The surface environment of Venus is a warning: something disastrous can happen to a planet rather like our own.
3. The principal energy sources of our present industrial civilization are the so-called fossil fuels. We burn wood and oil, coal and natural gas, and, in the process, release waste gases, principally CO2, into the air. Consequently, the carbon dioxide content of the Earth’s atmosphere is increasing dramatically. The possibility of a runaway greenhouse effect suggests that we have to be careful:
4. Even a one- or two- degree rise in the global temperature can have catastrophic consequences. In the burning of coal and oil and gasoline, we are also putting sulfuric acid into the atmosphere. Like Venus, our stratosphere even now has a substantial mist of tiny sulfuric acid droplets. Our major cities are polluted with noxious molecules. We do not understand the long- term effects of our course of action.
5. But we have also been perturbing the climate in the opposite sense. For hundreds of thousands of years human beings have been burning and cutting down forests and encouraging domestic animals to graze on and destroy grasslands. (This statement is false. These human activities did not begin until the Neolithic Revolution in the early Holocene.) Slash-and-burn agriculture, industrial tropical deforestation and overgrazing are rampant today. But forests are darker than grasslands, and grasslands are darker than deserts. As a consequence, the amount of sunlight that is absorbed by the ground has been declining, and by changes in the land use we are lowering the surface temperature of our planet (not a currently held view).  Might this cooling increase the size of the polar ice cap, which, because it is bright, will reflect still more sunlight from the Earth, further cooling the planet, driving a runaway albedo2 effect?
6. Our lovely blue planet, the Earth, is the only home we know. Venus is too hot. Mars is too cold. But the Earth is just right, a heaven for humans. After all, we evolved here. But our congenial climate may be unstable. We are perturbing our poor planet in serious and contradictory ways. Is there any danger of driving the environment of the Earth toward the planetary Hell of Venus or the global ice age of Mars? The simple answer is that nobody knows. The study of the global climate, the comparison of the Earth with other worlds, are subjects in their earliest stages of development. They are fields that are poorly and grudgingly funded. In our ignorance, we continue to push and pull, to pollute the atmosphere and brighten the land, oblivious of the fact that the long-term consequences are largely unknown.
7. A few million years ago, when human beings first evolved on Earth, it was already a middle-aged world, 4.6 billion years along from the catastrophes and impetuosities of its youth. But we humans now represent a new and perhaps decisive factor. Our intelligence and our technology have given us the power to affect the climate. How will we use this power? Are we willing to tolerate ignorance and complacency in matters that affect the entire human family? Do we value short-term advantages above the welfare of the Earth? Or will we think on longer time scales, with concern for our children and our grandchildren, to understand and protect the complex life-support systems of our planet? The Earth is a tiny and fragile world. It needs to be cherished.Source: From his book “Cosmos” with text provided online by gizmodo.com
   Link: https://io9.gizmodo.com/heres-carl-sagans-original-essay-on-the-dangers-of-cl-1481304135RELATED POST: CARL SAGAN: 1985:   https://tambonthongchai.com/2022/01/09/carlsaganclimateactionplan/

IN THE CONTEXT OF CLIMATE DENIAL RESEARCH THE TERMS “CLIMATE DENIAL“, “SCIENCE DENIAL“, AND “CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL” REFER TO DOUBTING HUMAN CAUSE AND OF OF OUR ABILITY TO CONTROL THE CLIMATE.

1. 2018: Krange, Kaltenborn, &Hultman, Cool dudes in Norway: climate change denial among conservative Norwegian men, Environmental Sociology, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2018.1488516  In their article ‘Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States’ the authors state: ‘Clearly the extent to which the conservative white male effect on climate change denial exists outside the US is a topic deserving investigation.’ Following this recommendation, we report results from a study in Norway. McCright and Dunlap argue that climate change denial can be understood as an expression of protecting group identity and justifying a societal system that provides desired benefits. Our findings resemble those in the US study. A total of 63 per cent of conservative males in Norway do not believe in anthropogenic climate change, as opposed to 36 per cent among the rest of the population who deny climate change and global warming. Expanding on the US study, we investigate whether conservative males more often hold what we term xenosceptic views, and if that adds to the ‘cool dude-effect’.¹ Multivariate logistic regression models reveal strong effects from a variable measuring ‘xenosceptic cool dudes’. Interpreting xenoscepticism as a rough proxy for right leaning views, climate change denial in Norway seems to merge with broader patterns of right-wing nationalism.
2. 2018: Jeffrey A Harvey, etal, Internet Blogs, Polar Bears, and Climate-Change Denial by Proxy, BioScience, Volume 68, Issue 4, April 2018, Pages 281–287. {Increasing surface temperatures, Arctic sea-ice loss, and other evidence of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) are acknowledged by every major scientific organization in the world. However, there is a wide gap between this broad scientific consensus and public opinion. Internet blogs have strongly contributed to this consensus gap by fomenting misunderstandings of AGW causes and consequences. Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) have become a “poster species” for AGW, making them a target of those denying AGW evidence. Here, focusing on Arctic sea ice and polar bears, we show that blogs that deny or downplay AGW disregard the overwhelming scientific evidence of Arctic sea-ice loss and polar bear vulnerability. By denying the impacts of AGW on polar bears, bloggers aim to cast doubt on other established ecological consequences of AGW, aggravating the consensus gap. To counter misinformation and reduce this gap, scientists should directly engage the public in the media and blogosphere}
3. 2018: Nevitt, Mark, and Robert V. Percival. “Could Official Climate Denial Revive the Common Law as a Regulatory Backstop?.” (2018). The Trump Administration is rapidly turning the clock back on climate policy and environmental regulation. Despite overwhelming, peer-reviewed scientific evidence, administration officials eager to promote greater use of fossil fuels are disregarding climate science. This Article argues that this massive and historic deregulation may spawn yet another wave of legal innovation as litigants, including states and their political subdivisions, return to the common law to protect the health of the planet. Prior to the emergence of the major federal environmental laws in the 1970s, the common law of nuisance gave rise to the earliest environmental decisions in U.S. history. In some of these cases the Supreme Court issued injunctions to control significant sources of air and water pollution, but the Court later held that the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act displaced the federal common law of nuisance. This Article argues that official climate denial may yet revive the common law as a regulatory backstop. If EPA reverses its earlier endangerment finding for greenhouse gas emissions, the Clean Air Act no longer would displace the federal common law of nuisance. While expert administrative agencies normally are more competent than the judiciary in fashioning regulatory policy, agencies that deny climate science should expect to face judicial intervention. As described in this Article, such action is consistent with the historic role the judiciary has played when other branches of government failed to prevent significant environmental harm.
4. 2018: Tynkkynen, Veli-Pekka, and Nina Tynkkynen. “Climate Denial Revisited:(Re) contextualising Russian Public Discourse on Climate Change during Putin 2.0.” Europe-Asia Studies(2018): 1-18. In this article we examine Russia’s recent public discourse on climate change, with a special focus on the arguments denying anthropogenic climate change. We scrutinise the ways in which denial arguments presented in the media are tied to the changing Russian political and economic context, especially the increasingly authoritarian turn in governance during President Vladimir Putin’s third term in office (Putin 2.0). We conclude that the Russian discourse on climate change emphasises Russia’s Great Power status, identifying its sovereignty and fossil energy as the basis of this status. This discourse refers to key categories, including Russia’s national identity and the spatial–material characteristics of the Russian state.
5. 2018: Carroll, William, et al. “The Corporate Elite and the Architecture of Climate Change Denial: A Network Analysis of Carbon Capital’s Reach into Civil Society.” Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie (2018). This study employs social network analysis to map the Canadian network of carbon‐capital corporations whose boards interlock with key knowledge‐producing civil society organizations, including think tanks, industry associations, business advocacy organizations, universities, and research institutes. We find a pervasive pattern of carbon‐sector reach into these domains of civil society, forming a single, connected network that is centered in Alberta yet linked to the central‐Canadian corporate elite through hegemonic capitalist organizations, including major financial companies. This structure provides the architecture for a “soft” denial regime that acknowledges climate change while protecting the continued flow of profit to fossil fuel and related companies.
6. 2018: Dahlstrom, Michael Field, and Sonny Rosenthal. “Third-Person Perception of Science Narratives: The Case of Climate Change Denial.” Science Communication 40.3 (2018): 340-365. Science communicators are increasingly recognizing the potential of narratives to reach and influence audiences. However, do audiences recognize and consider this tactic when evaluating how such messages influence themselves and others? This study compares third-person perceptions of persuasive narrative and nonnarrative messages in a climate change context. Results suggest that individuals are aware of the influence of narratives and are able to resist this influence, but this is only when they perceive a message as having negative influence. Otherwise, individuals underestimate the influence of narratives on themselves. These findings add an audience-centered perspective to the current discussions on incorporating narratives within science communication.
7. 2018: Haltinner, Kristin, and Dilshani Sarathchandra. “Climate change skepticism as a psychological coping strategy.” Sociology Compass 12.6 (2018): e12586. This article explores current sociological scholarship on climate skepticism and, drawing on recent literature in social psychology and behavioral science, presents an argument for future research on the relationship between emotion, information aversion, and climate denial. We extrapolate and unite these disconnected bodies of scholarship to argue that strong emotions such as fear may drive climate change skepticism and denial among some adherents. By partnering the scholarship outlined above with advances in research on conspiracy ideation, we argue that climate change skepticism and denial is, at least in some cases, a form of an exaggerated ostrich effect, whereby adherents are so driven to avoid learning about a specific problem; they actively seek to construct an alternative, safer, narrative. Given this predisposition, attempting to challenge such skepticism with information is counterproductive. As such, this paper presents alternative possibilities for communicating research findings on climate change.
8. 2018: Rees, Morien, and Walter Leal Filho. “Disseminating Climate Change: The Role of Museums in Activating the Global Public.” Handbook of Climate Change Communication: Vol. 3. Springer, Cham, 2018. 319-328. In the task of ensuring that governments undertake the measures needed to mitigate the impacts of global warming today and in the future, it is necessary to activate the public worldwide to a much greater degree than has been the case over the last 25 years. The IPCC have published five reports providing the world with an objective, scientific view of climate change. Each summarized for policymakers and the press, to facilitate communication to the public. Given the inertia that characterizes the public’s response, it is legitimate to ask if sufficient emphasis has been placed on the means of communication. Whether, in activating the public, where communication takes place and how it is achieved is of equally importance to what is communicated. Museums as institutions have a number of characteristics, individually and collectively, that offer a unique possibility of disseminating both the local impacts of climate change and placing them in the wider context of the international nature of global warming. Examining storytelling as a means of activating local communities, the paper describes a museum project being developed in the Norwegian arctic and a burgeoning international initiative from museum professionals on three continents that aims to bridge the local global gap. The IPCC report for 2018 offers a window of opportunity to activate the global community. The paper concludes by outlining a possible scenario to achieve this, whereby the museum sector, offering both local museums as arenas for dialogue together with an international infrastructure for global communication, could play a significant role.
9. 2017: Jylhä, Kirsti, and Kahl Hellmer. “Populist attitudes and climate change denial: On the roles of conservative values, anti-egalitarianism, xenophobia, and anti-political establishment attitudes.” The 40th Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology. 2017 {Despite the extensive scientific evidence for human induced climate change, many still question or deny it. Previous research has shown that individuals who support right-wing populist parties tend to deny climate change to a higher degree than individuals supporting established parties. However, populism combines different views, and from the current state of knowledge it is unclear if these views uniquely correlate with climate change denial. Importantly, both populist discourses and rejection of climate science tend to include anti-establishment arguments, but it has been questioned if the true motivation behind them indeed lies in anti-establishmentarianism. For example, populism seems to be driven by xenophobic and anti-minority attitudes, and climate change denial has been connected to endorsement of group-based dominance. To improve our understanding of the populism-denial relation, the present study (N = 1588) tested the correlations between climate change denial and views commonly held by right-wing populists. Specifically, we investigated the effects of conservative values, anti-egalitarian attitudes (antifeminism and homophobia), xenophobia, and anti-political establishment attitudes on climate change denial. Positive zero-order correlations were found between all variables. Next, stepwise regression analysis revealed that conservative values, antifeminism, homophobia, and xenophobia have unique effects on denial, but anti-political establishment attitudes do not explain any unique variance in denial above the other included variables. Our results provide important insight about the potential motivations to dispute climate change among populist parties and their voters. Rather than reflecting anti-establishmentarianism per se, climate change denial seems to be driven by endorsement of traditional values and power structures}
10. 2013: Dunlap, Riley E., and Peter J. Jacques. “Climate change denial books and conservative think tanks: Exploring the connection.” American Behavioral Scientist 57.6 (2013): 699-731. {The conservative movement and especially its think tanks play a critical role in denying the reality and significance of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), especially by manufacturing uncertainty over climate science. Books denying AGW are a crucial means of attacking climate science and scientists, and we examine the links between conservative think tanks (CTTs) and 108 climate change denial books published through 2010. We find a strong link, albeit noticeably weaker for the growing number of self-published denial books. We also examine the national origins of the books and the academic backgrounds of their authors or editors, finding that with the help of American CTTs climate change denial has spread to several other nations and that an increasing portion of denial books are produced by individuals with no scientific training. It appears that at least 90% of denial books do not undergo peer review, allowing authors or editors to recycle scientifically unfounded claims that are then amplified by the conservative movement, media, and political elites}
11. 2010: Dunlap, Riley E., and Aaron M. McCright. “14 Climate change denial: sources, actors and strategies.” Routledge handbook of climate change and society (2010): 240. {Climate denialism is an outgrowth of the conservative movement’s environmental skepticism during the Reagan years}
12. 2011: McCright, Aaron M., and Riley E. Dunlap. “The politicization of climate change and polarization in the American public’s views of global warming, 2001–2010.” The Sociological Quarterly 52.2 (2011): 155-194. {We examine political polarization over climate change within the American public by analyzing data from 10 nationally representative Gallup Polls between 2001 and 2010. We find that liberals and Democrats are more likely to report beliefs consistent with the scientific consensus and express personal concern about global warming than are conservatives and Republicans. Further, the effects of educational attainment and self‐reported understanding on global warming beliefs and concern are positive for liberals and Democrats, but are weaker or negative for conservatives and Republicans. Last, significant ideological and partisan polarization has occurred on the issue of climate change over the past decade}
13. 2015: Lewandowsky, Stephan, et al. “Seepage: Climate change denial and its effect on the scientific community.” Global Environmental Change 33 (2015): 1-13. {Vested interests and political agents have long opposed political or regulatory action in response to climate change by appealing to scientific uncertainty. Here we examine the effect of such contrarian talking points on the scientific community itself. We show that although scientists are trained in dealing with uncertainty, there are several psychological reasons why scientists may nevertheless be susceptible to uncertainty-based argumentation, even when scientists recognize those arguments as false and are actively rebutting them. Specifically, we show that prolonged stereotype threat, pluralistic ignorance, and a form of projection (the third-person effect) may cause scientists to take positions that they would be less likely to take in the absence of outspoken public opposition. We illustrate the consequences of seepage from public debate into the scientific process with a case study involving the interpretation of temperature trends from the last 15 years. We offer ways in which the scientific community can detect and avoid such inadvertent seepage}
14. 2013: Elsasser, Shaun W., and Riley E. Dunlap. “Leading voices in the denier choir: Conservative columnists’ dismissal of global warming and denigration of climate science.” American Behavioral Scientist 57.6 (2013): 754-776. {The conservative “echo chamber” is a crucial element of the climate change denial machine. Although social scientists have begun to examine the role of conservative media in the denial campaign, this article reports the first examination of conservative newspaper columnists. Syndicated columnists are very influential because they reach a large audience. We analyze 203 opinion editorials (“op-eds”) written by 80 different columnists published from 2007 to 2010, a period that saw a number of crucial events and policy proposals regarding climate change. We focus on the key topics the columnists address and the skeptical arguments they employ. The overall results reveal a highly dismissive view of climate change and critical stance toward climate science among these influential conservative pundits. They play a crucial role in amplifying the denial machine’s messages to a broad segment of the American public}
15. 2016: Boussalis, Constantine, and Travis G. Coan. “Text-mining the signals of climate change doubt.” Global Environmental Change 36 (2016): 89-100. {Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that the Earth is getting warmer and that the rise in average global temperature is predominantly due to human activity. Yet a significant proportion of the American public, as well as a considerable number of legislators in the U.S. Congress, continue to reject the “consensus view.” While the source of the disagreement is varied, one prominent explanation centres on the activities of a coordinated and well-funded countermovement of climate sceptics. This study contributes to the literature on organized climate scepticism by providing the first systematic overview of conservative think tank sceptical discourse in nearly 15 years. Specifically, we (1) compile the largest corpus of contrarian literature to date, collecting over 16,000 documents from 19 organizations over the period 1998–2013; (2) introduce a methodology to measure key themes in the corpus which scales to the substantial increase in content generated by conservative think tanks over the past decade; and (3) leverage this new methodology to shed light on the relative prevalence of science- and policy-related discussion among conservative think tanks. We find little support for the claim that “the era of science denial is over”—instead, discussion of climate science has generally increased over the sample period}
16. 2013: Farmer, G. Thomas, and John Cook. “Understanding climate change denial.” Climate change science: a modern synthesis. Springer Netherlands, 2013. 445-466. {At its heart, climate denial is the rejection of the scientific consensus that humans are disrupting the climate. Denial of a consensus can be identified by five telltale characteristics: fake experts, cherry picking, logical fallacies, impossible expectations and conspiracy theories. These techniques are observed in the tactics and strategies of the climate denial movement, disseminated by ideological think-tanks, some conservative governments and vested interests through a range of media streams. The key to responding to climate misinformation is to provide alternative narratives that are more compelling than the myths they replace}
17. 2007: Hamilton, Clive. Scorcher: The dirty politics of climate change. Black Inc. {Wiki: Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change is a 2007 book by Clive Hamilton which contends that Australia rather than the United States is the major stumbling block to a more effective Kyoto Protocol. In the final chapter of the book Hamilton argues that the Howard Government has been actively working to destroy the Kyoto Protocol. Scorcher is an updated version of Hamilton’s 2001 book, Running from the Storm}
    Shearer, Christine. Kivalina: a climate change story. Haymarket Books, 2011. {This book looks at the struggle of Kivalina, a small Alaska Native village that filed a legal claim against some of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies for damaging their homeland and creating a false debate around climate change. Academic and journalist Christine Shearer explores the history leading up to the lawsuit, and its relationship to past misinformation campaigns involving lead, asbestos, and tobacco. The book also considers the interconnections between fossil fuels, the global political-economy, and disaster management. Kivalina’s struggle for safe relocation, the book argues, is part of our common struggle to acknowledge and address climate change before it is too late}
18. 2010: McKnight, David. “A change in the climate? The journalism of opinion at News Corporation.” Journalism 11.6 (2010): 693-706. {In 2007 the global media company News Corporation announced that it would become ‘carbon neutral’ and generally endorsed scientific warnings about global warming. Its CEO, Rupert Murdoch, signaled not only that the media group held a corporate view toward the issue of climate change but that its editorial coverage would henceforth change. This article examines the period before this change of direction. From 1997 to 2007 newspapers and television stations owned by News Corporation, based on their editorials, columnists and commentators, largely denied the science of climate change and dismissed those who were concerned about it. While the intensity of commentary and editorials about climate change varied between media outlets owned by News Corporation in the USA, Britain and Australia, its corporate view framed the issue as one of political correctness rather than science. Scientific knowledge was portrayed as an orthodoxy and its own stance, and that of ‘climate sceptics’ as one of courageous dissent}
19. 2009: Barnard, Phoebe. “Climate Change Denialism”, Researchgate Barnard Paper, {How can we make sense of this contradictory information? You could be forgiven if you’re a bit confused. The world in the Internet age is awash with information, and anyone with a blog-site can and does post their own views – right, wrong or somewhere in between. Who knows what they’re talking about? Who’s right?}
20. 2011: McCright, Aaron M., and Riley E. Dunlap. “Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States.” Global environmental change 21.4 (2011): 1163-1172. {We examine whether conservative white males are more likely than are other adults in the U.S. general public to endorse climate change denial. We draw theoretical and analytical guidance from the identity-protective cognition thesis explaining the white male effect and from recent political psychology scholarship documenting the heightened system-justification tendencies of political conservatives. We utilize public opinion data from ten Gallup surveys from 2001 to 2010, focusing specifically on five indicators of climate change denial. We find that conservative white males are significantly more likely than are other Americans to endorse denialist views on all five items, and that these differences are even greater for those conservative white males who self-report understanding global warming very well. Furthermore, the results of our multivariate logistic regression models reveal that the conservative white male effect remains significant when controlling for the direct effects of political ideology, race, and gender as well as the effects of nine control variables. We thus conclude that the unique views of conservative white males contribute significantly to the high level of climate change denial in the United States}
21. 2013: Boykoff, Maxwell T. “Public enemy no. 1? Understanding media representations of outlier views on climate change.” American behavioral scientist 57.6 (2013): 796-817. {Outlier voices—particularly those views often dubbed climate “skeptics,” “denialists,” or “contrarians”—have gained prominence and traction in mass media over time through a mix of internal workings such as journalistic norms, institutional values and practices, and external political economic, cultural, and social factors. In this context, the article explores how and why these actors—through varied interventions and actions—garner disproportionate visibility in the public arena via mass media. It also examines how media content producers grapple with ways to represent claims makers, as well as their claims, so that they clarify rather than confuse these critical issues. To the extent that mass media misrepresent and/or gratuitously cover these outlier views, they contribute to ongoing illusory, misleading, and counterproductive debates within the public and policy communities, and poorly serve the collective public. Furthermore, working through mass media outlets, these outlier interventions demonstrate themselves to be (at times deliberately) detrimental to efforts seeking to enlarge rather than constrict the spectrum of possibility for varied forms of climate action}
22. 2013: Washington, Haydn. Climate change denial: Heads in the sand. Routledge, 2013. {Wiki: Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand is a non-fiction book about climate change denial, coauthored by Haydn Washington and John Cook, with a foreword by Naomi Oreskes. Washington had a background in environmental science prior to authoring the work, and Cook was educated in physics and founded the website Skeptical Science which compiles peer-reviewed evidence of global warming. The book was first published in hardcover and paperback formats in 2011 by Earthscan, a division of Routledge. The book presents an in-depth analysis and refutation of climate change denial, going over several arguments point-by-point and disproving them with peer-reviewed evidence from the scientific consensus for climate change. The authors assert that those denying climate change engage in tactics including cherry picking data purported to support their specific viewpoints, and attacking the integrity of climate scientists. They use social science theory to examine the phenomenon of climate change denial in the wider public, and call this phenomenon a form of pathology}
23. 2013: Goldenberg, Suzanne. “Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks.” The Guardian 14 (2013): 681-694. {Conservative billionaires used a secretive funding route to channel nearly $120 million to more than 100 groups casting doubt about the science behind climate change, the Guardian has learned. The funds, doled out between 2002 and 2010, helped build a vast network of think tanks and activist groups working to a single purpose: to redefine climate change from neutralscientific fact to a highly polarizing “wedge issue” for hardcore conservatives}
24. 2012: Goeminne, Gert. “Lost in translation: Climate denial and the return of the political.” Global Environmental Politics 12.2 (2012): 1-8. {In this deliberately provocative commentary, I interrogate the relationship between two critical perspectives on the one-sided scientific framing of the climate issue: a constructivist interpretation of climate modeling on the one hand and the debate in political theory on the depoliticization of the public sphere on the other. I argue how they could be tied together in order to provide an enriched understanding of climate denial as a symptom rather than a cause of dysfunctional climate politics. It is my claim that in attempting to translate the universal validity of scientific knowledge into the contours of an inclusive, consensual negotiation model, the constitutive role of exclusion in the emergence of scientific objectivity is overlooked}
25. 2015: Lewandowsky, Stephan, et al. “Recurrent fury: Conspiratorial discourse in the blogosphere triggered by research on the role of conspiracist ideation in climate denial.” Journal of Social and Political Psychology 3.1 (2015): 142-178. {A growing body of evidence has implicated conspiracist ideation in the rejection of scientific propositions. Internet blogs in particular have become the staging ground for conspiracy theories that challenge the link between HIV and AIDS, the benefits of vaccinations, or the reality of climate change. A recent study involving visitors to climate blogs found that conspiracist ideation was associated with the rejection of climate science and other scientific propositions such as the link between lung cancer and smoking, and between HIV and AIDS. That article stimulated considerable discursive activity in the climate blogosphere—i.e., the numerous blogs dedicated to climate “skepticism”—that was critical of the study. The blogosphere discourse was ideally suited for analysis because its focus was clearly circumscribed, it had a well-defined onset, and it largely discontinued after several months. We identify and classify the hypotheses that questioned the validity of the paper’s conclusions using well-established criteria for conspiracist ideation. In two behavioral studies involving naive participants we show that those criteria and classifications were reconstructed in a blind test. Our findings extend a growing body of literature that has examined the important, but not always constructive, role of the blogosphere in public and scientific discourse}
26. 2001: Stoll-Kleemann, Susanne, Tim O’Riordan, and Carlo C. Jaeger. “The psychology of denial concerning climate mitigation measures: evidence from Swiss focus groups.” Global environmental change 11.2 (2001): 107-117. {Various studies of public opinion regarding the causes and consequences of climate change reveal both a deep reservoir of concern, yet also a muddle over causes, consequences and appropriate policy measures for mitigation. The technique adopted here, namely integrated assessment (IA) focus groups, in which groups of randomly selected individuals in Switzerland looked at models of possible consequences of climate change and questioned specialists as to their accuracy and meaning, revealed a rich assembly of reactions. Respondents were alarmed about the consequences of high-energy futures, and mollified by images of low-energy futures. Yet they also erected a series of psychological barriers to justify why they should not act either individually or through collective institutions to mitigate climate change. From the viewpoint of changing their lifestyles of material comfort and high-energy dependence, they regarded the consequences of possible behavioural shift arising from the need to meet mitigation measures as more daunting. To overcome the dissonance created in their minds they created a number of socio-psychological denial mechanisms. Such mechanisms heightened the costs of shifting away from comfortable lifestyles, set blame on the inaction of others, including governments, and emphasised doubts regarding the immediacy of personal action when the effects of climate change seemed uncertain and far away. These findings suggest that more attention needs to be given to the social and psychological motivations as to why individuals erect barriers to their personal commitment to climate change mitigation, even when professing anxiety over climate futures. Prolonged and progressive packages of information tailored to cultural models or organised belief patterns, coupled to greater community based policy incentives may help to widen the basis of personal and moral responsibility}
27. 2013: Lewandowsky, Stephan, Klaus Oberauer, and Gilles E. Gignac. “NASA faked the moon landing—therefore, (climate) science is a hoax: An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science.” Psychological science 24.5 (2013): 622-633. {Although nearly all domain experts agree that carbon dioxide emissions are altering the world’s climate, segments of the public remain unconvinced by the scientific evidence. Internet blogs have become a platform for denial of climate change, and bloggers have taken a prominent role in questioning climate science. We report a survey of climate-blog visitors to identify the variables underlying acceptance and rejection of climate science. Our findings parallel those of previous work and show that endorsement of free-market economics predicted rejection of climate science. Endorsement of free markets also predicted the rejection of other established scientific findings, such as the facts that HIV causes AIDS and that smoking causes lung cancer. We additionally show that, above and beyond endorsement of free markets, endorsement of a cluster of conspiracy theories (e.g., that the Federal Bureau of Investigation killed Martin Luther King, Jr.) predicted rejection of climate science as well as other scientific findings. Our results provide empirical support for previous suggestions that conspiratorial thinking contributes to the rejection of science. Acceptance of science, by contrast, was strongly associated with the perception of a consensus among scientists}
28. 2011: Gifford, Robert. “The dragons of inaction: psychological barriers that limit climate change mitigation and adaptation.” American Psychologist 66.4 (2011): 290. {Most people think climate change and sustainability are important problems, but too few global citizens engaged in high-greenhouse-gas-emitting behavior are engaged in enough mitigating behavior to stem the increasing flow of greenhouse gases and other environmental problems. Why is that? Structural barriers such as a climate-averse infrastructure are part of the answer, but psychological barriers also impede behavioral choices that would facilitate mitigation, adaptation, and environmental sustainability. Although many individuals are engaged in some ameliorative action, most could do more, but they are hindered by seven categories of psychological barriers, or “dragons of inaction”: limited cognition about the problem, ideological worldviews that tend to preclude pro-environmental attitudes and behavior, comparisons with key other people, sunk costs and behavioral momentum, discredence toward experts and authorities, perceived risks of change, and positive but inadequate behavior change. Structural barriers must be removed wherever possible, but this is unlikely to be sufficient. Psychologists must work with other scientists, technical experts, and policymakers to help citizens overcome these psychological barriers}
29. 2011: Hoffman, Andrew J. “Talking past each other? Cultural framing of skeptical and convinced logics in the climate change debate.” Organization & Environment 24.1 (2011): 3-33. {This article analyzes the extent to which two institutional logics around climate change—the climate change “convinced” and the climate change “skeptical” logics—are truly competing or talking past each other in a way that can be described as a logic schism. Drawing on the concept of framing from social movement theory, it uses qualitative field observations from the largest climate deniers conference in the United States and a data set of almost 800 op-eds from major news outlets over a 2-year period to examine how convinced and skeptical arguments of opposing logics employ frames and issue categories to make arguments about climate change. This article finds that the two logics are engaging in different debates on similar issues with the former focusing on solutions while the latter debates the definition of the problem. It concludes that the debate appears to be reaching a level of polarization where one might begin to question whether meaningful dialogue and problem solving has become unavailable to participants. The implications of such a logic schism is a shift from an integrative debate focused on addressing interests, to a distributive battle over concessionary agreements with each side pursuing its goals by demonizing the other. Avoiding such an outcome requires the activation of, as yet, dormant “broker” categories (technology, religion, and national security), the redefinition of existing ones (science, economics, risk, ideology), and the engagement of effective “climate brokers” to deliver them}
30. 2005: Antilla, Liisa. “Climate of scepticism: US newspaper coverage of the science of climate change.” Global environmental change 15.4 (2005): 338-352. {This two-part study integrates a quantitative review of one year of US newspaper coverage of climate science with a qualitative, comparative analysis of media-created themes and frames using a social constructivist approach. In addition to an examination of newspaper articles, this paper includes a reflexive comparison with attendant wire stories and scientific texts. Special attention is given to articles constructed with and framed by rhetoric emphasising uncertainty, controversy, and climate scepticism}
31. 2007: Boykoff, Maxwell T. “Flogging a dead norm? Newspaper coverage of anthropogenic climate change in the United States and United Kingdom from 2003 to 2006.” Area 39.4 (2007): 470-481. {The journalistic norm of ‘balanced’ reporting (giving roughly equal coverage to both sides in any significant dispute) is recognised as both useful and problematic in communicating emerging scientific consensus on human attribution for global climate change. Analysis of the practice of this norm in United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) newspaper coverage of climate science between 2003 and 2006 shows a significant divergence from scientific consensus in the US in 2003–4, followed by a decline in 2005–6, but no major divergence in UK reporting. These findings inform ongoing considerations about the spatially‐differentiated media terms and conditions through which current and future climate policy is negotiated and implemented}
32. 2012: MacKay, Brad, and Iain Munro. “Information warfare and new organizational landscapes: An inquiry into the ExxonMobil–Greenpeace dispute over climate change.” Organization Studies 33.11 (2012): 1507-1536. {A defining characteristic of the emergence of new organizational landscapes is that information is not just being used as a tool by organizations, as it is more usually understood, but also as a weapon in a ‘war of position’. As organizations seek to influence public perception over emotive issues such as climate change, conflict at the ideational level can give rise to information warfare campaigns. This concerns the creation and deployment of often ideologically infused ideas through information networks to promote an organization’s interests over those of its adversaries. In this article, we analyse the ways in which ExxonMobil and Greenpeace employ distinctive informational tactics against a range of diverse targets in their dispute over the climate change debate. The purpose of this article is to advance the neo-Gramscian perspective on social movement organizations as a framework for understanding such behaviour. We argue that information warfare is likely to become common as corporations and non-governmental organizations are increasingly sensitive to their informational environment as a source of both opportunity and possible conflict}
33. 2002: Van den Hove, Sybille, Marc Le Menestrel, and Henri-Claude De Bettignies. “The oil industry and climate change: strategies and ethical dilemmas.” Climate Policy 2.1 (2002): 3-18. {This paper explores the different climate change strategies chosen by three major multinational oil corporations: ExxonMobil, TotalFinaElf and BP Amoco. They are referred to, as the ‘fight against emission constraints,’ ‘wait and see,’ and ‘proactive’ strategies, respectively. The justifications given to support these strategies are identified. They cover the business, scientific, political, economic, technological and social dimensions. In a business ethics framework, the issue of climate change brings forth an ethical dilemma for the oil industry, in the form of a tension between profits and CO2 emissions. The strategies are analysed as three attitudes towards this dilemma: (i) placing priority on the business consequences while weakening the perception that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change; (ii) avoiding responsibility; and (iii) placing priority on the need for a modification of the business process while limiting the negative effect in terms of business consequences. In conclusion, we propose that beyond the ethical issues proper to climate change itself, additional ethical issues are raised if society at large is instrumentalised by an industry in its search for profit. Publicly gauging and valorising the ethical commitment of a corporation appear as ways of inducing more collaborative and proactive attitudes by business actors}
34. 2007: Begley, Sharon, et al. “The truth about denial.” Newsweek 150.7 (2007): 20-27. {Sen. Barbara Boxer had been chair of the Senate’s Environment Committee for less than a month when the verdict landed last February. “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” concluded a report by 600 scientists from governments, academia, green groups and businesses in 40 countries. Worse, there was now at least a 90 percent likelihood that the release of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels is causing longer droughts, more flood-causing downpours and worse heat waves, way up from earlier studies. Those who doubt the reality of human-caused climate change have spent decades disputing that. But Boxer figured that with “the overwhelming science out there, the deniers’ days were numbered.” As she left a meeting with the head of the international climate panel, however, a staffer had some news for her. A conservative think tank long funded by ExxonMobil, she told Boxer, had offered scientists $10,000 to write articles undercutting climate science}
35. 2009: Anderson, Alison. “Media, politics and climate change: Towards a new research agenda.” Sociology compass 3.2 (2009): 166-182. {Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time, and the media have been demonstrated to play a key role in shaping public perceptions and policy agendas. Journalists are faced with multiple challenges in covering this complex field. This article provides an overview of existing research on the media framing of climate change, highlighting major research themes and assessing future potential research developments. It argues that analysis of the reporting of climate science must be placed in the wider context of the growing concentration and globalization of news media ownership, and an increasingly ‘promotional culture’, highlighted by the rapid rise of the public relations industry in recent years and claims‐makers who employ increasingly sophisticated media strategies. Future research will need to examine in‐depth the targeting of media by a range of actors, as well as unravel complex information flows across countries as media increasingly converge}
36. 2009: Adam, David. “ExxonMobil continuing to fund climate sceptic groups, records show.” The Guardian 1 (2009). {The world’s largest oil company is continuing to fund lobby groups that question the reality of global warming, despite a public pledge to cut support for such climate change denial, a new analysis shows. Company records show that ExxonMobil handed over hundreds of thousands of pounds to such lobby groups in 2008. These include the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) in Dallas, Texas, which received $75,000 (£45,500), and the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC, which received $50,000}
37. 2014: Brulle, Robert J. “Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of US climate change counter-movement organizations.” Climatic Change 122.4 (2014): 681-694. {This paper conducts an analysis of the financial resource mobilization of the organizations that make up the climate change counter-movement (CCCM) in the United States. Utilizing IRS data, total annual income is compiled for a sample of CCCM organizations (including advocacy organizations, think tanks, and trade associations). These data are coupled with IRS data on philanthropic foundation funding of these CCCM organizations contained in the Foundation Center’s data base. This results in a data sample that contains financial information for the time period 2003 to 2010 on the annual income of 91 CCCM organizations funded by 140 different foundations. An examination of these data shows that these 91 CCCM organizations have an annual income of just over $900 million, with an annual average of $64 million in identifiable foundation support. The overwhelming majority of the philanthropic support comes from conservative foundations. Additionally, there is evidence of a trend toward concealing the sources of CCCM funding through the use of donor directed philanthropies}
38. 2015: Douglas, Karen M., and Robbie M. Sutton. “Climate change: Why the conspiracy theories are dangerous.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 71.2 (2015): 98-106. {Uncertainty surrounds the public understanding of climate change and provides fertile ground for conspiracy theories. Typically, such conspiracy theories assert that climate scientists and politicians are distorting or hijacking the science to suit their own purposes. Climate change conspiracy theories resemble other conspiracy theories in some respects, but in others they appear to be quite different. For example, climate change conspiracy theories appear to be motivated by the desire to deny or minimize an unwelcome and threatening conclusion. They also appear to be more contentious than other types of conspiracy theories. Perhaps to an unparalleled extent, people on both sides of the issue champion climate change conspiracy theories. Finally, more than other conspiracy theories, those concerning climate change appear to be more politically loaded, dividing opinion across the left-right continuum. Some empirical evidence suggests that climate change conspiracy theories may be harmful, steering people away from environmentally friendly initiatives. They therefore present a significant challenge for governments and environmental organizations that are attempting to convince people to take action against global warming}
39. 2012: Hamilton, Clive. “Theories of climate change.” Australian Journal of Political Science 47.4 (2012): 721-729. {On the face of it, the climate crisis lends itself to a Marxist analysis, and Max Koch duly
    interprets it as a stage in the development of capitalism. We see burgeoning greenhouse gas emissions due to relentless accumulation of capital, a powerful lobby protecting its interests at home and exporting its dirty business to poor countries, and governments placing the interests of corporations before those of the vulnerable and powerless. Above all, around the world the response to the existential threat posed by a warming globe has always been to give
    priority to economic growth, the conditio sine qua non for continued capital accumulation. The natural environment becomes no more than the means to the end of capital accumulation}
40. 2011: Norgaard, Kari. “Climate denial: Emotion, psychology, culture and political economy.” Oxford handbook on climate change and society (2011): 399-413. {From Wikipedia: To investigate the lack of response in Western societies to the implications of global warming, Norgaard collected ethnographic data and took interviews in a rural community in west Norway during the winter of 2000–2001 when unusually warm conditions damaged the skiing industry and prevented ice fishing. Both local and national media linked the problems to global warming, and while the public treated this as common knowledge, they failed to demand a political response or change their own fuel usage. She investigated described this form of denial on various levels. The conventional information deficit model explained opposition or indifference by assuming that the public are ill-informed or misinformed, but in Norway a well informed public showed declining interest in the issue. Her interviews revealed that their response to an apparently insuperable problem was comparable to the condition called psychic numbing. Adopting Eviatar Zerubavel’s concept of socially organized denial, she saw this as a collective form of what Stanley Cohen had called implicatory denial}
41. 2015: Stoknes, Per Espen. What we think about when we try not to think about global warming. Toward a new psychology of climate action. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2015. {The more facts that pile up about global warming, the greater the resistance to them grows, making it harder to enact measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare communities for the inevitable change ahead. It is a catch-22 that starts, says psychologist and economist Per Espen Stoknes, from an inadequate understanding of the way most humans think, act, and live in the world around them. With dozens of examples—from the private sector to government agencies—Stoknes shows how to retell the story of climate change and, at the same time, create positive, meaningful actions that can be supported even by deniers. In What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming, Stoknes not only masterfully identifies the five main psychological barriers to climate action, but addresses them with five strategies for how to talk about global warming in a way that creates action and solutions, not further inaction and despair.
42. 2001: Marshall, George. “Denial and the psychology of climate apathy.” The Ecologist (2001): 46-68. {Most of us recognize that climate change is real yet we do nothing to stop it. What is the psychological mechanism that allows us to know something is true but act as if it is not? George Marshall’s search for the answers brings him face to face with Nobel Prize-winning psychologists and Texas Tea Party activists; the world’s leading climate scientists and those who denounce them; liberal environmentalists and conservative evangelicals. What he discovers is that our values, assumptions, and prejudices can take on lives of their own, gaining authority as they are shared, dividing people in their wake}
43. 2011: Weber, Elke U., and Paul C. Stern. “Public understanding of climate change in the United States.” American Psychologist66.4 (2011): 315. {This article considers scientific and public understandings of climate change and addresses the following question: Why is it that while scientific evidence has accumulated to document global climate change and scientific opinion has solidified about its existence and causes, U.S. public opinion has not and has instead become more polarized? Our review supports a constructivist account of human judgment. Public understanding is affected by the inherent difficulty of understanding climate change, the mismatch between people’s usual modes of understanding and the task, and, particularly in the United States, a continuing societal struggle to shape the frames and mental models people use to understand the phenomena. We conclude by discussing ways in which psychology can help to improve public understanding of climate change and link a better understanding to action}
44. SEE ALSO: [A DENIALISM PANDEMIC]

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[RELATED POST ON ECO FEAROLOGY]

The explanation of the oddity that all climate impacts are bad, that all bad things are climate impacts, and that in the science of climate impacts there is no good impact and no attribution failure in the face of large uncertainties is that climate science is not unbiased objective scientific inquiry but agenda driven to provide the rationale needed for a pre-determined climate action agenda. The climate action agenda is not made to fit the science but rather it is the science that has to fit the climate action agenda. IT IS THUS, THAT IN THE AGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE, ALL PROBLEMS – BE IT POLITICAL OR SOCIAL UNREST, WAR, FAMINE, MIGRATION, WILDFIRE, OR DISEASE – CAN BE FRAMED IN TERMS OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND THEN SOLVED SIMPLY BY CUTTING EMISSIONS. 

THE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY IS AS FOLLOWS: (1) GO LOOKING FOR SOMETHING BAD IN AN AREA OF RESEARCH THAT RELATES TO THE CLIMATE, (2) FIND SOMETHING THAT HAS A BAD INTERPRETATION. AND TELL US JUST HOW BAD IT COULD BE. (3) ATTRIBUTE IT TO CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE BASIS THAT THIS PHENOMENON WAS FOUND DURING THE CLIMATE CHANGE PERIOD.

VOILA! KNOWLEDGE MARCHES ON. 

1. GREAT TIT THREATENED WITH EXTINCTION BY CLIMATE CHANGE: ECOLOGY LETTERS, 2020: Phenological asynchrony: a ticking time‐bomb for seemingly stable populations?, Emily G. Simmonds Ella F. Cole Ben C. Sheldon Tim Coulson, 25 September 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13603: ABSTRACT: Climate change has been shown to induce shifts in the timing of life‐history events. As a result, interactions between species can become disrupted, with potentially detrimental effects. Predicting these consequences has proven challenging. We apply structured population models to a well‐characterised great tit‐caterpillar model system and identify thresholds of temporal asynchrony, beyond which the predator population will rapidly go extinct. Our model suggests that phenotypic plasticity in predator breeding timing initially maintains temporal synchrony in the face of environmental change. However, under projections of climate change, predator plasticity was insufficient to keep pace with prey phenology. Directional evolution then accelerated, but could not prevent mismatch. Once predator phenology lagged behind prey by more than 24 days, rapid extinction was inevitable, despite previously stable population dynamics. Our projections suggest that current population stability could be masking a route to population collapse, if high greenhouse gas emissions continue. The model was simulated 1000 times for each emission scenario, using an equally likely projection of future climate for the period of 2011 to 2100. At each time step of the simulation we calculated the population size (resident breeding females) and the urn:x-wiley:1461023X:media:ele13603:ele13603-math-0033 and urn:x-wiley:1461023X:media:ele13603:ele13603-math-0034 distribution. Values for continuous environmental drivers (spring temperature, spring precipitation, winter temperature, winter precipitation) were chosen from either observed values or weather projections. Beech mast index could not be predicted as the exact drivers of mast years have not yet been identified and therefore was selected semi‐stochastically at each time step based on observed frequency from 1961 to 2010. We did not want to make assumptions into the drivers of this process. Two high mast years could not be allocated concurrently and if four consecutive non‐mast years occur, then the next year is a high mast year (Matthews, 1955). Beech mast values were different for each of the 1000 simulations.
2. JAMES HANSEN, MICHAEL MANN:  CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES AND EAST COAST HURRICANES OF 2020:  [LINK TO SOURCE DOCUMENT]    At least 31 have died in the largest wildfires in California history. The east is defending itself against twice the usual number of tropical cyclones. And what may be the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth came in August in the United States. It’s a torrid 2020 and it was forecast 32 years ago. In the 1980’s, a NASA scientist named James Hansen discovered that climate change, driven by carbon emissions, was upon us. His graphs, of three decades ago, accurately traced the global rise in temperature to the year 2020. Last week, we had a lot of questions for Hansen. Are these disasters climate change? Do things get worse? Is it too late to do anything? But before we get to the causes, let us show you the effects. Climate scientists on Earth’s two futures.  California smoke blew more than 2,000 miles to the east and drifted over the Pennsylvania farm of retired NASA scientist James Hansen. His 1988 paper on carbon and climate accurately predicted temperatures up to the far-off year of 2020. James Hansen: Yeah, we’re seeing exactly what we expected. But I expected that governments would be wise enough that they would begin to adopt policies to preserve the future for young people. But they haven’t done that yet. Hansen is the father of climate change science. For 32 years he was director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Today, at 79, he runs the program on climate science at Columbia University. Scott Pelley: What is your forecast for the next 30 years? James Hansen: Well, if we don’t change anything, then we’re going to continue to see more and more of these extreme regional events because the physics is quite simple. As you add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, you increase the heating of the surface. So, at the times and places where it’s dry you get more extreme droughts. The fire seasons become longer. The fires burn hotter. But at the times and places where it’s wet, you get more evaporation of the water. And you get warmer, moist air, which provides greater rainfall. And it’s the fuel for storms. This summer, the Atlantic Basin has soaked beneath 23 tropical storms or hurricanes, double the usual number. Death Valley, California, hit 130 degrees — now being evaluated as a world record. And Los Angeles reached 120. Michael Mann: People ask, are we dealing with a new normal? And the sobering answer is, that’s the best-case scenario. A new normal is the best-case scenario ’cause that sorta means, well, we’ve got a new situation and we just have to learn how to deal with it. But it’s much worse than that. So, there are surprises in store and we’re seeing some of those surprises play out now. Michael Mann is a geophysicist whose work on past climate showed today’s rate of warming began with the Industrial Revolution. Mann is a lightning rod for deniers, but his research has been verified again and again. Mann is director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Question:  But there’ve always been fires in the west. There’ve always been hurricanes in the east. How do we know that climate change is involved in this? Michael Mann: Well, there are a number of independent sort of sources of information, lines of evidence that tell us that this isn’t natural, that this is human-caused. Let’s look at the big picture, the warming of the planet a little less than 2 degrees Fahrenheit warming of the planet since pre-industrial time. Now, people ask, well, couldn’t that happen naturally? Well, it turns out that if you look at the factors that are driving natural changes right now — small but measurable fluctuations in the brightness of the sun, Volcanic eruptions — they tell us that earth should’ve cooled slightly over the past half-century. Here’s what he means. In that yellow line at bottom, NASA has measured a steady decline in heat from the sun since the 1950’s. But the red line, the temperature of the Earth, has only increased. Michael Mann: We can only explain that warming when we include the human factor of increased greenhouse gas concentrations; in particular, carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. : Well, the president says about climate change, science doesn’t know. Michael Mann: The president doesn’t know. And he should know better. He should know that the world’s leading scientific organizations, our own U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and national academies of every major industrial nation, every scientific society in the United States that’s weighed in on the matter. This is a scientific consensus. There’s about as much scientific consensus about human-caused climate change as there is about gravity. That’s what President Trump heard last month from Wade Crowfoot, head of California’s Natural Resources Agency, which includes fire fighting. Wade Crowfoot to President Trump on 9/14/20: Because if we ignore that science and sort of put our head in the sand and think it’s all about vegetation management, we’re not going to succeed together protecting Californians. President Trump: Okay. It’ll start getting cooler. You just watch. Crowfoot: I wish science agreed with you. President Trump: Well, I don’t think science knows, actually. Wade Crowfoot: Well, with respect, I think he’s wrong and he’s on the wrong side of history. This is the unmasked Wade Crowfoot, who reminded us California emerged from a five-year drought in 2016. In that drought, which we called a mega-drought— hasn’t happened at that level in a thousand years. We experienced communities in California literally running out of water. And where California dried out is now the site of the largest single fire in state history, called the Creek Fire. So that’s an existential challenge. We lost over 160 million trees in the Sierra Nevada mountain range as a result of that drought. The fire that burned the hottest and most dangerous, the Creek Fire, was in the epicenter of that tree mortality. It ran so hot that it created a smoke cloud 50,000 feet in the sky. What was the impact of all the smoke? Wade Crowfoot: Fifty million Americans on the West Coast suffered through weeks of the worst air quality on the planet. You didn’t have to live anywhere near the fires to be affected by them. Throughout California the smoke was so bad that our kids couldn’t play outside. And folks were discouraged from even spending any time outdoors. I did my first climate story more than 20 years ago and I remember, at the time, being told that there would be terrible fires and terrible hurricanes in 100 years; that this was a problem for our great-grandchildren. What changed? Michael Mann: what we’re finding is that many of these changes can happen faster than we thought they could. We didn’t really expect to see substantial loss of ice from the two major continental ice sheets, the Greenland Ice Sheet and the Antarctic Ice Sheet. But now, the satellite measurements and in situ measurements tell us that they’re already losing ice. They’re already beginning that process of collapse. It’s already contributing to sea level rise, decades ahead of schedule. Michael Mann: warming can be stopped. Oceans and forests would begin to absorb excess carbon in a matter of years if emissions, principally from coal-fired power plants, are reduced close to zero. Former NASA scientist James Hansen believes the way to do that is for governments to tax cheap fossil fuels to make them more expensive than clean alternatives. They have these wishful thinking agreements like Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. Every country says, “We’ll try to do better.” That won’t work. What we need is to have an increasing price on the fossil fuels and do it in a way that the public will accept.  At what point does it become too late? James Hansen: It becomes too late if you get to the point that you cannot stop the ice sheet disintegration. That’s the biggest point of no return. We can get to a point where we’re going to get several meters of sea level rise out of our control. That’s too late. We would lose our coastal cities. And more than half of the large cities in the world are on coastlines. If we don’t start to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere, 50 years from now, someone doing research on this time might look at this interview and I wonder what you would like to say to them. Michael Mann: That– that’s a tough question. I would say we did everything we could and we’re sorry. We’re sorry that we failed. But I don’t think that’s our future. I don’t want that to be our future. That’s a possible future. We have to recognize that. The worst visions that Hollywood has given us of dystopian futures are real possible futures if we don’t act on this problem; the greatest crisis that we face as a civilization.
3. What Climate Change Does to the Human Body:  Scientific American, [LINK]   ABSTRACT: An ENT physician sees the effects in her patients all the time. By Neelu Tummala on August 29, 2020. The climate crisis has led to a widespread public health crisis. And as an ear, nose and throat physician, I see the effects more and more often. I vividly remember a patient who came in late for her appointment during a July heat wave. When I walked in, she said, “I’m so sorry I’m late, I was up all night walking my grandbaby around the train station.” Without air conditioning at home, the child was sweating through her clothes in the heat of the night, putting her at risk for dehydration. July 2019 was the hottest July on record; September 2019 was the hottest on record; January 2020 was the hottest on record; May 2020 was the hottest on record. This is not a coincidence. It is a pattern. Carbon dioxide, an important greenhouse gas contributing to global warming, has increased by 9 percent since 2005 and by 31 percent since 1950. A U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report pointed out that the world has already warmed about one degree Celsius from pre-industrial levels. It stressed the urgency to act to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, and that a two-degree increase will lead to unprecedented extreme heat, water scarcity and food shortages around the globe. Heat affects every part of our body. It can lead to heat exhaustion, heat stroke, anxiety, impaired cognitive function and even premature death from heart and lung disease. Across the country, the health concerns of the climate crisis are increasingly being recognized, pushing thousands of medical providers—doctors, nurses, pharmacists, therapists, medical students—to become advocates for change. In my own practice, I explain to patients how the climate crisis affects their health. For example, apart from contributing to global warming, rising carbon dioxide levels increase the amount of pollen that plants produce as a consequence of higher rates of photosynthesis. This rise in pollen levels can lead to worsening allergy symptoms. Another example is fine particulate matter (known as PM2.5) associated with air pollution, much of it linked to the burning of fossil fuels that help drive the warming. When we breathe in these particles, they travel down the airway and settle in the tiny air sacs called alveoli of the lungs, causing inflammation and potentially worsening asthma symptoms. The explanations are simple, but the health risks are widespread and complex. Ground-level ozone pollution, which is worse in hotter weather, can also harm people with asthma and other respiratory diseases. And that harm falls disproportionately on the poor. Wealthier people living in North America have a per capita carbon footprint that is 25 percent higher than those of lower-income residents, with some affluent suburbs producing emissions 15 times higher than nearby neighborhoods. These carbon emissions contribute to global warming, and the subsequent health consequences are felt far beyond the neighborhood that produces them. Older adults, children, low-income communities and communities of color are less resilient on average to the health impacts of climate change. The climate crisis is thus leading to a disproportionate public health crisis—and worse, it is a threat multiplier. At a time when many Americans are economically challenged, continued heat waves and the higher energy bills they trigger threaten access to water and energy security. The economic benefits of a low-carbon economy are clear. Estimates suggest that without climate investments, the United States will face economic damage from climate change equivalent to 1–3 percent of GDP per year by 2100. The majority of Americans think global warming is happening. The climate crisis has unfairly been labeled as political, when in fact, people recognize that something needs to be done about it. Even for those who are seemingly unaffected, there is increasing global recognition that the safeguards of living in a protected community and affording expert medical care will eventually fail if global warming continues unchecked. Unfortunately, there will be no vaccine in six months or a year for the climate crisis. The only treatment is collective climate action in the present. Climate action is required of our elected leaders, and we must mandate it of ourselves. It can be as simple as educating family and friends, while making sustainable shopping and traveling choices. It includes eating less meat, unplugging electronics and raising a voice against the fossil fuel industry. With a rise in demand for absentee ballots for the election this November, it is crucial to request mail-in ballots right away to make sure our voices are heard. The United States is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and we must vote for green policy. Legislative action and policy change work, as evidenced by the Clean Air Act and its subsequent amendments, which are projected to save 230,000 lives in 2020. The climate crisis is a public health issue, and we must start healing the planet in order to heal each other. Fighting against the climate crisis is one of the most patriotic things we can do right now; it will protect our health and the health of our neighbors across the country and the globe, and will allow all of us to live on this planet, the only home we have.
4. Eastin, Joshua. “Climate change and gender equality in developing states.” World Development 107 (2018): 289-305. Abstract: It is commonly accepted that women can be more vulnerable than men to the adverse environmental effects of climate change. This paper evaluates whether the unequal distribution of costs women bear as a result of climate change are reflected across broader macro-social institutions to the detriment of gender equality and women’s rights. It argues that gender disparities in climate change vulnerability not only reflect preexisting gender inequalities, they also reinforce them. Inequalities in the ownership and control of household assets and rising familial burdens due to male out-migration, declining food and water access, and increased disaster exposure can undermine women’s ability to achieve economic independence, enhance human capital, and maintain health and wellbeing. Consequences for gender equality include reductions in intra-household bargaining power, as women become less capable of generating independent revenue. Outside the home, norms of gender discrimination and gender imbalances in socio-economic status should increase as women are less able to participate in formal labor markets, join civil society organizations, or collectively mobilize for political change. The outcome of these processes can reduce a society’s level of gender equality by increasing constraints on the advancement of laws and norms that promote co-equal status. I empirically test this relationship across a sample of developing states between 1981 and 2010. The findings suggest that climate shocks and climatic disasters exert a broadly negative impact on gender equality, as deviations from long-term mean temperatures and increasing incidence of climatological and hydro-meteorological disasters are associated with declines in women’s economic and social rights. These effects appear to be most salient in states that are relatively less-democratic, with greater dependence on agriculture, and lower levels of economic development.
5. Recent declines in salmon body size impact ecosystems and fisheries, K. B. Oke, C. J. Cunningham, P. A. H. Westley, M. L. Baskett, S. M. Carlson, J. Clark, A. P. Hendry, V. A. Karatayev, N. W. Kendall, J. Kibele, H. K. Kindsvater, K. M. Kobayashi, B. Lewis, S. Munch, J. D. Reynolds, G. K. Vick & E. P. Palkovacs
   Nature Communications volume 11, Article number: 4155 (2020)  ABSTRACT:  Declines in animal body sizes are widely reported and likely impact ecological interactions and ecosystem services. For harvested species subject to multiple stressors, limited understanding of the causes and consequences of size declines impedes prediction, prevention, and mitigation. We highlight widespread declines in Pacific salmon size based on 60 years of measurements from 12.5 million fish across Alaska, the last largely pristine North American salmon-producing region. Declines in salmon size, primarily resulting from shifting age structure, are associated with climate and competition at sea. Compared to salmon maturing before 1990, the reduced size of adult salmon after 2010 has potentially resulted in substantial losses to ecosystems and people; for Chinook salmon we estimated average per-fish reductions in egg production (−16%), nutrient transport (−28%), fisheries value (−21%), and meals for rural people (−26%). Downsizing of organisms is a global concern, and current trends may pose substantial risks for nature and people.
6. News Release 7-JUN-2020: Climate change has degraded productivity of shelf sea food webs. UNIVERSITY OF PLYMOUTH. A shortage of summer nutrients as a result of our changing climate has contributed to a 50% decline in important North East Atlantic plankton over the past 60 years. New research, published in Global Change Biology, shows that larger, nutritious plankton – vital to support fish, seabirds and marine mammals – are being replaced by tiny, primary producers that are of poorer food quality. Changes from cloudier and wetter summers to longer periods of sunshine and drought have led to decreasing iron and nutrient supply to surface waters. This results in an increased period of suboptimal feeding conditions for zooplankton at a time of year when their metabolic demand is at its highest.In some areas, large phytoplankton are being almost completely replaced by picoplankton, especially the cyanobacterium Synechococcus, that flourishes when iron and nitrogen levels in surface waters are very low. However, its small size and lack of essential biomolecules mean it is unable to function in the same way as larger, more nutritious phytoplankton – a vital primary producer of omega-3 – and cannot sustain shelf sea food webs efficiently. Competition for scarce summer nutrients will become a key force in structuring shelf sea food webs. Shelf seas provide around 80% of the world’s wild-captured seafood, and changes in their productivity will have major effects on humans. (With thanks to WUWT )
7. Decline of the North American Avifauna. Kenneth Rosenberg etal, Science 2019. Abstract: Species extinctions have defined the global biodiversity crisis, but extinction begins with loss in abundance of individuals that can result in compositional and functional changes of ecosystems. Using multiple and independent monitoring networks, we report population losses across much of the North American avifauna over 48 years, including once common species and from most biomes. Integration of range-wide population trajectories and size estimates indicates 30 a net loss approaching 3 billion birds, or 29% of 1970 abundance. A continent-wide weather radar network also reveals a similarly steep decline in biomass passage of migrating birds over a recent 10-year period. This loss of bird abundance signals an urgent need to address threats to avert future avifaunal collapse and associated loss of ecosystem integrity, function and services. 35 One Sentence Summary: Cumulative loss of nearly three billion birds since 1970, across most North American biomes, signals a pervasive and ongoing avifaunal crisis.
8. MEDIA REPORTS: New York Times: Birds Are Vanishing From North America. The number of birds in the United States and Canada has declined by 3 billion, or 29 percent, over the past half-century, scientists find [LINK] , Scientific American: Silent Skies: Billions of North American Birds Have Vanished. Though waterfowl and raptor populations have made recoveries, bird populations have declined since 1970 across nearly all habitats. {With thanks to Jim Steele at wuwt [LINK]
9. BLOGGER’S NOTE: It is unclear whether the reported loss of 2.9 billion is net of gains. We think there are about 300 billion birds in the world with an uncertainty range of plus or minus 100 billion and so a range of 200 billion to 400 billion. If that is true, then the 2.9 billion lost does not show up on the radar. As for the number of species of birds, we think there are 9,500 species give or take 500 although we think we lost about 150 species in the last 500 years but that is not net of species gained. We know that new species of birds have formed but don’t have a handle on the count. It appears that we don’t really know birds very well. 
10. Kristopher B. etal, Fossil fuel combustion is driving indoor CO2 toward levels harmful to human cognition. 20 April 2020: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GH000237: ABSTRACT:  Human activities are elevating atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations to levels unprecedented in human history. The majority of anticipated impacts of anthropogenic CO2 emissions are mediated by climate warming. Recent experimental studies in the fields of indoor air quality and cognitive psychology and neuroscience, however, have revealed significant direct effects of indoor CO2 levels on cognitive function. Here we shed light on this connection, and estimate the impact of continued fossil fuel emissions on human cognition. We conclude that indoor CO2 levels may indeed reach levels harmful to cognition by the end of this century, and the best way to prevent this hidden consequence of climate change is to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Finally, we offer recommendations for a broad, interdisciplinary approach to improving such understanding and prediction. (with thanks to wuwt [LINK])
11. Trisos, Christopher H., Cory Merow, and Alex L. Pigot. “The projected timing of abrupt ecological disruption from climate change.” Nature (2020): 1-6.  As anthropogenic climate change continues the risks to biodiversity will increase over time, with future projections indicating that a potentially catastrophic loss of global biodiversity is on the horizon^1,2,3. However, our understanding of when and how abruptly this climate-driven disruption of biodiversity will occur is limited because biodiversity forecasts typically focus on individual snapshots of the future. Here we use annual projections (from 1850 to 2100) of temperature and precipitation across the ranges of more than 30,000 marine and terrestrial species to estimate the timing of their exposure to potentially dangerous climate conditions. We project that future disruption of ecological assemblages as a result of climate change will be abrupt, because within any given ecological assemblage the exposure of most species to climate conditions beyond their realized niche limits occurs almost simultaneously. Under a high-emissions scenario (representative concentration pathway (RCP) 8.5), such abrupt exposure events begin before 2030 in tropical oceans and spread to tropical forests and higher latitudes by 2050. If global warming is kept below 2 °C, less than 2% of assemblages globally are projected to undergo abrupt exposure events of more than 20% of their constituent species; however, the risk accelerates with the magnitude of warming, threatening 15% of assemblages at 4 °C, with similar levels of risk in protected and unprotected areas. These results highlight the impending risk of sudden and severe biodiversity losses from climate change and provide a framework for predicting both when and where these events may occur.

1. Javier Pérez-Tris, Javier de la Puente, César Rodríguez, Carolina Remacha. Climate change and maladaptive wing shortening in a long-distance migratory bird. The Auk, 2020; DOI: 10.1093/auk/ukaa012,   Abstract: Nightingales’ average wing length relative to their body size has decreased over the past two decades, becoming less optimal for migration. Shorter-winged birds were less likely to return to their breeding grounds after their first round-trip to Africa. But if this change in wing length is negatively affecting survival, what is driving it?The “migratory gene package” hypothesis predicts that a suite of adaptations related to migration — including a long wingspan as well as a higher resting metabolic rate, larger clutch size, and shorter lifespan — may all be controlled by a set of genes that are linked so that selective pressures on one trait also affect the others. In recent decades, the timing of spring has shifted in central Spain and summer droughts have become longer and more intense, leaving nightingales with a shorter window in which to raise their young. This means the most successful birds may be those that lay smaller clutches of eggs, giving them fewer young to care for. And if natural selection is favoring smaller clutches, it may simultaneously push nightingales away from all of the linked traits in the “migratory gene package.” Natural selection on clutch size that inadvertently leads to shorter wings and, therefore, reduced survival is an example of “maladaptation,” where organisms’ responses to changing conditions end up being harmful instead of helpful. There is much evidence that climate change is having an effect on migratory birds, changing their arrival and laying dates and their physical features over the last few decades. If we are to fully understand how bird populations adapt to new environments in order to help them tackle the challenges of a rapidly changing world, it is important to call attention to the potential problems of maladaptive change.
2. Wannes Hubau etal, Asynchronous carbon sink saturation in African and Amazonian tropical forests    Nature | Vol 579 | 5 March 2020: Structurally intact tropical forests sequestered about half of the global terrestrial carbon uptake over the 1990s and early 2000s, removing about 15 per cent of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Climate-driven vegetation models typically predict that this tropical forest ‘carbon sink’ will continue for decades. Here we assess trends in the carbon sink using 244 structurally intact African tropical forests spanning 11 countries, compare them with 321 published plots from Amazonia and investigate the underlying drivers of the trends. The carbon sink in live above-ground biomass in intact African tropical forests has been stable for the three decades to 2015, at 0.66 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year (95 per cent confidence interval 0.53–0.79), in contrast to the long-term decline in Amazonian forests. Therefore the carbon sink responses of Earth’s two largest expanses of tropical forest have diverged. The difference is largely driven by carbon losses from tree mortality, with no detectable multi-decadal trend in Africa and a long-term increase in Amazonia. Both continents show increasing tree growth, consistent with the expected net effect of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide and air temperature. Despite the past stability of the African carbon sink, our most intensively monitored plotssuggest a post-2010 increase in carbon losses, delayed compared to Amazonia, indicating asynchronous carbon sink saturation on the two continents. A statistical model including carbon dioxide, temperature, drought and forest dynamics accounts for the observed trends and indicates a long-term future decline in the African sink, whereas the Amazonian sink continues to weaken rapidly. Overall, the uptake of carbon into Earth’s intact tropical forests peaked in the 1990s. Given that the global terrestrial carbon sink is increasing in size, independent observations indicating greater recent carbon uptake into the Northern Hemisphere landmass reinforce our conclusion that the intact tropical forest carbon sink has already peaked. This saturation and ongoing decline of the tropical forest carbon sink has consequences for policies intended to stabilize Earth’s climate.  {SUMMARIZED IN THE MEDIA AS: “Tropical forests are taking up less carbon dioxide from the air, reducing their ability to act as “carbon sinks” and bringing closer the prospect of accelerating climate breakdown” even though that assessment was made in terms of of rising sequestration in the higher latitudes. The finding is essentially that the higher latitudes are stealing from the tropics therefore the tropics must have weakened}.
3. Michalis I. Vousdoukas, Roshanka Ranasinghe, Lorenzo Mentaschi, Theocharis A. Plomaritis, Panagiotis Athanasiou, Arjen Luijendijk. Luc Feyen, “Sandy Coastlines under threat of erosion”, Nature Climate Change, 2020. ABSTRACT: Sandy beaches occupy more than one-third of the global coastline1 and have high socioeconomic value related to recreation, tourism and ecosystem services2. Beaches are the interface between land and ocean, providing coastal protection from marine storms and cyclones3. However the presence of sandy beaches cannot be taken for granted, as they are under constant change, driven by meteorological4,5, geologi-cal6 and anthropogenic factors1,7. A substantial proportion of the world’s sandy coastline is already eroding1,7, a situation that could be exacerbated by climate change8,9. Here, we show that ambient trends in shoreline dynamics, combined with coastal recession driven by sea level rise, could result in the near extinction of almost half of the world’s sandy beaches by the end of the century. Moderate GHG emission mitigation could prevent 40% of shoreline retreat. Projected shoreline dynamics are dominated by sea level rise for the majority of sandy beaches, but in certain regions the erosive trend is counteracted by accretive ambient shoreline changes; for example, in the Amazon, East and Southeast Asia and the north tropical Pacific. A substantial proportion of the threatened sandy shorelines are in densely populated areas, underlining the need for the design and implementation of effective adaptive measures. The coastal zone is among the most developed areas worldwide, containing an abundance of developments, critical infrastructure10 and ecosystems2,3. As a result, population density tends to be higher near the coast11. Most projections indicate that current trends of coastward migration, urbanization and population growth will continue12,13. Of the different beach typologies found worldwide sandy beaches are the most heavily used14 and are among the most geomorphologically complex, with the shoreline (the mean water line along the coast) changing constantly under forcing–response interactions between natural and anthropogenic factors. The global mean sea level has been increasing at an accelerated rate during the past 25 years15 and will continue to do so with cli-mate change16,17. While shoreline change can be the combined result of a wide range of potentially erosive or accretive factors8, there is a clear cause and effect relationship between increasing sea levels and shoreline retreat18, pointing to increased coastal erosion issues9,19. Climate change will also affect waves and storm surges20,21, which are important drivers of coastal morphology4,5,22. Therefore, considering the dynamics of extreme weather patterns is also important in assessing potential climate change impacts beyond that of sea-level rise (SLR) alone. Here, we present a comprehensive global analysis of sandy shoreline dynamics during the twenty-first century. Our probabilistic projections explicitly take into account estimates of future SLR, spatial variations of coastal morphology, ambient shoreline change trends and future changes in meteorological drivers (storm surge and waves). We first evaluate long-term shoreline change dxshoreLT, which is the result of two components: the ambient shoreline change (AC) driven by geological, anthropogenic and other physical factors and the shoreline retreat due to SLR (R). We obtained AC by extrapolating observed historical trends within a probabilistic framework. We computed R by using a modified Bruun rule18 together with a new global dataset of active beach slopes. In addition to the long-term shoreline dynamics we also project how maximum erosion from coastal storms may change with climate change. Shoreline change projections are discussed for the years 2050 and 2100 under representative concentration pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5, relative to the baseline year 2010.Our analysis shows an overall erosive trend of sandy beaches that increases in time and with the intensity of GHG emissions. Assuming that there are no physical limits in potential coastal retreat, by mid-century we project a global average shoreline change ranging from –78.1 to –1.1 m and –98.1 to 0.3 m, under RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5. By the end of the century the erosive trend becomes even more dominant and we project a probable range from –164.2 to –14.8 m and –240 to –35.3 m under RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5, respectively. Moderate GHG emission mitigation could thus prevent 17% of the projected shoreline retreat by 2050 and 40% by the end of the century.
4. 23-JAN-2020: Global warming could have a negative impact on biodiversity generation processes. This is one of the conclusions of an international study focused on the causes of the evolutionary success of Carex, one of the genera of flowering plants with the highest number of species in the world

   UNIVERSIDAD PABLO DE OLAVIDE UPO:  ABSTRACT: In the current climate change scenario, an international team led by researchers from Pablo de Olavide University (UPO) and the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) has carried out research that suggests global warming could have a negative impact on the processes that generate biodiversity. This is one of the conclusions of a study, recently published in the international scientific Journal of Systematics and Evolution, that focuses on the causes of the evolutionary success of Carex, one of the worlds’ three largest genera of flowering plants. The results suggest that this success is linked to the relatively cold climate of the planet during the last 10 million years, which favoured the colonization of new territories and ecosystems. Carex is a group of herbs belonging to the sedge family (Cyperaceae), a family that includes well-known species as papyrus or tiger nut. More than 2000 Carex species are known throughout the world and inhabit a wide variety of ecosystems, from the poles to the tropics and from the coasts to the highest mountains, although always linked to areas with temperate and cold climates. In many regions, especially in the northern hemisphere, their species are part of certain types of dominant vegetation and play a fundamental ecological role in habitats as varied as tundra, grasslands, wetlands, peat bogs, river and lake borders, or forest understories. In addition, these plants are an important food source for numerous waterfowl and herbivorous mammals, and some of them exhibit medicinal or nutritional properties exploited by humans. The study was focused on the analysis of the causes for the enormous diversity of Carex species, concluding that climate cooling was a key factor behind their speciation. “The study is the first to deal with global distribution patterns and diversification of a megadiverse genus of plants and suggests that not only is climate warming causing the extinction of species, but also could negatively affect the processes that generate them,” says Santiago Martín-Bravo, researcher at UPO’s Botany Area and one of the study’s main co-authors. In this study genetic and fossil information was combined to unravel the causes of Carex global diversification. The work shows that this genus originated in Asia, from where it has been able to colonize regions around the world and remarkably different ecological niches. During this process, Carex has been clearly favoured by the cold global climate sustained for the past 10 million years. This is evidenced by the concurrence of regional cooling events such as the freezing of Antarctica or Pleistocene glaciations and the massive appearance of Carex species in regions affected by these climatic changes, e.g. North America or New Zealand. The conclusions of this work are of broad general interest to understand how, when and why species are generated, as well as the causes of their uneven distribution, and especially the role of the global climate as a driver of the genesis of biodiversity. “These questions are particularly significant in the current context of climate crisis and mass extinction of species, which emphasizes the need to know and understand how nature responds to the climate if we are to preserve and manage it in a sustainable way,” argues Pedro Jiménez-Mejías, researcher of UAM’s Botany Area and another of the main co-authors of the work. The study featured on the cover of November issue of the international scientific journal Journal of Systematics and Evolution. It represents the culmination of more than a decade’s work initiated with Jiménez-Mejías’ postdoctoral project, developed in the United States, and has enabled international collaboration between a group of evolutionary biologists and botanists from institutions in ten countries, among which Spain (with researchers from the universities Pablo de Olavide, Autonomous of Madrid and Seville, as well as the Royal Botanic Gardens in Madrid) and the United States stand out.

5. Parks, R.M., Bennett, J.E., Tamura-Wicks, H. et al. Anomalously warm temperatures are associated with increased injury deaths. Nat Med 26, 65–70 (2020) doi:10.1038/s41591-019-0721-y  ABSTRACT: Temperatures that deviate from the long-term local norm affect human health, and are projected to become more frequent as the global climate changes¹. There are limited data on how such anomalies affect deaths from injuries. In the present study, we used data on mortality and temperature over 38 years (1980–2017) in the contiguous USA and formulated a Bayesian spatio-temporal model to quantify how anomalous temperatures, defined as deviations of monthly temperature from the local average monthly temperature over the entire analysis period, affect deaths from unintentional (transport, falls and drownings) and intentional (assault and suicide) injuries, by age group and sex. We found that a 1.5 °C anomalously warm year, as envisioned under the Paris Climate Agreement², would be associated with an estimated 1,601 (95% credible interval 1,430–1,776) additional injury deaths. Of these additional deaths, 84% would occur in males, mostly in adolescence to middle age. These would comprise increases in deaths from drownings, transport, assault and suicide, offset partly by a decline in deaths from falls in older ages. The findings demonstrate the need for targeted interventions against injuries during periods of anomalously warm temperatures, especially as these episodes are likely to increase with global climate change.
6. Mozell, Michelle Renée, and Liz Thach. “The impact of climate change on the global wine industry: Challenges & solutions.” Wine Economics and Policy 3.2 (2014): 81-89. This paper explores the impact of climate change upon the global production of winegrapes and wine. It includes a review of the literature on the cause and effects of climate change, as well as illustrations of the specific challenges global warming may bring to the production of winegrapes and wine. More importantly, this paper provides some practical solutions that industry professionals can take to mitigate and adapt to the coming change in both vineyards and wineries.  (with thanks to Anthony Watts of wuwt).
7. Bin, Okmyung, et al. “Viewscapes and flood hazard: Coastal housing market response to amenities and risk.” Land economics 84.3 (2008): 434-448.  Coastal amenities and risk are so highly correlated that separate identification within the hedonic framework is potentially challenging. In this study, we construct a three-dimensional measure of ocean view, viewscape, accounting for natural topography and built obstruction that varies independent of risk classification to disentangle these spatially integrated housing characteristics. A spatial autoregressive hedonic model is developed to provide consistent estimates of the willingness to pay for coastal amenities and risk. Our findings suggest that incorporating the GIS-based view measures can be successful in isolating risk factors from spatial amenities. (JEL Q24, Q26)
8. Betts, Richard A., et al. “Projected increase in continental runoff due to plant responses to increasing carbon dioxide.” Nature 448.7157 (2007): 1037.  In addition to influencing climatic conditions directly through radiative forcing, increasing carbon dioxide concentration influences the climate system through its effects on plant physiology¹. Plant stomata generally open less widely under increased carbon dioxide concentration², which reduces transpiration^1,3,4,5,6 and thus leaves more water at the land surface⁷. This driver of change in the climate system, which we term ‘physiological forcing’, has been detected in observational records of increasing average continental runoff over the twentieth century⁸. Here we use an ensemble of experiments with a global climate model that includes a vegetation component to assess the contribution of physiological forcing to future changes in continental runoff, in the context of uncertainties in future precipitation. We find that the physiological effect of doubled carbon dioxide concentrations on plant transpiration increases simulated global mean runoff by 6 per cent relative to pre-industrial levels; an increase that is comparable to that simulated in response to radiatively forced climate change (11 ± 6 per cent). Assessments of the effect of increasing carbon dioxide concentrations on the hydrological cycle that only consider radiative forcing^9,10,11 will therefore tend to underestimate future increases in runoff and overestimate decreases. This suggests that freshwater resources may be less limited than previously assumed under scenarios of future global warming, although there is still an increased risk of drought. Moreover, our results highlight that the practice of assessing the climate-forcing potential of all greenhouse gases in terms of their radiative forcing potential relative to carbon dioxide does not accurately reflect the relative effects of different greenhouse gases on freshwater resources. [TRANSLATION: WE HAVE NO DATA BECAUSE WE DID NOT TAKE ANY DATA, NEITHER ARE WE BOTANISTS, BIOLOGISTS, OR HYDROLOGISTS; BUT WE KNOW HOW TO RUN CLIMATE MODELS. VOILA!]
9. Yann Chavaillaz, Philippe Roy, Antti-Ilari Partanen, Laurent Da Silva, Émilie Bresson, Nadine Mengis, Diane Chaumont & H. Damon Matthews Exposure to excessive heat and impacts on labour productivity linked to cumulative CO2 emissions, Nature Scientific Reports volume 9, Article number: 13711 (2019): Cumulative CO2 emissions are a robust predictor of mean temperature increase. However, many societal impacts are driven by exposure to extreme weather conditions. Here, we show that cumulative emissions can be robustly linked to regional changes of a heat exposure indicator, as well as the resulting socioeconomic impacts associated with labour productivity loss in vulnerable economic sectors. We estimate historical and future increases in heat exposure using simulations from eight Earth System Models. Both the global intensity and spatial pattern of heat exposure evolve linearly with cumulative emissions across scenarios (1% CO2, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). The pattern of heat exposure at a given level of global temperature increase is strongly affected by non-CO2 forcing. Global non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions amplify heat exposure, while high local emissions of aerosols could moderate exposure. Considering CO2 forcing only, we commit ourselves to an additional annual loss of labour productivity of about 2% of total GDP per unit of trillion tonne of carbon emitted. This loss doubles when adding non-CO2 forcing of the RCP8.5 scenario. This represents an additional economic loss of about 4,400 G$ every year (i.e. 0.59 $/tCO2), varying across countries with generally higher impact in lower-income countries. {RELATED POST:  [LINK]
10. Cocolas, Nicole, Gabrielle Walters, and Lisa Ruhanen. “Behavioural adaptation to climate change among winter alpine tourists: An analysis of tourist motivations and leisure substitutability.” Journal of Sustainable Tourism 24.6 (2016): 846-865.  Understanding market responses to climate change impacts has important implications for the sustainability of Australia’s winter tourism destinations. Utilising a framework incorporating push–pull tourist motivations and the theory of leisure substitutability, this study sought to explore how winter tourists in Australia will adapt to changes in snow cover in Australia’s alpine regions under future climate change scenarios. The results of a questionnaire completed by 231 respondents indicated that tourist motivations were related to behavioural adaptation, and that there is a general preference among the current winter market for spatial substitution in the event of poor snow. Those motivated by recreation specialisation or snow-related attributes were likely to opt for spatial substitution, while tourists motivated by self-expression and après ski activities displayed resilience to poor snow conditions. The results demonstrate a clear division between leisure-driven tourists who valued participation in sport, and experience-driven tourists, who displayed higher resilience to reduced snow under projected climate change scenarios. These results have practical implications for winter tourism destinations, both in terms of targeting experience-driven tourists in the case of reduced snow as well as the longer term sustainability and viability of winter tourism destinations.
11. Neumann, James E., et al. “Climate change risks to US infrastructure: impacts on roads, bridges, coastal development, and urban drainage.” Climatic Change 131.1 (2015): 97-109.  Changes in temperature, precipitation, sea level, and coastal storms will likely increase the vulnerability of infrastructure across the United States. Using four models that analyze vulnerability, impacts, and adaptation, this paper estimates impacts to roads, bridges, coastal properties, and urban drainage infrastructure and investigates sensitivity to varying greenhouse gas emission scenarios, climate sensitivities, and global climate models. The results suggest that the impacts of climate change in this sector could be large, especially in the second half of the 21st century as sea-level rises, temperature increases, and precipitation patterns become more extreme and affect the sustainability of long-lived infrastructure. Further, when considering sea-level rise, scenarios which incorporate dynamic ice sheet melting yield impact model results in coastal areas that are roughly 70 to 80 % higher than results that do not incorporate dynamic ice sheet melting. The potential for substantial economic impacts across all infrastructure sectors modeled, however, can be reduced by cost-effective adaptation measures. Mitigation policies also show potential to reduce impacts in the infrastructure sector – a more aggressive mitigation policy reduces impacts by 25 to 35 %, and a somewhat less aggressive policy reduces impacts by 19 to 30 %. The existing suite of models suitable for estimating these damages nonetheless covers only a small portion of expected infrastructure sector effects from climate change, so much work remains to better understand impacts on electric and telecommunications networks, rail, and air transportation systems. In addition, the effects of climate-induced extreme events are likely to be important, but are incompletely understood and remain an emerging area for research.
12. Stewart, Mark G., Xiaoming Wang, and Minh N. Nguyen. “Climate change impact and risks of concrete infrastructure deterioration.” Engineering Structures 33.4 (2011): 1326-1337.  Atmospheric CO₂ is a major cause of reinforcement corrosion in bridges, buildings, wharves, and other concrete infrastructure in Australia, United States, United Kingdom and most other countries. The increase in CO₂ levels associated with global warming will increase the likelihood of carbonation-induced corrosion. Moreover, temperature rises will increase corrosion rates. Clearly, the impact of climate change on existing and new infrastructure is considerable, as corrosion damage is disruptive to society and costly to repair. The paper describes a probabilistic and reliability-based approach that predicts the probability of corrosion initiation and damage (severe cracking) for concrete infrastructure subjected to carbonation and chloride-induced corrosion resulting from elevated CO₂ levels and temperatures. The atmospheric CO₂ concentration and local temperature and relative humidity changes with time over the next 100 years in the Australian cities of Sydney and Darwin are projected based on nine General Circulation Models (GCMs) under (i) high CO₂ emission scenario, (ii) medium CO₂ emission scenario, and (iii) CO₂ emission reduction scenario based on policy intervention. The probabilistic analysis included the uncertainty of CO₂ concentration, deterioration processes, material properties, dimensions, and predictive models. It was found that carbonation-induced damage risks can increase by over 400% over a time period to 2100 for some regions in Australia. Damage risks for chloride-induced corrosion increase by no more than 15% over the same time period due to temperature increase, but without consideration of ocean acidity change in marine exposure. Corrosion loss of reinforcement is not significant. The results were most sensitive to increases in atmospheric CO₂.
13. Jaroszweski, David, Lee Chapman, and Judith Petts. “Assessing the potential impact of climate change on transportation: the need for an interdisciplinary approach.” Journal of Transport Geography 18.2 (2010).  The assessment of climate change impact is a fundamental step in highlighting the likely costs of inaction on mitigation policies and providing a guide of how to adapt to the potential impacts. This paper highlights the need to use an interdisciplinary approach to climate change impact assessment. This approach would take into account both climate and socioeconomic scenarios. It would also be mindful that the even the hard infrastructure may change dramatically in a sector as complex and reactive as transportation. In assessing climate change impact, it may be necessary to repeat the analysis for a number of scenarios in order to address this uncertainty.
14. Rosenberg, Eric A., et al. “Precipitation extremes and the impacts of climate change on stormwater infrastructure in Washington State.” Climatic Change 102.1-2 (2010): 319-349.  The design of stormwater infrastructure is based on an underlying assumption that the probability distribution of precipitation extremes is statistically stationary. This assumption is called into question by climate change, resulting in uncertainty about the future performance of systems constructed under this paradigm. We therefore examined both historical precipitation records and simulations of future rainfall to evaluate past and prospective changes in the probability distributions of precipitation extremes across Washington State. Our historical analyses were based on hourly precipitation records for the time period 1949–2007 from weather stations in and near the state’s three major metropolitan areas: the Puget Sound region, Vancouver (WA), and Spokane. Changes in future precipitation were evaluated using two runs of the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) regional climate model (RCM) for the time periods 1970–2000 and 2020–2050, dynamically downscaled from the ECHAM5 and CCSM3 global climate models. Bias-corrected and statistically downscaled hourly precipitation sequences were then used as input to the HSPF hydrologic model to simulate streamflow in two urban watersheds in central Puget Sound. Few statistically significant changes were observed in the historical records, with the possible exception of the Puget Sound region. Although RCM simulations generally predict increases in extreme rainfall magnitudes, the range of these projections is too large at present to provide a basis for engineering design, and can only be narrowed through consideration of a larger sample of simulated climate data. Nonetheless, the evidence suggests that drainage infrastructure designed using mid-20th century rainfall records may be subject to a future rainfall regime that differs from current design standards.
15. Roson, Roberto, and Dominique Van der Mensbrugghe. “Climate change and economic growth: impacts and interactions.” University Ca’Foscari of Venice, Dept. of Economics Research Paper Series 07_10 (2010).  An integrated assessment model (ENVISAGE), including a CGE-based economic module and a climate module, is used to assess the effects of a variety of economic impacts induced by climate change. These impacts include: sea level rise, variations in crop yields, water availability, human health, tourism, energy demand. Two scenarios are compared: a baseline growth path, disregarding any climate change effect, and a counterfactual case, accounting for the impacts. The model assesses the overall magnitude of the impacts, their regional distribution, and the contribution of each specific impact to the overall variation of income and welfare. Results (e.g., on real GDP) show that climate change impacts are substantial, especially for developing countries and in the long run.
16. Kjellstrom, Tord, Ingvar Holmer, and Bruno Lemke. “Workplace heat stress, health and productivity–an increasing challenge for low and middle-income countries during climate change.” Global health action 2.1 (2009): In countries with very hot seasons, workers are already affected by working environments hotter than that with which human physiological mechanisms can cope. To protect workers from excessive heat, a number of heat exposure indices have been developed. One that is commonly used in occupational health is the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT). We use WBGT to illustrate assessing the proportion of a working hour during which a worker can sustain work and the proportion of that same working hour that (s)he needs to rest to cool the body down and maintain core body temperature below 38°C. Using this proportion a ‘work capacity’ estimate was calculated for selected heat exposure levels and work intensity levels. The work capacity rapidly reduces as the WBGT exceeds 26–30°C and this can be used to estimate the impact of increasing heat exposure as a result of climate change in tropical countries. One result of climate change is a reduced work capacity in heat-exposed jobs and greater difficulty in achieving economic and social development in the countries affected by this somewhat neglected impact of climate change.
17. Kjellstrom, Tord, et al. “The direct impact of climate change on regional labor productivity.” Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health 64.4 (2009): 217-227.  Global climate change will increase outdoor and indoor heat loads, and may impair health and productivity for millions of working people. This study applies physiological evidence about effects of heat, climate guidelines for safe work environments, climate modeling, and global distributions of working populations to estimate the impact of 2 climate scenarios on future labor productivity. In most regions, climate change will decrease labor productivity, under the simple assumption of no specific adaptation. By the 2080s, the greatest absolute losses of population-based labor work capacity (in the range 11% to 27%) are seen under the A2 scenario in Southeast Asia, Andean and Central America, and the Caribbean. Increased occupational heat exposure due to climate change may significantly impact on labor productivity and costs unless preventive measures are implemented. Workers may need to work longer hours, or more workers may be required, to achieve the same output and there will be economic costs of lost production and/or occupational health interventions against heat exposures.
18. Larsen, Peter H., et al. “Estimating future costs for Alaska public infrastructure at risk from climate change.” Global Environmental Change 18.3 (2008): 442-457.  This analysis reports on the projected cost of Alaska’s public infrastructure at risk from rapid climate change. Specifically, we coupled projections of future climate with engineering rules of thumb to estimate how thawing permafrost, increased flooding, and increased coastal erosion affect annualized replacement costs for nearly 16,000 structures. We conclude that climate change could add $3.6–$6.1 billion (+10% to +20% above normal wear and tear) to future costs for public infrastructure from now to 2030 and $5.6–$7.6 billion (+10% to +12%) from now to 2080. These estimates take into account different possible levels of climate change and assume agencies strategically adapt infrastructure to changing conditions. In addition to implementing a risk-based economic analysis of climate change impacts, this research effort demonstrates that implementing plausible adaptation strategies could offset impacts by up to 45% over the long-run.
19. Hübler, Michael, Gernot Klepper, and Sonja Peterson. “Costs of climate change: the effects of rising temperatures on health and productivity in Germany.” Ecological Economics 68.1-2 (2008): 381-393.  The aim of the study is to quantify climate induced health risks for Germany. Based on high resolution climate scenarios for the period 2071 to 2100 we forecast the number of days with heat load and cold stress. The heat frequency and intensity rise overall but more in the south. Referring to empirical studies on heat induced health effects we estimate an average increase in the number of heat induced casualties by a factor of more than 3. Heat related hospitalization costs increase 6-fold not including the cost of ambulant treatment. Heat also reduces the work performance resulting in an estimated output loss of between 0.1% and 0.5% of GDP.
20. Savonis, Michael, Virginia R. Burkett, and Joanne R. Potter. “Impacts of climate change and variability on transportation systems and infrastructure: Gulf Coast study, phase I.” (2008).  Climate affects the design, construction, safety, operations, and maintenance of transportation. infrastructure and systems. The prospect of a changing climate raises critical questions regarding how alterations in temperature, precipitation, storm events, and other aspects of the climate could affect the nation’s roads, airports, rail, transit systems, pipelines, ports, and waterways. Phase I of this regional assessment of climate change and its potential impacts on transportation systems addresses these questions for the region of the U.S. central
    Gulf Coast between Galveston, Texas and Mobile, Alabama. This region contains multimodal transportation infrastructure that is critical to regional and national transportation services. This report presents the findings of the first phase of a three phase research effort. The ultimate goal of this research is to provide knowledge and tools that will enable transportation planners and managers to better understand the risks, adaptation strategies, and tradeoffs involved in planning, investment, design, and operational decisions. The objective of Phase I was to conduct a preliminary assessment of the risks and vulnerabilities of transportation in the region, after collecting and integrating the range of data needed to characterize the region – its physiography and hydrology, land use and land cover, past and projected climate, current population and trends, and transportation infrastructure. Subsequent phases will conduct more detailed analyses. Phase II will conduct an in-depth assessment of risks to transportation in a selected location, reporting on implications for long-range plans and impacts on safety, operations, and maintenance. This phase will also develop a risk assessment methodology and identify techniques to incorporate environmental and climate data in transportation decisions. Phase III will identify and analyze adaptation and response strategies and develop tools to assess these strategies, while enumerating future research needs.
21. 2008: Willis, Charles G., et al. “Phylogenetic patterns of species loss in Thoreau’s woods are driven by climate change.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105.44 (2008): 17029-17033. Climate change has led to major changes in the phenology (the timing of seasonal activities, such as flowering) of some species but not others. The extent to which flowering-time response to temperature is shared among closely related species might have important consequences for community-wide patterns of species loss under rapid climate change. Henry David Thoreau initiated a dataset of the Concord, Massachusetts, flora that spans ≈150 years and provides information on changes in species abundance and flowering time. When these data are analyzed in a phylogenetic context, they indicate that change in abundance is strongly correlated with flowering-time response. Species that do not respond to temperature have decreased greatly in abundance, and include among others anemones and buttercups [Ranunculaceae pro parte (p.p.)], asters and campanulas (Asterales), bluets (Rubiaceae p.p.), bladderworts (Lentibulariaceae), dogwoods (Cornaceae), lilies (Liliales), mints (Lamiaceae p.p.), orchids (Orchidaceae), roses (Rosaceae p.p.), saxifrages (Saxifragales), and violets (Malpighiales). Because flowering-time response traits are shared among closely related species, our findings suggest that climate change has affected and will likely continue to shape the phylogenetically biased pattern of species loss in Thoreau’s woods.
22. Frumhoff, Peter C., et al. “Confronting climate change in the US Northeast: Science, impacts, and solutions.” Confronting climate change in the US Northeast: science, impacts, and solutions. (2007).  This book contains eight chapters focusing on the impacts of two very different future US Northeast climates (under the higher- and lower-emission scenarios) on vital aspects of the region’s life and economy: coastal areas, marine fisheries, forests, agriculture, winter recreation, and human health. Also discussed are the actions that can be taken today in the Northeast to reduce emissions and help avoid the most severe impacts of global warming and to adapt to the unavoidable changes that past emissions have already set in motion.
23. Gill, Susannah E., et al. “Adapting cities for climate change: the role of the green infrastructure.” Built environment 33.1 (2007): 115-133.  The urban environment has distinctive biophysical features in relation to surrounding rural areas. These include an altered energy exchange creating an urban heat island, and changes to hydrology such as increased surface runoff of rainwater. Such changes are, in part, a result of the altered surface cover of the urban area. For example less vegetated surfaces lead to a decrease in evaporative cooling, whilst an increase in surface sealing results in increased surface runoff. Climate change will amplify these distinctive features. This paper explores the important role that the green infrastructure, i.e. the greenspace network, of a city can play in adapting for climate change. It uses the conurbation of Greater Manchester as a case study site. The paper presents output from energy exchange and hydrological models showing surface temperature and surface runoff in relation to the green infrastructure under current and future climate scenarios. The implications for an adaptation strategy to climate change in the urban environment are discussed.
24. Patz, Jonathan A., et al. “Impact of regional climate change on human health.” Nature 438.7066 (2005): 310.  The World Health Organisation estimates that the warming and precipitation trends due to anthropogenic climate change of the past 30 years already claim over 150,000 lives annually. Many prevalent human diseases are linked to climate fluctuations, from cardiovascular mortality and respiratory illnesses due to heatwaves, to altered transmission of infectious diseases and malnutrition from crop failures. Uncertainty remains in attributing the expansion or resurgence of diseases to climate change, owing to lack of long-term, high-quality data sets as well as the large influence of socio-economic factors and changes in immunity and drug resistance. Here we review the growing evidence that climate–health relationships pose increasing health risks under future projections of climate change and that the warming trend over recent decades has already contributed to increased morbidity and mortality in many regions of the world. Potentially vulnerable regions include the temperate latitudes, which are projected to warm disproportionately, the regions around the Pacific and Indian oceans that are currently subjected to large rainfall variability due to the El Niño/Southern Oscillation sub-Saharan Africa and sprawling cities where the urban heat island effect could intensify extreme climatic events.
25. 2002: Walther, Gian-Reto, et al. “Ecological responses to recent climate change.” Nature 416.6879 (2002): 389.  There is now ample evidence of the ecological impacts of recent climate change, from polar terrestrial to tropical marine environments. The responses of both flora and fauna span an array of ecosystems and organizational hierarchies, from the species to the community levels. Despite continued uncertainty as to community and ecosystem trajectories under global change, our review exposes a coherent pattern of ecological change across systems. Although we are only at an early stage in the projected trends of global warming, ecological responses to recent climate change are already clearly visible.
26. 2002: Stachowicz, John J., et al. “Linking climate change and biological invasions: ocean warming facilitates nonindigenous species invasions.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99.24 (2002): 15497-15500.  The spread of exotic species and climate change are among the most serious global environmental threats. Each independently causes considerable ecological damage, yet few data are available to assess whether changing climate might facilitate invasions by favoring introduced over native species. Here, we compare our long-term record of weekly sessile marine invertebrate recruitment with interannual variation in water temperature to assess the likely effect of climate change on the success and spread of introduced species. For the three most abundant introduced species of ascidian (sea squirt), the timing of the initiation of recruitment was strongly negatively correlated with winter water temperature, indicating that invaders arrived earlier in the season in years with warmer winters. Total recruitment of introduced species during the following summer also was positively correlated with winter water temperature. In contrast, the magnitude of native ascidian recruitment was negatively correlated with winter temperature (more recruitment in colder years) and the timing of native recruitment was unaffected. In manipulative laboratory experiments, two introduced compound ascidians grew faster than a native species, but only at temperatures near the maximum observed in summer. These data suggest that the greatest effects of climate change on biotic communities may be due to changing maximum and minimum temperatures rather than annual means. By giving introduced species an earlier start, and increasing the magnitude of their growth and recruitment relative to natives, global warming may facilitate a shift to dominance by nonnative species, accelerating the homogenization of the global biota.
27. Hughes, Terry P., et al. “Climate change, human impacts, and the resilience of coral reefs.” science 301.5635 (2003): 929-933.  The diversity, frequency, and scale of human impacts on coral reefs are increasing to the extent that reefs are threatened globally. Projected increases in carbon dioxide and temperature over the next 50 years exceed the conditions under which coral reefs have flourished over the past half-million years. However, reefs will change rather than disappear entirely, with some species already showing far greater tolerance to climate change and coral bleaching than others. International integration of management strategies that support reef resilience need to be vigorously implemented, and complemented by strong policy decisions to reduce the rate of global warming.
28. 2003: Parmesan, Camille, and Gary Yohe. “A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems.” Nature 421.6918 (2003): 37.  Causal attribution of recent biological trends to climate change is complicated because non-climatic influences dominate local, short-term biological changes. Any underlying signal from climate change is likely to be revealed by analyses that seek systematic trends across diverse species and geographic regions; however, debates within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reveal several definitions of a ‘systematic trend’. Here, we explore these differences, apply diverse analyses to more than 1,700 species, and show that recent biological trends match climate change predictions. Global meta-analyses documented significant range shifts averaging 6.1 km per decade towards the poles (or metres per decade upward), and significant mean advancement of spring events by 2.3 days per decade. We define a diagnostic fingerprint of temporal and spatial ‘sign-switching’ responses uniquely predicted by twentieth century climate trends. Among appropriate long-term/large-scale/multi-species data sets, this diagnostic fingerprint was found for 279 species. This suite of analyses generates ‘very high confidence’ (as laid down by the IPCC) that climate change is already affecting living systems.
29. 2003: Pearson, Richard G., and Terence P. Dawson. “Predicting the impacts of climate change on the distribution of species: are bioclimate envelope models useful?.” Global ecology and biogeography 12.5 (2003): 361-371. Modelling strategies for predicting the potential impacts of climate change on the natural distribution of species have often focused on the characterization of a species’ bioclimate envelope. A number of recent critiques have questioned the validity of this approach by pointing to the many factors other than climate that play an important part in determining species distributions and the dynamics of distribution changes. Such factors include biotic interactions, evolutionary change and dispersal ability. This paper reviews and evaluates criticisms of bioclimate envelope models and discusses the implications of these criticisms for the different modelling strategies employed. It is proposed that, although the complexity of the natural system presents fundamental limits to predictive modelling, the bioclimate envelope approach can provide a useful first approximation as to the potentially dramatic impact of climate change on biodiversity. However, it is stressed that the spatial scale at which these models are applied is of fundamental importance, and that model results should not be interpreted without due consideration of the limitations involved. A hierarchical modelling framework is proposed through which some of these limitations can be addressed within a broader, scale‐dependent context.
30. Lewsey, Clement, Gonzalo Cid, and Edward Kruse. “Assessing climate change impacts on coastal infrastructure in the Eastern Caribbean.” Marine Policy 28.5 (2004): 393-409. Expected effects of changes in global climate include warmer temperatures, rising sea levels, and potentially more frequent and severe extreme weather events such as hurricanes and tropical storms. Low-lying states in the Caribbean are especially vulnerable to these effects, posing significant risks to public safety and natural resources. This paper highlights expected trends in the Eastern Caribbean and examines the impacts of urbanization and supporting infrastructure, siting of major structures in high-hazard areas, and negative land-use practices on fragile coastal ecosystems. It focuses on the need to reduce the vulnerability of coastal infrastructure and land uses, arguing for effective linkages between climate change issues and development planning. The paper also provides general recommendations and identifies challenges for the incorporation of climate change impacts and risk assessment into long-term land-use national development plans and strategies.
31. 2004: Zavaleta, Erika S., and Kristin B. Hulvey. “Realistic species losses disproportionately reduce grassland resistance to biological invaders.” Science 306.5699 (2004): 1175-1177. Consequences of progressive biodiversity declines depend on the functional roles of individual species and the order in which species are lost. Most studies of the biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relation tackle only the first of these factors. We used observed variation in grassland diversity to design an experimental test of how realistic species losses affect invasion resistance. Because entire plant functional groups disappeared faster than expected by chance, resistance declined dramatically with progressive species losses. Realistic biodiversity losses, even of rare species, can thus affect ecosystem processes far more than indicated by randomized-loss experiments.
32. 2012: Bellard, Céline, et al. “Impacts of climate change on the future of biodiversity.” Ecology letters 15.4 (2012): 365-377. Many studies in recent years have investigated the effects of climate change on the future of biodiversity. In this review, we first examine the different possible effects of climate change that can operate at individual, population, species, community, ecosystem and biome scales, notably showing that species can respond to climate change challenges by shifting their climatic niche along three non‐exclusive axes: time (e.g. phenology), space (e.g. range) and self (e.g. physiology). Then, we present the principal specificities and caveats of the most common approaches used to estimate future biodiversity at global and sub‐continental scales and we synthesise their results. Finally, we highlight several challenges for future research both in theoretical and applied realms. Overall, our review shows that current estimates are very variable, depending on the method, taxonomic group, biodiversity loss metrics, spatial scales and time periods considered. Yet, the majority of models indicate alarming consequences for biodiversity, with the worst‐case scenarios leading to extinction rates that would qualify as the sixth mass extinction in the history of the earth.
33. 2018: Cianfrani, C., et al. “More than range exposure: Global otter vulnerability to climate change.” Biological Conservation 221 (2018): 103-113.  Climate change impact on species is commonly assessed by predicting species’ range change, a measure of a species’ extrinsic exposure. However, this is only one dimension of species’ vulnerability to climate change. Spatial arrangement of suitable habitats (e.g., fragmentation), their degree of protection or human disturbance, as well as species’ intrinsic sensitivity, such as climatic tolerances, are often neglected. Here, we consider components of species’ intrinsic sensitivity to climate change (climatic niche specialization and marginality) together with components of extrinsic exposure (changes in range extent, fragmentation, coverage of protected areas, and human footprint) to develop an integrated vulnerability index to climate change for world’s freshwater otters. As top freshwater predators, otters are among the most vulnerable mammals, with most species being threatened by habitat loss and degradation. All dimensions of climate change exposure were based on present and future predictions of species distributions. Annual mean temperature, mean diurnal temperature range, mean temperature of the wettest quarter, precipitation during the wettest quarter, and precipitation seasonality prove the most important variables for otters. All species are vulnerable to climate change, with global vulnerability index ranging from −0.19 for Lontra longicaudis to −36,9 for Aonyx congicus. However, we found that, for a given species, climate change can have both positive and negative effects on different components of extrinsic exposure, and that measures of species’ sensitivity are not necessarily congruent with measures of exposure. For instance, the range of all African species would be negatively affected by climate change, but their different sensitivity offers a more (Hydrictis maculicollis, Aonyx capensis) or less (Aonyx congicus) pessimistic perspective on their ability to cope with climate change. Also, highly sensitive species like the South-American Pteronura brasiliensis, Lontra provocax, and Lutra perspicillata might face no exposure to climate change. For the AsianLutra sumatrana, climate change would instead lead to an increased, less fragmented, and more protected range extent, but the range extent would also be shifted into areas with higher human disturbances. Our study represents a balanced example of how to develop an index aimed at comparatively evaluating vulnerability to climate change of different species by combining different aspects of sensitivity and exposure, providing additional information on which to base more efficient conservation strategies.
34. 2018: Xu, Chenchen, Wenxiang Wu, and Quansheng Ge. “Impact assessment of climate change on rice yields using the ORYZA model in the Sichuan Basin, China.” International Journal of Climatology 38.7 (2018): 2922-2939.Understanding how different climate factors interact and impact rice yield is essential for effective agricultural management strategies and policies. However, the potential impacts are less clear at the regional scale. In this work, we used the latest version of the ORYZA crop model to evaluate the impacts of climate change and carbon dioxide (CO₂) on rice yields in the Sichuan Basin of China based on high‐quality agricultural experimental, meteorological and soil data and the incorporation of future climate data generated by five general circulation models (GCMs) under three newly released representative concentration pathway (RCP) 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios. Considering climate change alone, our modelling results indicated a continuing rice reduction for most stations by 2–17, 4–28 and 1–43% under the RCP2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios, respectively; when considering the CO₂ fertilizer effect, rice yields increased by 3–10, 4–13 and 5–20% under the RCP2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios, respectively. However, for most stations, the CO₂ fertilizer effect could not completely offset the negative impacts of climate change on rice yields. In addition, temperature and radiation were the main climate factors that cause yield variation by affecting the rice maturity periods (DAE), spikelet fertility factor (SPFERT) and spikelet number (NSP). The uncertainty arising from the climate models was less than 10% under the RCP2.6 scenario, 15% under the RCP4.5 scenario and 20% under the RCP8.5 scenario, indicating good consistency in rice yield simulations. These findings offer insight into the physiological mechanisms and the degree of climate change impacts on rice yields, thus informing appropriate adaptive strategies for rice planting in the Sichuan Basin, China.
35. 2018: Goldsmit, Jesica, et al. “Projecting present and future habitat suitability of ship-mediated aquatic invasive species in the Canadian Arctic.” Biological Invasions 20.2 (2018): 501-517. A rise in Arctic shipping activity resulting from global warming and resource exploitation is expected to increase the likelihood of aquatic invasive species (AIS) introductions in the region. In this context, the potential threat of future AIS incursions at a Canadian Arctic regional scale was examined. Habitat suitability under current environmental conditions and future climate change scenarios was projected for a subset of eight potential invaders ranked as having a high risk of establishment in the Canadian Arctic based on dispersal pathways/donor regions, biological attributes and invasion history: (1) Amphibalanus improvisus, (2) Botrylloides violaceus, (3) Caprella mutica, (4) Carcinus maenas, (5) Littorina littorea, (6) Membranipora membranacea, (7) Mya arenaria and (8) Paralithodes camtschaticus. Habitat modelling was performed using MaxEnt based on globally known native and non-native occurrence records and environmental ranges for these species. Results showed that under current environmental conditions the habitat is suitable in certain regions of the Canadian Arctic such as the Hudson Complex and Beaufort Sea for L. littorea, M. arenaria and P. camtschaticus. Under a future climate change scenario, all species showed poleward gains in habitat suitability with at least some regions of the Canadian Arctic projected to be suitable for the complete suite of species modelled. The use of these models is helpful in understanding potential future AIS incursions as a result of climate change and shipping at large spatial scales. These approaches can aid in the identification of high risk regions and species to allow for more focused AIS monitoring and research efforts in response to climate change.
36. 2018: Lord, Jennifer S., et al. “Climate change and African trypanosomiasis vector populations in Zimbabwe’s Zambezi Valley: A mathematical modelling study.” PLoS medicine 15.10 (2018): e1002675. Quantifying the effects of climate change on the entomological and epidemiological components of vector-borne diseases is an essential part of climate change research, but evidence for such effects remains scant, and predictions rely largely on extrapolation of statistical correlations. We aimed to develop a mechanistic model to test whether recent increases in temperature in the Mana Pools National Park of the Zambezi Valley of Zimbabwe could account for the simultaneous decline of tsetse flies, the vectors of human and animal trypanosomiasis. The model we developed incorporates the effects of temperature on mortality, larviposition, and emergence rates and is fitted to a 27-year time series of tsetse caught from cattle. These catches declined from an average of c. 50 flies per animal per afternoon in 1990 to c. 0.1 in 2017. Since 1975, mean daily temperatures have risen by c. 0.9°C and temperatures in the hottest month of November by c. 2°C. Although our model provided a good fit to the data, it cannot predict whether or when extinction will occur. The model suggests that the increase in temperature may explain the observed collapse in tsetse abundance and provides a first step in linking temperature to trypanosomiasis risk. If the effect at Mana Pools extends across the whole of the Zambezi Valley, then transmission of trypanosomes is likely to have been greatly reduced in this warm low-lying region. Conversely, rising temperatures may have made some higher, cooler, parts of Zimbabwe more suitable for tsetse and led to the emergence of new disease foci.
37. 2017: Parsons, Michael H., et al. “Trends in urban rat ecology: a framework to define the prevailing knowledge gaps and incentives for academia, pest management professionals (PMPs) and public health agencies to participate.” Journal of Urban Ecology 3.1 (2017): jux005. City rats are among the most important but least-studied wildlife in urban environments. Their presence, compounded by the rate of human urbanization and effects of climate change, frequently bring potentially infectious organisms into contact with people and other wildlife. Urban rat control, however, is ineffective, largely because so little is known about their ecology. It is therefore, essential that we exploit new research avenues if we are to better understand and manage these risks. The hallmark of robust science includes replication at the level of the individual and urban landscape, allowing researchers to study behaviors and populations over time. However, unlike most wildlife, urban rats are confined to environments where there are numerous incentives to exterminate, but few reasons to study them. Thus, gaining access to rats presents an exceptional challenge for researchers. To address this problem, we first identified prevailing knowledge gaps in the literature and then used a five-step ‘wicked problem’ framework to define the issues, identify stakeholders, and systematically examine options for remediation. We discuss pest management professionals (PMPs) as an important conduit between private enterprise and the research community and suggest that businesses supporting research be rewarded through part-compensation, or allowances (credits) from the health department. This allows urban rats to be studied like all other ecological research subjects—in the field, while animals are alive. Appropriate incentives could enable scientists and PMPs to work together toward ‘smart’ ecologically based rodent management, hereby enhancing options for control while preparing for the challenges of continued urbanization.
38. 2018: Kelly A. Hopping el al., “The demise of caterpillar fungus in the Himalayan region due to climate change and overharvesting,” PNAS (2018). http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1811591115 A prized caterpillar fungus in the Himalayas, nicknamed the Himalayan Viagra, is seen as a wonder drug. It is becoming harder to find due to climate change. People in China and Nepal have been killed in clashes over the fungus Ophiocordyceps sinensis, thought to cure everything from impotence to cancer. The fungus is a crucial source of income for hundreds of thousands of its collectors. The fungus has skyrocketed in popularity and prices have soared in line with its growing scarcity. While overharvesting may explain its scarcity, researchers found that its long term decline may be driven by warmer winters in the Himalayas brought on by climate change.
39. 2018: Farrell, Aidan D., et al. “Climate adaptation in a minor crop species: is the cocoa breeding network prepared for climate change?.” Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems(2018): 1-22. Plant breeding has undoubtedly been successful in increasing the yield of high value commodity crops. In recent decades, efforts have been made to repeat this success in ‘orphan crops’ through a network of regional and national organizations largely composed of public and not-for-profit institutions. Adapting to climate change is a key challenge for these networks. Here we seek to analyze the particular challenges that characterize efforts to develop climate-smart varieties in minor crops, using the example of cocoa. Cocoa is a high-value commodity with a global research network; however, to date it has not received sustained attention from major global research centers. We estimate that globally <100 new cocoa varieties have been released since 2000, and our analysis suggests that this low number is constrained not by a limited availability of germplasm, but by limitations in the infrastructure focused on the final stages of breeding. We conclude that selecting minor crops for a future climate requires a long-term, regional approach that exploits modern technologies, integrates participatory selection, and is managed through a centrally funded network.
40. 2015: Negev, Maya, et al. “Impacts of climate change on vector borne diseases in the Mediterranean Basin—implications for preparedness and adaptation policy.” International journal of environmental research and public health 12.6 (2015): 6745-6770. The Mediterranean region is vulnerable to climatic changes. A warming trend exists in the basin with changes in rainfall patterns. It is expected that vector-borne diseases (VBD) in the region will be influenced by climate change since weather conditions influence their emergence. For some diseases (i.e., West Nile virus) the linkage between emergence and climate change was recently proved; for others (such as dengue) the risk for local transmission is real. Consequently, adaptation and preparation for changing patterns of VBD distribution is crucial in the Mediterranean basin. We analyzed six representative Mediterranean countries and found that they have started to prepare for this threat, but the preparation levels among them differ, and policy mechanisms are limited and basic. Furthermore, cross-border cooperation is not stable and depends on international frameworks. The Mediterranean countries should improve their adaptation plans, and develop more cross-sectoral, multidisciplinary and participatory approaches. In addition, based on experience from existing local networks in advancing national legislation and trans-border cooperation, we outline recommendations for a regional cooperation framework. We suggest that a stable and neutral framework is required, and that it should address the characteristics and needs of African, Asian and European countries around the Mediterranean in order to ensure participation. Such a regional framework is essential to reduce the risk of VBD transmission, since the vectors of infectious diseases know no political borders.
41. 2018: Bradford C. Lister and Andres Garcia, Climate-driven declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web, PNAS October 15, 2018 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1722477115, A number of studies indicate that tropical arthropods should be particularly vulnerable to climate warming. If these predictions are realized, climate warming may have a more profound impact on the functioning and diversity of tropical forests than currently anticipated. Although arthropods comprise over two-thirds of terrestrial species, information on their abundance and extinction rates in tropical habitats is severely limited. Here we analyze data on arthropod and insectivore abundances taken between 1976 and 2012 at two midelevation habitats in Puerto Rico’s Luquillo rainforest. During this time, mean maximum temperatures have risen by 2.0 °C. Using the same study area and methods employed by Lister in the 1970s, we discovered that the dry weight biomass of arthropods captured in sweep samples had declined 4 to 8 times, and 30 to 60 times in sticky traps. Analysis of long-term data on canopy arthropods and walking sticks taken as part of the Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research program revealed sustained declines in abundance over two decades, as well as negative regressions of abundance on mean maximum temperatures. We also document parallel decreases in Luquillo’s insectivorous lizards, frogs, and birds. While El Niño/Southern Oscillation influences the abundance of forest arthropods, climate warming is the major driver of reductions in arthropod abundance, indirectly precipitating a bottom-up trophic cascade and consequent collapse of the forest food web.
42. 2016: Ramsfield, T. D., et al. “Forest health in a changing world: effects of globalization and climate change on forest insect and pathogen impacts.” Forestry 89.3 (2016): 245-252. Forests and trees throughout the world are increasingly affected by factors related to global change. Expanding international trade has facilitated invasions of numerous insects and pathogens into new regions. Many of these invasions have caused substantial forest damage, economic impacts and losses of ecosystem goods and services provided by trees. Climate change is already affecting the geographic distribution of host trees and their associated insects and pathogens, with anticipated increases in pest impacts by both native and invasive pests. Although climate change will benefit many forest insects, changes in thermal conditions may disrupt evolved life history traits and cause phenological mismatches. Individually, the threats posed to forest ecosystems by invasive pests and climate change are serious. Although interactions between these two drivers and their outcomes are poorly understood and hence difficult to predict, it is clear that the cumulative impacts on forest ecosystems will be exacerbated. Here we introduce and synthesize the information in this special issue of Forestry with articles that illustrate the impacts of invasions of insects and pathogens, climate change, forest management and their interactions, as well as methods to predict, assess and mitigate these impacts. Most of these contributions were presented at the XXIV IUFRO World Congress in 2014.
43. 2018: Di Lena, Bruno, et al. “Impact of climate change on the possible expansion of almond cultivation area pole-ward: a case study of Abruzzo, Italy.” The Journal of Horticultural Science and Biotechnology 93.2 (2018): 209-215. Climate warming is causing an advance of the latest spring frosts and a consequent decrease of spring freeze risk during flowering. Cultivation areas of early blooming tree crops, such as almond, could be shifted pole-ward as consequence of global warming. On the other hand, warming winters and springs can cause an advance of the flowering period. The aim of the present work was to estimate which was the impact of climate change in the past six decades on the spring freeze damage risk during the almond blooming period in the Abruzzo region of Italy. According to our analysis a reduction of spring freeze risk due to the mitigation of springtime temperatures was counterbalanced by advanced almond blooming leaving the risk of spring freeze damage unchanged. These results suggest that the adaptation of almond phenology to changing climates could continue to limit the northward expansion of almond in Italy. Finally, these results may suggest that the loss of suitable areas due to loss of chilling units in the warmest climate areas cannot be compensated for by a pole-ward shift of almond plantings.
44. 2018: Darcan, Nazan Koluman, and Nissim Silanikove. “The advantages of goats for future adaptation to Climate Change: A conceptual overview.” Small Ruminant Research 163 (2018): 34-38. The economic importance of goat production has been increased during the last decades all over the world, predominantly in countries that are routinely exposed to harsh environment. Goats have numerous advantages that enable them to maintain their production under extreme climate conditions. Principally, goats have higher capacity than other farm raised ruminants to effectively convert some feed sources into milk and meat. In addition, goats emit less methane than other domestic ruminants. Based on these advantages, we came to the conclusion that goat breeding will play an important role in mitigating and adapting to Climate change (CC) in harsh environments. The impacts of CC on goat production can be analyzed by considering direct or indirect effects of CC. The direct effects take into account goat’s physiology and their interaction with ambient conditions, as well as issues such as the optimal use of natural resource and waste management. Indirect effects consider limitations on goat production from political, social and economic considerations, which are mainly intended for decreasing the greenhouse gas emission effect. In this paper the advantages of goats for future adaptation to CC will be considered.
45. 2018: Purola, Tuomo, et al. “Production of cereals in northern marginal areas: An integrated assessment of climate change impacts at the farm level.” Agricultural Systems 162 (2018): 191-204. Crop production in northern regions is projected to benefit from longer growing seasons brought on by future climate change. However, production also faces multiple challenges due to more frequent and intense extreme weather phenomena, and uncertain future prices of agricultural inputs and outputs. Extensive studies have been conducted to investigate the impacts of climate change on cereals yield change, but integrated assessments that also consider the management and economy of cereal farms have been rare so far. In this study, the effects of climate change-driven crop productivity change on farm level land use dynamics, input use, production management and farm income were considered from the point of view of dynamic decision making of a rational risk-averse farmer. We assessed whether a farmer can gain from improved crop yields when using adapted cultivars and managing the farm accordingly. We incorporated crop yield estimates from a process-based large area crop model (MCWLA) run with two climate scenarios into a dynamic economic model of farm management and crop rotation (DEMCROP) to investigate future input use, land use with crop rotation, economic gross margins and greenhouse gas emissions. A time span of 30 years was considered. The model accounts for the yield responses to fertilisation, crop protection, liming of field parcels, and yield losses due to monoculture. The approach resulted in a novel and necessary analysis of farm management, production and income implications of climate change adaptation under different climate and socio-economic scenarios. We analysed the effects of different climate and price scenarios at a typical cereal farm in the North Savo region, which is currently a marginal area for crop production in Finland due to its harsh climate. Crop modelling results suggest a 19–27% increase of spring cereal yields and 11–19% increase of winter wheat yields from the current level until 2042–2070. According to our economic farm level simulations, these yield increases would incentivise farmers towards more intense input use resulting in additional increase of yields by 3–8% at current prices. More land is allocated to barley and wheat, less to set-aside and oat. The economic gross margin would increase significantly from the current low levels. Greenhouse gas emissions from farms were estimated to increase with increasing production, but emissions per quantity produced (measured as feed energy units) would decrease. There is potential for sustainable intensification (SI) of crop production in the region.
46. 2010: Page, Lisa A., and L. M. Howard. “The impact of climate change on mental health (but will mental health be discussed at Copenhagen?).” Psychological Medicine 40.2 (2010): 177-180. Climate change will shortly be assuming centre stage when Copenhagen hosts the United Nations Climate Change Conference in early December 2009. In Copenhagen, delegates will discuss the international response to climate change (i.e. the ongoing increase in the Earth’s average surface temperature) and the meeting is widely viewed as the most important of its kind ever held (http://en.cop15.dk/). International agreement will be sought on a treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. At the time of writing it is not known whether agreement will be reached on the main issues of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and financing the impacts of climate change, and it appears that the impact of climate change on mental health is unlikely to be on the agenda. We discuss here how climate change could have consequences for global mental health and consider the implications for future research and policy.
47. 2010: Berry, Helen Louise, Kathryn Bowen, and Tord Kjellstrom. “Climate change and mental health: a causal pathways framework.” International journal of public health 55.2 (2010): 123-132. Climate change may affect mental health directly by exposing people to trauma. It may also affect mental health indirectly, by affecting (1) physical health (for example, extreme heat exposure causes heat exhaustion in vulnerable people, and associated mental health consequences) and (2) community wellbeing. Within community, wellbeing is a sub-process in which climate change erodes physical environments which, in turn, damage social environments. Vulnerable people and places, especially in low-income countries, will be particularly badly affected. Different aspects of climate change may affect mental health through direct and indirect pathways, leading to serious mental health problems, possibly including increased suicide mortality. We propose that it is helpful to integrate these pathways in an explanatory framework, which may assist in developing public health policy, practice and research.
48. 2011: Reser, Joseph P., and Janet K. Swim. “Adapting to and coping with the threat and impacts of climate change.” American Psychologist 66.4 (2011): 277. This article addresses the nature and challenge of adaptation in the context of global climate change. The complexity of “climate change” as threat, environmental stressor, risk domain, and impacting process with dramatic environmental and human consequences requires a synthesis of perspectives and models from diverse areas of psychology to adequately communicate and explain how a more psychological framing of the human dimensions of global environmental change can greatly inform and enhance effective and collaborative climate change adaptation and mitigation policies and research. An integrative framework is provided that identifies and considers important mediating and moderating parameters and processes relating to climate change adaptation, with particular emphasis given to environmental stress and stress and coping perspectives. This psychological perspective on climate change adaptation highlights crucial aspects of adaptation that have been neglected in the arena of climate change science. Of particular importance are intra-individual and social “psychological adaptation” processes that powerfully mediate public risk perceptions and understandings, effective coping responses and resilience, overt behavioral adjustment and change, and psychological and social impacts. This psychological window on climate change adaptation is arguably indispensable to genuinely multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research and policy initiatives addressing the impacts of climate change.
49. 2008: Fritze, Jessica G., et al. “Hope, despair and transformation: climate change and the promotion of mental health and wellbeing.” International journal of mental health systems 2.1 (2008): 13.The authors argue that: i) the direct impacts of climate change such as extreme weather events will have significant mental health implications; ii) climate change is already impacting on the social, economic and environmental determinants of mental health with the most severe consequences being felt by disadvantaged communities and populations; iii) understanding the full extent of the long term social and environmental challenges posed by climate change has the potential to create emotional distress and anxiety; and iv) understanding the psycho-social implications of climate change is also an important starting point for informed action to prevent dangerous climate change at individual, community and societal levels.
50. 2011: Doherty, Thomas J., and Susan Clayton. “The psychological impacts of global climate change.” American Psychologist66.4 (2011): 265. An appreciation of the psychological impacts of global climate change entails recognizing the complexity and multiple meanings associated with climate change; situating impacts within other social, technological, and ecological transitions; and recognizing mediators and moderators of impacts. This article describes three classes of psychological impacts: direct (e.g., acute or traumatic effects of extreme weather events and a changed environment); indirect (e.g., threats to emotional well-being based on observation of impacts and concern or uncertainty about future risks); and psychosocial (e.g., chronic social and community effects of heat, drought, migrations, and climate-related conflicts, and postdisaster adjustment). Responses include providing psychological interventions in the wake of acute impacts and reducing the vulnerabilities contributing to their severity; promoting emotional resiliency and empowerment in the context of indirect impacts; and acting at systems and policy levels to address broad psychosocial impacts. The challenge of climate change calls for increased ecological literacy, a widened ethical responsibility, investigations into a range of psychological and social adaptations, and an allocation of resources and training to improve psychologists’ competency in addressing climate change–related impacts.
51. 2008: Fritze, Jessica G., et al. “Hope, despair and transformation: climate change and the promotion of mental health and wellbeing.” International journal of mental health systems 2.1 (2008): 13. There is an extensive body of evidence showing the ways in which extreme weather events can lead to psychological and mental health outcomes associated with loss, disruption and displacement as well as cumulative mental health impacts from repeated exposure to natural disasters [10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16]. Disaster response and emergency management have been a focus of government and agencies over the past decade, with an increasing emphasis on psychological and psychosocial interventions [17].
52. 2009: Swim, Janet, et al. “Psychology and global climate change: Addressing a multi-faceted phenomenon and set of challenges. A report by the American Psychological Association’s task force on the interface between psychology and global climate change.” American Psychological Association, Washington (2009). Addressing climate change is arguably one of the most pressing issues facing our planet and its inhabitants. In bio and geophysical terms, climate change is defined as changes over time in the averages and variability of surface temperature, precipitation, and wind as well as associated changes in Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and natural water supplies, snow and ice, land surface, ecosystems, and living organisms (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2007b). What is unique about current global climate change, relative to historical changes, is the causal role of human activity (also called anthropogenic forcing) and the current and projected dramatic changes in climate across the globe. Our primary aim in our report is to engage members of the psychology community (teachers, researchers, those in practice, and students) in the issue of climate change. To this end, this American Psychological Association (APA) task force report describes the contributions of psychological research to an understanding of psychological dimensions of global climate change, provides research recommendations, and proposes policies for APA to assist psychologists’ engagement with this issue.
53. 2014: Challinor, Andrew J., et al. “A meta-analysis of crop yield under climate change and adaptation.” Nature Climate Change 4.4 (2014): 287.  Feeding a growing global population in a changing climate presents a significant challenge to society^1,2. The projected yields of crops under a range of agricultural and climatic scenarios are needed to assess food security prospects. Previous meta-analyses³ have summarized climate change impacts and adaptive potential as a function of temperature, but have not examined uncertainty, the timing of impacts, or the quantitative effectiveness of adaptation. Here we develop a new data set of more than 1,700 published simulations to evaluate yield impacts of climate change and adaptation. Without adaptation, losses in aggregate production are expected for wheat, rice and maize in both temperate and tropical regions by 2 °C of local warming. Crop-level adaptations increase simulated yields by an average of 7–15%, with adaptations more effective for wheat and rice than maize. Yield losses are greater in magnitude for the second half of the century than for the first. Consensus on yield decreases in the second half of the century is stronger in tropical than temperate regions, yet even moderate warming may reduce temperate crop yields in many locations. Although less is known about interannual variability than mean yields, the available data indicate that increases in yield variability are likely.
54. 2014: Rosenzweig, Cynthia, et al. “Assessing agricultural risks of climate change in the 21st century in a global gridded crop model intercomparison.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111.9 (2014): 3268-3273. Agriculture is arguably the sector most affected by climate change, but assessments differ and are thus difficult to compare. We provide a globally consistent, protocol-based, multimodel climate change assessment for major crops with explicit characterization of uncertainty. Results with multimodel agreement indicate strong negative effects from climate change, especially at higher levels of warming and at low latitudes where developing countries are concentrated. Simulations that consider explicit nitrogen stress result in much more severe impacts from climate change, with implications for adaptation planning.
55. 2015: Asseng, Senthold, et al. “Rising temperatures reduce global wheat production.” Nature Climate Change 5.2 (2015): 143. Crop models are essential tools for assessing the threat of climate change to local and global food production¹. Present models used to predict wheat grain yield are highly uncertain when simulating how crops respond to temperature². Here we systematically tested 30 different wheat crop models of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project against field experiments in which growing season mean temperatures ranged from 15 °C to 32 °C, including experiments with artificial heating. Many models simulated yields well, but were less accurate at higher temperatures. The model ensemble median was consistently more accurate in simulating the crop temperature response than any single model, regardless of the input information used. Extrapolating the model ensemble temperature response indicates that warming is already slowing yield gains at a majority of wheat-growing locations. Global wheat production is estimated to fall by 6% for each °C of further temperature increase and become more variable over space and time.
56. 2012: Huggel, Christian, John J. Clague, and Oliver Korup. “Is climate change responsible for changing landslide activity in high mountains?.” Earth Surface Processes and Landforms37.1 (2012): 77-91. Climate change, manifested by an increase in mean, minimum, and maximum temperatures and by more intense rainstorms, is becoming more evident in many regions. An important consequence of these changes may be an increase in landslides in high mountains. More research, however, is necessary to detect changes in landslide magnitude and frequency related to contemporary climate, particularly in alpine regions hosting glaciers, permafrost, and snow. These regions not only are sensitive to changes in both temperature and precipitation, but are also areas in which landslides are ubiquitous even under a stable climate. We analyze a series of catastrophic slope failures that occurred in the mountains of Europe, the Americas, and the Caucasus since the end of the 1990s. We distinguish between rock and ice avalanches, debris flows from de‐glaciated areas, and landslides that involve dynamic interactions with glacial and river processes. Analysis of these events indicates several important controls on slope stability in high mountains, including: the non‐linear response of firn and ice to warming; three‐dimensional warming of subsurface bedrock and its relation to site geology; de‐glaciation accompanied by exposure of new sediment; and combined short‐term effects of precipitation and temperature. Based on several case studies, we propose that the following mechanisms can significantly alter landslide magnitude and frequency, and thus hazard, under warming conditions: (1) positive feedbacks acting on mass movement processes that after an initial climatic stimulus may evolve independently of climate change; (2) threshold behavior and tipping points in geomorphic systems; (3) storage of sediment and ice involving important lag‐time effects. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
57. 2004: Soldati, Mauro, Alessandro Corsini, and Alessandro Pasuto. “Landslides and climate change in the Italian Dolomites since the Late glacial.” Catena 55.2 (2004): 141-161. The paper deals with the relationship between the temporal occurrence of landslides and climatic changes in the Italian Dolomites since the Late glacial. After an introduction on the state of the art, with particular reference to the Alpine region, the results of recent investigations in the two study sites are illustrated. At Cortina d’Ampezzo, several landslides were dated mainly by the radiocarbon method. The most ancient landslide event there involved large rock slides, which affected the dolomitic slopes following the withdrawal of glaciers after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), and also slides and flows mainly occurring in pelitic materials of the valley floors (from 13,000 to 10,000 cal BP). A later series of flows occurred between 5500 and 2500 cal BP. In the Upper Badia Valley (Alta Badia), the most ancient events go back to 10,000 and 9000 cal BP, and correspond with earth flows that followed vast rotational slides affecting the bedrock up to a depth of about 50 m. More recent earth flows, involving more modest amounts of material, took place between 6500 and 2300 cal BP.By analysing the dates from the two study areas, it was possible to correlate the recorded increase of landslide activity with the climatic changes occurring at the boundary between the Late glacial and the Holocene and between the Atlantic and the Subboreal, and to compare the results with those derived from other European regions. The types and causes of landslides taking place in these two periods were substantially different, reflecting the different morphoclimatic conditions that existed in the two areas when these mass movements were triggered. Finally, notwithstanding the importance of non-climatic causes, such as geological–structural factors and possible human influences, it is concluded that many of the dated landslides can be considered as indicators of climatic change.
58. 2007: Gruber, S., and W. Haeberli. “Permafrost in steep bedrock slopes and its temperature‐related destabilization following climate change.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface 112.F2 (2007). Permafrost in steep bedrock is abundant in many cold‐mountain areas, and its degradation can cause slope instability that is unexpected and unprecedented in location, magnitude, frequency, and timing. These phenomena bear consequences for the understanding of landscape evolution, natural hazards, and the safe and sustainable operation of high‐mountain infrastructure. Permafrost in steep bedrock is an emerging field of research. Knowledge of rock temperatures, ice content, mechanisms of degradation, and the processes that link warming and destabilization is often fragmental. In this article we provide a review and discussion of existing literature and pinpoint important questions. Ice‐filled joints are common in bedrock permafrost and possibly actively widened by ice segregation. Broad evidence of destabilization by warming permafrost exists despite problems of attributing individual events to this phenomenon with certainty. Convex topography such as ridges, spurs, and peaks is often subject to faster and deeper thaw than other areas. Permafrost degradation in steep bedrock can be strongly affected by percolating water in fractures. This degradation by advection is difficult to predict and can lead to quick and deep development of thaw corridors along fractures in permafrost and potentially destabilize much greater volumes of rock than conduction would. Although most research on steep bedrock permafrost originates from the Alps, it will likely gain importance in other geographic regions with mountain permafrost.
59. 2003: Bürki, Rolf, Hans Elsasser, and Bruno Abegg. “Climate change-impacts on the tourism industry in mountain areas.” 1st International Conference on Climate Change and Tourism. 2003. Mountain areas are sensitive to climate change. Implications of climate change can be seen, for example, in less snow, receding glaciers, melting permafrost and more extreme events like landslides. Furthermore, climate change will shift mountain flora and fauna. Second order impacts will occur in mountain agriculture, mountain hydropower and, of course, mountain
    tourism. Clearly, it should be emphasised that climate is only one of many factors influencing snow tourism. However, less snow threatens the winter tourism industry in mountain areas. Good snow conditions are a necessity, although that is not the only prerequisite for a financially viable mountain cable-way company. Without enough snow, however, profitable ski tourism will scarcely be possible. Mountains without snow are like summer without a sea. Apart from having sufficient snow at the right time and particularly during the Christmas/New Year holidays a key role is also played by the weather conditions (predominantly at the weekends). Since weekend and day guests are planning their trips at ever-shorter notice, it is not just the actual weather conditions that are a growing factor of influence.
60. 1997: Koenig, Urs, and Bruno Abegg. “Impacts of climate change on winter tourism in the Swiss Alps.” Journal of sustainable tourism 5.1 (1997): 46-58. This paper examines the impacts of three consecutive snow-deficient winters at the end of the 1980s on the winter tourism industry in Switzerland. It is shown that ski areas in lower areas suffered severe consequences. Ski areas at higher altitudes (in particular glacier ski resorts) on the other hand increased their transport figures and therefore profited from the lack of snow in lower areas. The snow-reliability of all Swiss ski fields under current climate conditions and under a 2″C warming are investigated. Under current climate conditions 85% of all Swiss ski areas are snow-reliable. This number would drop to 63% if temperatures were to rise by 2″C. This is likely to threaten the regionally balanced economic growth which winter tourism has provided. Possible strategies for the winter tourism industry to adopt if climate change occurs are presented.
61. 2018: Regos, Adrián, et al. “Wildfire–vegetation dynamics affect predictions of climate change impact on bird communities.” Ecography 41.6 (2018): 982-995. Community‐level climate change indicators have been proposed to appraise the impact of global warming on community composition. However, non‐climate factors may also critically influence species distribution and biological community assembly. The aim of this paper was to study how fire–vegetation dynamics can modify our ability to predict the impact of climate change on bird communities, as described through a widely‐used climate change indicator: the community thermal index (CTI). Potential changes in bird species assemblage were predicted using the spatially‐explicit species assemblage modelling framework – SESAM – that applies successive filters to constrained predictions of richness and composition obtained by stacking species distribution models that hierarchically integrate climate change and wildfire–vegetation dynamics. We forecasted future values of CTI between current conditions and 2050, across a wide range of fire–vegetation and climate change scenarios. Fire–vegetation dynamics were simulated for Catalonia (Mediterranean basin) using a process‐based model that reproduces the spatial interaction between wildfire, vegetation dynamics and wildfire management under two IPCC climate scenarios. Net increases in CTI caused by the concomitant impact of climate warming and an increasingly severe wildfire regime were predicted. However, the overall increase in the CTI could be partially counterbalanced by forest expansion via land abandonment and efficient wildfire suppression policies. CTI is thus strongly dependent on complex interactions between climate change and fire–vegetation dynamics. The potential impacts on bird communities may be underestimated if an overestimation of richness is predicted but not constrained. Our findings highlight the need to explicitly incorporate these interactions when using indicators to interpret and forecast climate change impact in dynamic ecosystems. In fire‐prone systems, wildfire management and land‐use policies can potentially offset or heighten the effects of climate change on biological communities, offering an opportunity to address the impact of global climate change proactively.
62. 2018: Prusty, Raunak Manoranjan, Aparna Das, and Kanchu Charan Patra. “Climate change impact assessment under CORDEX South-Asia RCM scenarios on water resources of the Brahmani and Baitarini River Basin, India.” (2018). This study attempts to assess the impact of climate change on Brahmani and Baitarini river basin using a GIS-based semi-distributed model Soil and Water Analysis Tool (SWAT). The SWAT model uses various physiographic features such as slope, soil and land use classes to estimate the various water balance components of the river basin for the baseline period (1980-2010) and future climate scenarios (2071-2100). Sensitivity analysis has been carried out to identify the most critical parameters of the model. The model was calibrated(1980-2000) and validated (2001-2010) using the observed average daily discharge data. The model performance was evaluated using the coefficient of determination (R2), Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (ENS). The data from CORDEX South Asia RCM model for RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios developed by IITM was used in the SWAT model to evaluate changes in various water balance components. Overall the SWAT model performed satisfactorily having Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency value of 0.72 and 0.65 for calibration and validation respectively. Results show an increase in average annual temperature (3.1°C), average rainfall (+10.7 mm/year).This corresponds to the increase in in the annual streamflow (110%-117%%), evapotranspiration (48%%) and water yield (159%). FULL TEXT
63. 2018: Stefan H. Doerr, Cristina Santín, “Global trends in wildfire and its impacts: perceptions versus realities in a changing world“, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences, Published 23 May 2016.DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0345. Wildfire has been an important process affecting the Earth’s surface and atmosphere for over 350 million years and human societies have coexisted with fire since their emergence. Yet many consider wildfire as an accelerating problem, with widely held perceptions both in the media and scientific papers of increasing fire occurrence, severity and resulting losses. However, important exceptions aside, the quantitative evidence available does not support these perceived overall trends. Instead, global area burned appears to have overall declined over past decades, and there is increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago. Regarding fire severity, limited data are available. For the western USA, they indicate little change overall, and also that area burned at high severity has overall declined compared to pre-European settlement. Direct fatalities from fire and economic losses also show no clear trends over the past three decades. Trends in indirect impacts, such as health problems from smoke or disruption to social functioning, remain insufficiently quantified to be examined. Global predictions for increased fire under a warming climate highlight the already urgent need for a more sustainable coexistence with fire. The data evaluation presented here aims to contribute to this by reducing misconceptions and facilitating a more informed understanding of the realities of global fire. Link to full text: FULL TEXT ONLINE
64. 2018: Marshall Burke, Felipe González, Patrick Baylis, Sam Heft-Neal, Ceren Baysan, Sanjay Basu & Solomon Hsiang, Higher temperatures increase suicide rates in the United States and Mexico, Nature Climate Change (2018), Linkages between climate and mental health are often theorized but remain poorly quantified. In particular, it is unknown whether the rate of suicide, a leading cause of death globally, is systematically affected by climatic conditions. Using comprehensive data from multiple decades for both the United States and Mexico, we find that suicide rates rise 0.7% in US counties and 2.1% in Mexican municipalities for a 1 °C increase in monthly average temperature. This effect is similar in hotter versus cooler regions and has not diminished over time, indicating limited historical adaptation. Analysis of depressive language in >600 million social media updates further suggests that mental well-being deteriorates during warmer periods. We project that unmitigated climate change (RCP8.5) could result in a combined 9–40 thousand additional suicides (95% confidence interval) across the United States and Mexico by 2050, representing a change in suicide rates comparable to the estimated impact of economic recessions, suicide prevention programmes or gun restriction laws.
65. 2018: Evans, Gary W. “Projected behavioral impacts of global climate change.”Higher temperatures increase suicide rates in the United States and Mexico Marshall Burke, Felipe González, Patrick Baylis, Sam Heft-Neal, Ceren Baysan, Sanjay Basu & Solomon Hsiang, Nature Climate Change (2018) Annual review of psychology 0 (2018). The projected behavioral impacts of global climate change emanate from environmental changes including temperature elevation, extreme weather events, and rising air pollution. Negative affect, interpersonal and intergroup conflict, and possibly psychological distress increase with rising temperature. Droughts, floods, and severe storms diminish quality of life, elevate stress, produce psychological distress, and may elevate interpersonal and intergroup conflict. Recreational opportunities are compromised by extreme weather, and children may suffer delayed cognitive development. Elevated pollutants concern citizens and may accentuate psychological distress. Outdoor recreational activity is curtailed by ambient pollutants. Limitations and issues in need of further investigation include the following: lack of data on direct experience with climate change rather than indirect assessments related to projected changes; poor spatial resolution in environmental exposures and behavioral assessments; few rigorous quasi-experimental studies; overreliance on self-reports of behavioral outcomes; little consideration of moderator effects; and scant investigation of underlying psychosocial processes to explain projected behavioral impacts.
66. 2007: Hawkes, L. A., et al. “Investigating the potential impacts of climate change on a marine turtle population.” Global Change Biology 13.5 (2007): 923-932. Recent increases in global temperatures have affected the phenology and survival of many species of plants and animals. We investigated a case study of the effects of potential climate change on a thermally sensitive species, the loggerhead sea turtle, at a breeding location at the northerly extent of the range of regular nesting in the United States. In addition to the physical limits imposed by temperature on this ectothermic species, sea turtle primary sex ratio is determined by the temperature experienced by eggs during the middle third of incubation. We recorded sand temperatures and used historical air temperatures (ATs) at Bald Head Island, NC, to examine past and predict future sex ratios under scenarios of warming. There were no significant temporal trends in primary sex ratio evident in recent years and estimated mean annual sex ratio was 58% female. Similarly, there were no temporal trends in phenology but earlier nesting and longer nesting seasons were correlated with warmer sea surface temperature. We modelled the effects of incremental increases in mean AT of up to 7.5°C, the maximum predicted increase under modelled scenarios, which would lead to 100% female hatchling production and lethally high incubation temperatures, causing reduction in hatchling production. Populations of turtles in more southern parts of the United States are currently highly female biased and are likely to become ultra‐biased with as little as 1°C of warming and experience extreme levels of mortality if warming exceeds 3°C. The lack of a demonstrable increase in AT in North Carolina in recent decades coupled with primary sex ratios that are not highly biased means that the male offspring from North Carolina could play an increasingly important role in the future viability of the loggerhead turtle in the Western Atlantic.
67. 2009: Hulin, Vincent, et al. “Temperature-dependent sex determination and global change: are some species at greater risk?.” Oecologia 160.3 (2009): 493-506. In species with temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD), global climate change may result in a strong sex ratio bias that could lead to extinction. The relationship between sex ratio and egg incubation at constant temperature in TSD species is characterized by two parameters: the pivotal temperature (P) and the transitional range of temperature that produces both sexes (TRT). Here, we show that the proportion of nests producing both sexes is positively correlated to the width of the TRT by a correlative approach from sex ratio data collected in the literature and by simulations of TSD using a mechanistic model. From our analyses, we predict that species with a larger TRT should be more likely to evolve in response to new thermal conditions, thus putting them at lower risk to global change.
68. 2003: Pearson, Richard G., and Terence P. Dawson. “Predicting the impacts of climate change on the distribution of species: are bioclimate envelope models useful?.” Global ecology and biogeography 12.5 (2003): 361-371. Modelling strategies for predicting the potential impacts of climate change on the natural distribution of species have often focused on the characterization of a species’ bioclimate envelope. A number of recent critiques have questioned the validity of this approach by pointing to the many factors other than climate that play an important part in determining species distributions and the dynamics of distribution changes. Such factors include biotic interactions, evolutionary change and dispersal ability. This paper reviews and evaluates criticisms of bioclimate envelope models and discusses the implications of these criticisms for the different modelling strategies employed. It is proposed that, although the complexity of the natural system presents fundamental limits to predictive modelling, the bioclimate envelope approach can provide a useful first approximation as to the potentially dramatic impact of climate change on biodiversity. However, it is stressed that the spatial scale at which these models are applied is of fundamental importance, and that model results should not be interpreted without due consideration of the limitations involved. A hierarchical modelling framework is proposed through which some of these limitations can be addressed within a broader, scale‐dependent context.
69. 2003: Hughes, Terry P., et al. “Climate change, human impacts, and the resilience of coral reefs.” science 301.5635 (2003): 929-933. The diversity, frequency, and scale of human impacts on coral reefs are increasing to the extent that reefs are threatened globally. Projected increases in carbon dioxide and temperature over the next 50 years exceed the conditions under which coral reefs have flourished over the past half-million years. However, reefs will change rather than disappear entirely, with some species already showing far greater tolerance to climate change and coral bleaching than others. International integration of management strategies that support reef resilience need to be vigorously implemented, and complemented by strong policy decisions to reduce the rate of global warming.
70. 1994: Rosenzweig, Cynthia, and Martin L. Parry. “Potential impact of climate change on world food supply.” Nature 367.6459 (1994): 133-138. While some countries in the temperate zones may reap some benefit from climate change, many
    countries in the tropical and subtropical zones appear more vulnerable to the potential impacts of global climate change.
71. 2017: Haile, Mekbib G., et al. “Impact of climate change, weather extremes, and price risk on global food supply.” Economics of Disasters and Climate Change 1.1 (2017): 55-75. We analyze the determinants of global crop production for maize, wheat, rice, and soybeans over the period 1961–2013. Using seasonal production data and price change and price volatility information at country level, as well as future climate data from 32 global circulation models, we project that climate change could reduce global crop production by 9% in the 2030s and by 23% in the 2050s. Climate change leads to 1–3% higher annual fluctuations of global crop production over the next four decades. We find strong, positive and statistically significant supply response to changing prices for all four crops. However, output price volatility, which signals risk to producers, reduces the supply of these key global agricultural staple crops—especially for wheat and maize. We find that climate change has significant adverse effects on production of the world’s key staple crops. Especially, weather extremes— in terms of shocks in both temperature and precipitation— during crop growing months have detrimental impacts on the production of the abovementioned food crops. Weather extremes also exacerbate the year-to-year fluctuations of food availability, and thus may further increase price volatility with its adverse impacts on production and poor consumers. Combating climate change using both mitigation and adaptation technologies is therefore crucial for global production.017:
72. 2018: Michelle Tigchelaar etal: Future warming increases probability of globally synchronized maize production shocks, PNAS June 26, 2018. 115 (26) 6644-6649; Here, we use global datasets of maize production and climate variability combined with future temperature projections to quantify how yield variability will change in the world’s major maize-producing and -exporting countries under 2 °C and 4 °C of global warming. We find that as the global mean temperature increases, absent changes in temperature variability or breeding gains in heat tolerance, the coefficient of variation (CV) of maize yields increases almost everywhere to values much larger than present-day values. This higher CV is due both to an increase in the SD of yields and a decrease in mean yields. For the top four maize-exporting countries, which account for 87% of global maize exports, the probability that they have simultaneous production losses greater than 10% in any given year is presently virtually zero, but it increases to 7% under 2 °C warming and 86% under 4 °C warming. Our results portend rising instability in global grain trade and international grain prices, affecting especially the ∼800 million people living in extreme poverty who are most vulnerable to food price spikes. They also underscore the urgency of investments in breeding for heat tolerance.
73. 2007: Morton, John F. “The impact of climate change on smallholder and subsistence agriculture.” Proceedings of the national academy of sciences 104.50 (2007): 19680-19685. Some of the most important impacts of global climate change will be felt among the populations, predominantly in developing countries, referred to as “subsistence” or “smallholder” farmers. Their vulnerability to climate change comes both from being predominantly located in the tropics, and from various socioeconomic, demographic, and policy trends limiting their capacity to adapt to change. However, these impacts will be difficult to model or predict because of (i) the lack of standardised definitions of these sorts of farming system, and therefore of standard data above the national level, (ii) intrinsic characteristics of these systems, particularly their complexity, their location-specificity, and their integration of agricultural and nonagricultural livelihood strategies, and (iii) their vulnerability to a range of climate-related and other stressors. Some recent work relevant to these farming systems is reviewed, a conceptual framework for understanding the diverse forms of impacts in an integrated manner is proposed, and future research needs are identified.
74. 2010: Schlenker, Wolfram, and David B. Lobell. “Robust negative impacts of climate change on African agriculture.” Environmental Research Letters 5.1 (2010): 014010. There is widespread interest in the impacts of climate change on agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and on the most effective investments to assist adaptation to these changes, yet the scientific basis for estimating production risks and prioritizing investments has been quite limited. Here we show that by combining historical crop production and weather data into a panel analysis, a robust model of yield response to climate change emerges for several key African crops. By mid-century, the mean estimates of aggregate production changes in SSA under our preferred model specification are − 22, − 17, − 17, − 18, and − 8% for maize, sorghum, millet, groundnut, and cassava, respectively. In all cases except cassava, there is a 95% probability that damages exceed 7%, and a 5% probability that they exceed 27%. Moreover, countries with the highest average yields have the largest projected yield losses, suggesting that well-fertilized modern seed varieties are more susceptible to heat related losses.
75. 2006: Scott, Daniel, and Brenda Jones. “The impact of climate change on golf participation in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA): a case study.” Journal of Leisure Research 38.3 (2006): 363-380 {Golf is identified as a large recreation industry that is particularly sensitive to weather and climate, yet research assessing the direct relationship between them is extremely limited. Consequently, the potential implications of climate change for the industry remain largely unexamined. This case study presents findings of an analysis of the influence of weather conditions on the number of rounds played at a golf course in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) of Southern Ontario (Canada). An empirical relationship between daily rounds played and weather variables, derived through multiple regression analysis, was then used to examine the potential impacts of two climate change scenarios on the length of the golf season and the number of rounds played in the 2020s, 2050s and 2080s. The model projected that as early as the 2020s the average golf season could be one to seven weeks longer and with much improved shoulder seasons annual rounds played could increase 5.5% to 37.1%. The model results for the warmer long-term climate change scenario (2080s) were very similar (average golf season within 3% and average rounds played within 2%) to a spatial climate analogue (Columbus, Ohio)}
76. 2007: Scott, Daniel, and Brenda Jones. “A regional comparison of the implications of climate change for the golf industry in Canada.” The Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe canadien 51.2 (2007): 219-232 {Golf is a recreation industry particularly sensitive to climate, yet the potential implications of climate change for the industry remain largely unexamined. This study presents findings of the first known impact assessment to compare the regional impacts of projected changes in the climate on the golf industry in Canada (or internationally). Empirical relationships between daily rounds played and four weather variables were defined through multiple regression analysis and then used to examine the potential impacts of two climate change scenarios on the length of the golf season and the number of rounds played in three regions of Canada (West Coast, Great Lakes, East Coast). Regionally, the West Coast region was projected to benefit the least from projected climate change, as golf courses that are currently open year round experienced only slight projected increases in rounds played in the 2020s and 2050s. Golf courses in the Great Lakes region could experience a 10‐ to 51‐day longer average golf season and a 21 percent to 3 percent increase in rounds as early as the 2020s, and an even more pronounced increase in the 2050s. East Coast golf courses were projected to benefit the most under both climate change scenarios, experiencing larger gains in average operating seasons (25 to 45 days in the 2020s) and a 40 percent to 48 percent increase in rounds played by as early as the 2020s}
77. 2007: Scott, Daniel, and Geoff McBoyle. “Climate change adaptation in the ski industry.” Mitigation and adaptation strategies for global change 12.8 (2007): 1411. {The characteristics of ski areas with higher adaptive capacity are identified. Considering the highly competitive nature of the ski industry and the generally low climate change risk appraisal within the industry, climate change adaptation is anticipated to remain individualistic and reactive for some time. With only a few exceptions, the existing climate change literature on winter tourism has not considered the wide range of adaptation options identified in this paper and has likely overestimated potential damages. An important task for future studies is to develop methodologies to incorporate adaptation so that a more accurate understanding of the vulnerability of the international ski industry can be ascertained}
78. 2001:Agnew, Maureen D., and David Viner. “Potential impacts of climate change on international tourism.” Tourism and hospitality research 3.1 (2001): 37-60 {Global temperatures rose by over 0.5°C during the 20th century and current estimates suggest that they will continue to rise at between 0.2 and 0.3°C per decade during the course of the 21st century. This increasing trend towards warmer temperatures could have major consequences for the tourism industry, which is heavily dependent on present climatic and environmental conditions. The ecosystems of many international holiday destinations are potentially vulnerable to climate change. This paper reviews the potential impacts of climate change for ten international tourist destinations. The most serious impacts will result from the effects of sea-level rise on small island states. Other impacts likely to affect tourism include coral bleaching, outbreaks of fire, changed migration patterns of animals and birds, flooding, the spread of vector-borne diseases and shorter skiing seasons. Without appropriate adaptive measures, climate change could produce a shift in the comparative attractiveness of tourist destinations around the globe}
79. 2008: Shaw, W. Douglass, and John B. Loomis. “Frameworks for analyzing the economic effects of climate change on outdoor recreation.” Climate Research 36.3 (2008): 259-269 {Climate change is increasingly recognized as a major factor that may influence the recreational use of outdoor environments. Despite awareness of the pervasive effects of climate change, its effects on outdoor recreation have only recently been studied in detail. In this study we consider an economic framework that allows the modeling of the direct and indirect effects of climate change on users of recreation resources, via the impacts on natural resources upon which outdoor recreation depends. We also present a brief summary of selected empirical results bearing on climate-sensitive recreational activities. With the relatively small increases in temperature that are likely from near-term climate change, the number of people partaking in certain outdoor recreational activities—such as boating, golfing and beach recreation—is expected to increase by 14 to 36%. Numbers partaking in other activities—most notably snow sports like skiing—will likely fall. We discuss critical areas of future research that are needed to provide more detailed estimates of changes in recreation activities (along with associated economic effects) that are likely to arise from climate change in the future}
80. 2018: Newbold, T. (2018) Future effects of climate and land-use change on terrestrial vertebrate community diversity under different scenarios, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, doi:10.1098/rspb.2018.0792 {Land-use and climate change are among the greatest threats facing biodiversity, but understanding their combined effects has been hampered by modelling and data limitations, resulting in part from the very different scales at which land-use and climate processes operate. I combine two different modelling paradigms to predict the separate and combined (additive) effects of climate and land-use change on terrestrial vertebrate communities under four different scenarios. I predict that climate-change effects are likely to become a major pressure on biodiversity in the coming decades, probably matching or exceeding the effects of land-use change by 2070. The combined effects of both pressures are predicted to lead to an average cumulative loss of 37.9% of species from vertebrate communities under ‘business as usual’ (uncertainty ranging from 15.7% to 54.2%). Areas that are predicted to experience the effects of both pressures are concentrated in tropical grasslands and savannahs. The results have important implications for the conservation of biodiversity in future, and for the ability of biodiversity to support important ecosystem functions, upon which humans rely}
81. 2017: Pecl, Gretta T., et al. “Biodiversity redistribution under climate change: Impacts on ecosystems and human well-being.” Science 355.6332 (2017): eaai9214. {The geographical range limits of species are dynamic but climate change is causing redistribution of life on Earth. The first response to changing climate is often a shift in location, to stay within preferred climate conditions. At the cooler extremes of their distributions, species are moving poleward, whereas range limits are contracting at the warmer range edge, where temperatures are no longer tolerable. On land, species are also moving to cooler, higher elevations; in the ocean, they are moving to colder water at greater depths. Because different species respond at different rates and to varying degrees, key interactions among species are often disrupted, and new interactions develop. These idiosyncrasies can result in novel biotic communities and rapid changes in ecosystem functioning, with pervasive and sometimes unexpected consequences. Human population growth and human caused climate change taken together put stresses on biodiversity and cause a redistribution of Earth’s species. Human activities must be changed accordingly}
82. 2015: Kerr, Jeremy T., et al. “Climate change impacts on bumblebees converge across continents.” Science 349.6244 (2015): 177-180. {Responses to climate change have been observed across many species. There is a general trend for species to shift their ranges poleward or up in elevation. Not all species, however, can make such shifts, and these species might experience more rapid declines. Kerr et al. looked at data on bumblebees across North America and Europe over the past 110 years. Bumblebees have not shifted northward and are experiencing shrinking distributions in the southern ends of their range. Such failures to shift may be because of their origins in a cooler climate, and suggest an elevated susceptibility to rapid climate change}
83. 2014: Bonebrake, Timothy C., et al. “From global change to a butterfly flapping: biophysics and behaviour affect tropical climate change impacts.” Proc. R. Soc. B 281.1793 (2014): 20141264 {Difficulty in characterizing the relationship between climatic variability and climate change vulnerability arises when we consider the multiple scales at which this variation occurs, be it temporal (from minute to annual) or spatial (from centimetres to kilometres). We studied populations of a single widely distributed butterfly species, Chlosyne lacinia, to examine the physiological, morphological, thermoregulatory and biophysical underpinnings of adaptation to tropical and temperate climates. Microclimatic and morphological data along with a biophysical model documented the importance of solar radiation in predicting butterfly body temperature. We also integrated the biophysics with a physiologically based insect fitness model to quantify the influence of solar radiation, morphology and behaviour on warming impact projections. While warming is projected to have some detrimental impacts on tropical ectotherms, fitness impacts in this study are not as negative as models that assume body and air temperature equivalence would suggest. We additionally show that behavioural thermoregulation can diminish direct warming impacts, though indirect thermoregulatory consequences could further complicate predictions. With these results, at multiple spatial and temporal scales, we show the importance of biophysics and behaviour for studying biodiversity consequences of global climate change, and stress that tropical climate change impacts are likely to be context-dependent}
84. 2013: Thomas, Chris D. “The Anthropocene could raise biological diversity.” Nature News 502.7469 (2013): 7. {Human activity changes the environment, as last week’s release of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reminds us. But not all change is bad. One way in which animals and plants respond to warming temperatures, for example, is to move beyond their historical distributions, just as they do when they are transported to new regions by humans. The response of people who find themselves ‘invaded’ by such ‘displaced’ species is often irrational. Deliberate persecution of the new — just because it is new — is no longer sustainable in a world of rapid global change. It is true that some invasive species damage ecosystems and can eradicate resident species. As a result, the European Commission, for example, is planning laws to control the ‘adverse’ impacts of species introduced through human activities, albeit without quite saying how those impacts should be defined. But the same process can also increase ecological diversity. On average, less than one native species dies out for each introduced species that arrives. Britain, for instance, has gained 1,875 established non-native species without yet losing anything to the invaders. Human development, dubbed the age of the Anthropocene, boosts biodiversity in other ways too}
85. 2014: Dornelas, Maria, et al. “Assemblage time series reveal biodiversity change but not systematic loss.” Science344.6181 (2014): 296-299. {The extent to which biodiversity change in local assemblages contributes to global biodiversity loss is poorly understood. We analyzed 100 time series from biomes across Earth to ask how diversity within assemblages is changing through time. We quantified patterns of temporal α diversity, measured as change in local diversity, and temporal β diversity, measured as change in community composition. Contrary to our expectations, we did not detect systematic loss of α diversity. However, community composition changed systematically through time, in excess of predictions from null models. Heterogeneous rates of environmental change, species range shifts associated with climate change, and biotic homogenization may explain the different patterns of temporal α and β diversity. Monitoring and understanding change in species composition should be a conservation priority}
86. 2015: Pacifici, Michela, et al. “Assessing species vulnerability to climate change.” Nature Climate Change 5.3 (2015): 215. {The effects of climate change on biodiversity are increasingly well documented, and many methods have been developed to assess species’ vulnerability to climatic changes, both ongoing and projected in the coming decades. To minimize global biodiversity losses, conservationists need to identify those species that are likely to be most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. In this Review, we summarize different currencies used for assessing species’ climate change vulnerability. We describe three main approaches used to derive these currencies (correlative, mechanistic and trait-based), and their associated data requirements, spatial and temporal scales of application and modelling methods. We identify strengths and weaknesses of the approaches and highlight the sources of uncertainty inherent in each method that limit projection reliability. Finally, we provide guidance for conservation practitioners in selecting the most appropriate approach(es) for their planning needs and highlight priority areas for further assessments}
87. 2012: Bonebrake, Timothy C., and Curtis A. Deutsch. “Climate heterogeneity modulates impact of warming on tropical insects.” Ecology 93.3 (2012): 449-455 {Evolutionary history and physiology mediate species responses to climate change. Tropical species that do not naturally experience high temperature variability have a narrow thermal tolerance compared to similar taxa at temperate latitudes and could therefore be most vulnerable to warming. However, the thermal adaptation of a species may also be influenced by spatial temperature variations over its geographical range. Spatial climate gradients, especially from topography, may also broaden thermal tolerance and therefore act to buffer warming impacts. Here we show that for low‐seasonality environments, high spatial heterogeneity in temperature correlates significantly with greater warming tolerance in insects globally. Based on this relationship, we find that climate change projections of direct physiological impacts on insect fitness highlight the vulnerability of tropical lowland areas to future warming. Thus, in addition to seasonality, spatial heterogeneity may play a critical role in thermal adaptation and climate change impacts particularly in the tropics}
88. 2010: Bonebrake, Timothy C., and Michael D. Mastrandrea. “Tolerance adaptation and precipitation changes complicate latitudinal patterns of climate change impacts.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107.28 (2010): 12581-12586 {Global patterns of biodiversity and comparisons between tropical and temperate ecosystems have pervaded ecology from its inception. However, the urgency in understanding these global patterns has been accentuated by the threat of rapid climate change. We apply an adaptive model of environmental tolerance evolution to global climate data and climate change model projections to examine the relative impacts of climate change on different regions of the globe. Our results project more adverse impacts of warming on tropical populations due to environmental tolerance adaptation to conditions of low interannual variability in temperature. When applied to present variability and future forecasts of precipitation data, the tolerance adaptation model found large reductions in fitness predicted for populations in high-latitude northern hemisphere regions, although some tropical regions had comparable reductions in fitness. We formulated an evolutionary regional climate change index (ERCCI) to additionally incorporate the predicted changes in the interannual variability of temperature and precipitation. Based on this index, we suggest that the magnitude of climate change impacts could be much more heterogeneous across latitude than previously thought. Specifically, tropical regions are likely to be just as affected as temperate regions and, in some regions under some circumstances, possibly more so}
89. 2006: Rodrigues, Ana SL, et al. “The value of the IUCN Red List for conservation.” Trends in ecology & evolution 21.2 (2006): 71-76. {The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the most comprehensive resource detailing the global conservation status of plants and animals. The 2004 edition represents a milestone in the four-decade long history of the Red List, including the first Global Amphibian Assessment and a near doubling in assessed species since 2000. Moreover, the Red List assessment process itself has developed substantially over the past decade, extending the value of the Red List far beyond the assignation of threat status. We highlight here how the Red List, in conjunction with the comprehensive data compiled to support it and in spite of several important limitations, has become an increasingly powerful tool for conservation planning, management, monitoring and decision making}
90. 2012: Bellard, Céline, et al. “Impacts of climate change on the future of biodiversity.” Ecology letters 15.4 (2012): 365-377. {the majority of models indicate alarming consequences for biodiversity, with the worst‐case scenarios leading to extinction rates that would qualify as the sixth mass extinction in the history of the earth}
91. 2012: Reed, David H. “Impact of climate change on biodiversity.” Handbook of Climate Change Mitigation. Springer US, 2012. 505-530. {climate change will cause serious disruptions to Earth’s ecological systems, resulting in an overall loss of biodiversity and a reduction in the goods and services provided to humans. Extinction rates in the future are difficult to predict. However, with immediate and decisive action to mitigate climate change, losses of biodiversity can be minimized and humans can continue to reap many of the benefits nature provides. Business as usual scenarios will likely lead to the loss of >50% of all plant and animal species on Earth and the collapse of many ecosystems}
92. 2003: Pearson, Richard G., and Terence P. Dawson. “Predicting the impacts of climate change on the distribution of species: are bioclimate envelope models useful?.” Global ecology and biogeography 12.5 (2003): 361-371. {Bioclimate Envelope Models can provide a useful first approximation of the impact of climate change on biodiversity but at the spatial scale at which these models are applied model results should not be interpreted without consideration of model limitations}
93. 2009: Cheung, William WL, et al. “Projecting global marine biodiversity impacts under climate change scenarios.” Fish and fisheries 10.3 (2009): 235-251 {A newly developed dynamic Bioclimate Envelope Model shows that climate change may lead to local extinctions of marine life in the sub‐polar regions, the tropics and semi‐enclosed seas. Species invasion is projected to be most intense in the Arctic and the Southern Ocean. Together, they result in dramatic species turnover of over 60% of the present biodiversity}
94. 2004: Thomas, Chris D., et al. “Extinction risk from climate change.” Nature 427.6970 (2004): 145. {15–37% of species in our sample of regions and taxa will be ‘committed to extinction’ by the year 2050. Minimal climate-warming scenarios produce lower projections of species committed to extinction (∼18%) than mid-range (∼24%) and maximum-change (∼35%) scenarios. These estimates show the importance of rapid implementation of technologies to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and strategies for carbon sequestration}
95. 2009: Heller, Nicole E., and Erika S. Zavaleta. “Biodiversity management in the face of climate change: a review of 22 years of recommendations.” Biological conservation 142.1 (2009): 14-32. {Species ranges and ecological dynamics are already responding to recent climate shifts, and current reserves will not continue to support all species they were designed to protect}
96. 2005: Araújo, Miguel B., et al. “Validation of species–climate impact models under climate change.” Global Change Biology 11.9 (2005): 1504-1513. {Increasing concern over the implications of climate change for biodiversity has led to the use of species–climate envelope models to project species extinction risk under climate‐change scenarios. However, recent studies have demonstrated significant variability in model predictions and there remains a pressing need to validate models and to reduce uncertainties}
97. 2014: Sharafi, Saeed, etal “Impacts of climate change on biodiversity.” (2014). {Climate change impacts on biodiversity through habitat loss and fragmentation, invasive species, species exploitation and nutrient enrichment. Distributions tend to shift down temperature gradients. The direction of shifts vary considerably among species depending on which bioclimatic variables are most important in the models for each species}
98. 2007: Thuiller, Wilfried. “Biodiversity: climate change and the ecologist.” Nature 448.7153 (2007): 550. {The evidence for rapid climate change now seems overwhelming. Global temperatures are predicted to rise by up to 4 °C by 2100, with associated alterations in precipitation patterns. Assessing the consequences for biodiversity, and how they might be mitigated, is a Grand Challenge in ecology}
99. 2007: Barnett, Jon, and W. Neil Adger. “Climate change, human security and violent conflict.” Political geography 26.6 (2007): 639-655. {Climate change undermines human security by reducing access to, and the quality of, natural resources that are important to sustain livelihoods. Climate change is also likely to undermine the capacity of states to provide the opportunities and services that help people to sustain their livelihoods. These changes may in turn increase the risk of violent conflict}
100. 2003: Schwartz, Peter, and Doug Randall. An abrupt climate change scenario and its implications for United States national security. CALIFORNIA INST OF TECH PASADENA JET PROPULSION LAB, 2003. {Once temperature rises above some threshold, adverse weather conditions could develop relatively abruptly, with persistent changes in the atmospheric circulation causing drops in some regions of 5-10F in a single decade. An abrupt climate change scenario could destabilize the geopolitical environment, leading to skirmishes, battles, and even war due to resource constraints such as food shortages due to decreases in net global agricultural production, decreased availability and quality of fresh water in key regions due to shifted precipitation patters, causing more frequent floods and droughts, and disrupted access to energy supplies due to extensive sea ice and storminess}
101. 2007: Zhang, David D., et al. “Global climate change, war, and population decline in recent human history.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104.49 (2007): 19214-19219. {long-term fluctuations of war frequency and population changes followed the cycles of temperature change such that cooling impeded agricultural production, which brought about price inflation, war, famine, and population decline}
102. 2007: Brown, Oli, Anne Hammill, and Robert McLeman. “Climate change as the ‘new’security threat: implications for Africa.” International affairs 83.6 (2007): 1141-1154. {Projected climatic changes for Africa suggest a future of increasingly scarce water, collapsing agricultural yields, encroaching desert and damaged coastal infrastructure. Such impacts, should they occur, would undermine the ‘carrying capacity’ of large parts of Africa, causing destabilizing population movements and raising tensions over dwindling strategic resources. In such cases, climate change could be a factor that tips fragile states into socio‐economic and political collapse}
103. 2010: Buhaug, Halvard, Nils Petter Gleditsch, and Ole Magnus Theisen. “Implications of climate change for armed conflict.” Social dimensions of climate change: Equity and vulnerability in a warming world (2010): 75-101. {Climate change has far-reaching implications for international relations and for personal, national and regional security. Tremendous strides have been made in improving scientific understanding of the human processes driving global climate change and the likely impacts on socio-economic systems – what the consequences will be for society, and how best to address them. The World Bank convened an international workshop in March, 2008, with the participation of community activists, former heads of state, leaders of Indigenous Peoples, representatives of non-governmental organizations, international researchers, and staff of the World Bank and other international development agencies.}
104. 2005: Patz, Jonathan A., et al. “Impact of regional climate change on human health.” Nature 438.7066 (2005): 310. {There is growing evidence that climate–health relationships pose increasing health risks under future projections of climate change and that the warming trend over recent decades has already contributed to increased morbidity and mortality in many regions of the world. Warming and precipitation trends due to anthropogenic climate change of the past 30 years has claimed more that 150,000 lives per year}
105. 2006: Haines, Andy, et al. “Climate change and human health: impacts, vulnerability and public health.” Public health 120.7 (2006): 585-596. {Climate change affects health as a result of increased frequency and intensity of heat waves, reduction in cold related deaths, increased floods and droughts, changes in the distribution of vector-borne diseases and effects on the risk of disasters and malnutrition. The overall balance of effects on health is likely to be negative and populations in low-income countries are likely to be particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects}
106. 2006: McMichael, Anthony J., Rosalie E. Woodruff, and Simon Hales. “Climate change and human health: present and future risks.” The Lancet 367.9513 (2006): 859-869. {Epidemiological evidence shows that climate variations and trends affect various health outcomes. Recent global warming has already affected some health outcomes due to thermal stress, extreme weather events, and infectious diseases, regional food yields and prevalence of hunger}
107. 1993: Kalkstein, L. S., and K. E. Smoyer. “The impact of climate change on human health: some international implications.” Experientia 49.11 (1993): 969-979. {Heat-related mortality is will rise significantly if the earth warms, with the greatest impacts in China and Egypt. The most sensitive areas are those with intense but irregular heat waves. In the United States, air pollution does not appear to impact daily mortality significantly when severe weather is present but has an influence when weather conditions are not stressful}
108. 2012: Shindell, Drew, et al. “Simultaneously mitigating near-term climate change and improving human health and food security.” Science 335.6065 (2012): 183-189. {Tropospheric ozone and black carbon (BC) contribute to both degraded air quality and global warming. Targeting methane and BC emissions that reduce projected global mean warming ~0.5°C by 2050 avoids 0.7 to 4.7 million annual premature deaths from outdoor air pollution and increases annual crop yields by 30 to 135 million metric tons due to ozone reductions in 2030 and beyond. Benefits of methane emissions reductions are valued at $700 to $5000 per metric ton, which is well above typical marginal abatement costs (less than $250). The selected controls target different sources and influence climate on shorter time scales than those of carbon dioxide–reduction measures. Implementing both substantially reduces the risks of crossing the 2°C threshold}
109. 2005: Epstein, Paul R. “Climate change and human health.” New England Journal of Medicine 353.14 (2005): 1433-1436. {Heat waves like the one that hit Chicago in 1995, killing some 750 people and hospitalizing thousands, have become more common.¹ Hot, humid nights, which have become more frequent with global warming, magnify the effects. The 2003 European heat wave — involving temperatures that were 18°F (10°C) above the 30-year average, with no relief at night — killed 21,000 to 35,000 people in five countries. But even more subtle, gradual climatic changes can damage human health. During the past two decades, the prevalence of asthma in the United States has quadrupled, in part because of climate-related factors. For Caribbean islanders, respiratory irritants come in dust clouds that emanate from Africa’s expanding deserts and are then swept across the Atlantic by trade winds accelerated by the widening pressure gradients over warming oceans. Increased levels of plant pollen and soil fungi may also be involved. When ragweed is grown in conditions with twice the ambient level of carbon dioxide, the stalks sprout 10 percent taller than controls but produce 60 percent more pollen. Elevated carbon dioxide levels also promote the growth and sporulation of some soil fungi, and diesel particles help to deliver these aeroallergens deep into our alveoli and present them to immune cells along the way. The melting of the earth’s ice cover has already become a source of physical trauma. Alaska Inuits report an increase in accidents caused by walking on thin ice}
110. 2003: Hughes, Terry P., et al. “Climate change, human impacts, and the resilience of coral reefs.” science 301.5635 (2003): 929-933. {Projected increases in carbon dioxide and temperature over the next 50 years exceed the conditions under which coral reefs have flourished over the past half-million years but reefs will change rather than disappear entirely, with some species already showing far greater tolerance to climate change and coral bleaching than we thought was possible}
111. 2007: Hoegh-Guldberg, Ove, et al. “Coral reefs under rapid climate change and ocean acidification.” science 318.5857 (2007): 1737-1742. {Warming and ocean acidification will compromise carbonate accretion, with corals becoming increasingly rare on reef systems. The result will be less diverse reef communities and carbonate reef structures that fail to be maintained. Climate change will drive reefs toward the tipping point for functional collapse. There will be serious consequences for reef-associated fisheries and tourism}
112. 2008: Carpenter, Kent E., et al. “One-third of reef-building corals face elevated extinction risk from climate change and local impacts.” Science 321.5888 (2008): 560-563. {The proportion of corals threatened with extinction has increased dramatically in recent decades and exceeds that of most terrestrial groups. The Caribbean has the largest proportion of corals in high extinction risk categories, whereas the Coral Triangle (western Pacific) has the highest proportion of species in all categories of elevated extinction risk. Our results emphasize the widespread plight of coral reefs and the urgent need to enact conservation measures}
113. 2008: Baker, Andrew C., Peter W. Glynn, and Bernhard Riegl. “Climate change and coral reef bleaching: An ecological assessment of long-term impacts, recovery trends and future outlook.” Estuarine, coastal and shelf science 80.4 (2008): 435-471. {Bleaching episodes have resulted in catastrophic loss of coral cover in some locations, and have changed coral community structure in many others, with a potentially critical influence on the maintenance of biodiversity in the marine tropics. Bleaching has also set the stage for other declines in reef health, such as increases in coral diseases, the breakdown of reef framework by bioeroders, and the loss of critical habitat for associated reef fishes and other biota. Secondary ecological effects, such as the concentration of predators on remnant surviving coral populations, have also accelerated the pace of decline in some areas}
114. 2010: Hoegh-Guldberg, Ove, and John F. Bruno. “The impact of climate change on the world’s marine ecosystems.” Science328.5985 (2010): 1523-1528. {Rapidly rising greenhouse gas concentrations are driving ocean systems toward conditions not seen for millions of years, with an associated risk of fundamental and irreversible ecological transformation. The impacts of anthropogenic climate change so far include decreased ocean productivity, altered food web dynamics, reduced abundance of habitat-forming species, shifting species distributions, and a greater incidence of disease}
115. 2007: Hughes, Terence P., et al. “Phase shifts, herbivory, and the resilience of coral reefs to climate change.” Current Biology17.4 (2007): 360-365. {Many coral reefs worldwide have undergone phase shifts to alternate, degraded assemblages because of the combined effects of overfishing, declining water quality, and the direct and indirect impacts of climate change}
116. 1999: Hoegh-Guldberg, Ove. “Climate change, coral bleaching and the future of the world’s coral reefs.” Marine and freshwater research 50.8 (1999): 839-866. {Sea temperatures in many tropical regions have increased by almost 1°C over the past 100 years, and are currently increasing at ~1–2°C per century. Coral bleaching occurs when the thermal tolerance of corals and their photosynthetic symbionts (zooxanthellae) is exceeded. Mass coral bleaching has occurred in association with episodes of elevated sea temperatures over the past 20 years and involves the loss of the zooxanthellae following chronic photoinhibition. Mass bleaching has resulted in significant losses of live coral in many parts of the world}
117. 2004: Edwards, Martin, and Anthony J. Richardson. “Impact of climate change on marine pelagic phenology and trophic mismatch.” Nature 430.7002 (2004): 881. {Using long-term data of 66 plankton taxa during the period from 1958 to 2002, we investigated whether climate warming signals⁴ are emergent across all trophic levels and functional groups within an ecological community. Here we show that not only is the marine pelagic community responding to climate changes, but also that the level of response differs throughout the community and the seasonal cycle, leading to a mismatch between trophic levels and functional groups}
118. 2007: Brander, Keith M. “Global fish production and climate change.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104.50 (2007): 19709-19714. {There are strong interactions between the effects of fishing and the effects of climate because fishing reduces the age, size, and geographic diversity of populations and the biodiversity of marine ecosystems, making both more sensitive to additional stresses such as climate change. Inland fisheries are additionally threatened by changes in precipitation and water management. The frequency and intensity of extreme climate events is likely to have a major impact on future fisheries production in both inland and marine systems. Reducing fishing mortality in the majority of fisheries, which are currently fully exploited or overexploited, is the principal feasible means of reducing the impacts of climate change}
119. 2006: Sims, David. “Impacts of climate change on fish.” Marine Climate Change Impacts Annual Report Card (2006). {There is substantial global evidence that climate change has impacted marine fish populations and communities. Significant fluctuations in fish abundance acting through reproduction, phenology, rExpected declines in northerly distributed species with recent warming remains equivocal. Boreal species may have retracted north in some regions but not in others. Current
     understanding suggests climate effects on fish reflect species-specific responses in addition to complex interactions between species (e.g. predatorprey relationships). Although climate influences marine fish assemblages, the precise mechanisms underlying most observed changes remain unclear}
120. 2013: Simpson, Stephen D., J. L. Blanchard, and M. G. Genner. “Impacts of climate change on fish.” (2013). {The shelf seas surrounding the British Isles have warmed four times faster than the global average over the last 30 years. Recent warm conditions are unlike anything in the last 20,000 years. Recent warming has caused some cold-water demersal (bottom-dwelling) species to move northwards and into deeper water (e.g. cod, whiting, monkfish), and has caused some warm-water demersal species to become more common or “invade” new areas (e.g. John dory, red mullet). Pelagic (blue-water) species are showing distributional shifts, with mackerel now extending into Icelandic and Faroe Island waters (with consequences for management), sardines and anchovies invading Irish and North Sea environments, and anchovies establishing breeding populations in the southern North Sea. But we don’t know if that’s due to the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation or Global Warming}
121. 2009: Rijnsdorp, Adriaan D., et al. “Resolving the effect of climate change on fish populations.” ICES journal of marine science66.7 (2009): 1570-1583. {Global warming results in a shift in abundance and distribution (in patterns of occurrence with latitude and depth) of fish species. Pelagic species exhibit clear changes in seasonal migration patterns related to climate-induced changes in zooplankton productivity. Lusitanian species have increased in recent decades (sprat, anchovy, and horse mackerel), especially at the northern limit of their distribution areas, while Boreal species decreased at the southern limit of their distribution range (cod and plaice), but increased at the northern limit (cod). Although the underlying mechanisms remain uncertain, available evidence suggests climate-related changes in recruitment success to be the key process, stemming from either higher production or survival in the pelagic egg or larval stage, or owing to changes in the quality/quantity of nursery habitats}
122. 2008: Dulvy, Nicholas K., et al. “Climate change and deepening of the North Sea fish assemblage: a biotic indicator of warming seas.” Journal of Applied Ecology 45.4 (2008): 1029-1039. {North Sea winter bottom temperature has increased by 1·6 °C over 25 years, with a 1 °C increase in 1988–1989 alone. During this period, the whole demersal fish assemblage deepened by ~3·6 m decade−1 and the deepening was coherent for most assemblages. The latitudinal response to warming was heterogeneous, and reflects (i) a northward shift in the mean latitude of abundant, widespread thermal specialists, and (ii) the southward shift of relatively small, abundant southerly species with limited occupancy and a northern range boundary in the North Sea. Synthesis and applications. The deepening of North Sea bottom‐dwelling fishes in response to climate change is the marine analogue of the upward movement of terrestrial species to higher altitudes. The assemblage‐level depth responses, and both latitudinal responses, covary with temperature and environmental variability in a manner diagnostic of a climate change impact. The deepening of the demersal fish assemblage in response to temperature could be used as a biotic indicator of the effects of climate change in the North Sea and other semi‐enclosed seas}
123. 2009: Cheung, William WL, et al. “Projecting global marine biodiversity impacts under climate change scenarios.” Fish and fisheries 10.3 (2009): 235-251. {We investigate the global patterns of impacts by projecting the distributional ranges of a sample of 1066 exploited marine fish and invertebrates for 2050 using a newly developed dynamic bioclimate envelope model. Our projections show that climate change may lead to numerous local extinction in the sub‐polar regions, the tropics and semi‐enclosed seas. Simultaneously, species invasion is projected to be most intense in the Arctic and the Southern Ocean. Together, they result in dramatic species turnovers of over 60% of the present biodiversity, implying ecological disturbances that potentially disrupt ecosystem services}
124. 2004: Lal, Rattan. “Soil carbon sequestration impacts on global climate change and food security.” science 304.5677 (2004): 1623-1627. {Strategies to increase the soil carbon pool include soil restoration and woodland regeneration, no-till farming, cover crops, nutrient management, manuring and sludge application, improved grazing, water conservation and harvesting, efficient irrigation, agroforestry practices, and growing energy crops on spare lands. An increase of 1 ton of soil carbon pool of degraded cropland soils may increase crop yield by 20 to 40 kilograms per hectare (kg/ha) for wheat, 10 to 20 kg/ha for maize, and 0.5 to 1 kg/ha for cowpeas. As well as enhancing food security, carbon sequestration has the potential to offset fossil fuel emissions by 0.4 to 1.2 gigatons of carbon per year, or 5 to 15% of the global fossil-fuel emissions}
125. 2008: Lobell, David B., et al. “Prioritizing climate change adaptation needs for food security in 2030.” Science 319.5863 (2008): 607-610. {An analysis of climate risks for crops in 12 food-insecure regions was conducted to identify adaptation priorities, based on statistical crop models and climate projections for 2030 from 20 general circulation models. Results indicate South Asia and Southern Africa as two regions that, without sufficient adaptation measures, will likely suffer negative impacts on several crops that are important to large food-insecure human populations}
126. 2007: Schmidhuber, Josef, and Francesco N. Tubiello. “Global food security under climate change.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104.50 (2007): 19703-19708. {Of the four main elements of food security, i.e., availability, stability, utilization, and access, only the first is routinely addressed in simulation studies. To this end, published results indicate that the impacts of climate change are significant, however, with a wide projected range (between 5 million and 170 million additional people at risk of hunger by 2080) strongly depending on assumed socio-economic development. The likely impacts of climate change on the other important dimensions of food security are discussed qualitatively, indicating the potential for further negative impacts beyond those currently assessed with models}
127. 2013: Wheeler, Tim, and Joachim Von Braun. “Climate change impacts on global food security.” Science 341.6145 (2013): 508-513. {Climate variability and change will exacerbate food insecurity in areas currently vulnerable to hunger and undernutrition. Likewise, it can be anticipated that food access and utilization will be affected indirectly via collateral effects on household and individual incomes, and food utilization could be impaired by loss of access to drinking water and damage to health. The evidence supports the need for considerable investment in adaptation and mitigation actions toward a “climate-smart food system” that is more resilient to climate change influences on food security}
128. 2005: Gregory, Peter J., John SI Ingram, and Michael Brklacich. “Climate change and food security.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences360.1463 (2005): 2139-2148. {Climate change may affect food systems in several ways ranging from direct effects on crop production (e.g. changes in rainfall leading to drought or flooding, or warmer or cooler temperatures leading to changes in the length of growing season), to changes in markets, food prices and supply chain infrastructure. The relative importance of climate change for food security differs among regions. In southern Africa, climate is among the most frequently cited drivers of food insecurity because it acts both as an underlying, ongoing issue and as a short-lived shock. The low ability to cope with shocks and to mitigate long-term stresses means that coping strategies that might be available in other regions are unavailable or inappropriate. In other regions, though, such as parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain of India, other drivers, such as labour issues and the availability and quality of ground water for irrigation, rank higher than the direct effects of climate change as factors influencing food security}
129. 2008: Brown, Molly E., and Chris C. Funk. “Food security under climate change.” (2008). {Climate change impacts on farmers will vary by region, depending on their use of technology. Technological sophistication determines a farm’s productivity far more than its climatic and agricultural endowments. Food insecurity, therefore, is not solely a product of “climatic determinism” and can be addressed by improvements in economic, political, and agricultural policies at local and global scales. In currently food-insecure regions, farming is typically conducted manually, using a hoe and planting stick with few inputs. The difference between the productivity of these farms and those using petroleum-based fertilizer and pesticides, biotechnology-enhanced plant varieties, and mechanization is extreme (5). Not only will climate change have a differential effect on ecosystems in the tropics due to their already warmer climates, but also poor farmers in the tropics will be less able to cope with changes in climate because they have far fewer options in their agricultural system}
130. 1994: Rosenzweig, Cynthia, and Martin L. Parry. “Potential impact of climate change on world food supply.” Nature 367.6459 (1994): 133-138. {Doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide will lead to a small decrease in global crop production but developing countries will bear  the brunt of the problem. Simulations of the effect of adaptive measures by farmers imply that these will do little to reduce the disparity between rich and poor countries}

[LIST OF POSTS ON THIS SITE]

1. WIKIPEDIA: The global warming conspiracy theory invokes claims that the scientific consensus on global warming is based on conspiracies to produce manipulated data or suppress dissent. It is used in climate change denialism to legitimize controversy and dispute consensus. Global warming conspiracy theorists typically allege that, through worldwide acts of professional and criminal misconduct, the science behind global warming has been invented or distorted for ideological or financial reasons, or both.
2. OXFORD UNIVERSITY: While scientists have alerted the public and policy makers to the dangers of continuing carbon emission, policy proposals intended to curb carbon emission and thereby mitigate climate change have been resisted by a segment of the public. Most alarming are those who oppose solutions to climate change because they believe, or at least claim to believe, that anthropogenic climate change is not really happening and that climate scientists are lying and their data are fake.
3. SAGE JOURNAL: Climate change conspiracy theories are motivated by the desire to deny an unwelcome conclusion. They are more contentious than other types of conspiracy theories. Climate change conspiracy theories are more politically motivated, dividing opinion across the left-right continuum. Empirical evidence suggests that climate change conspiracy theories are harmful, steering people away from environmentally friendly initiatives. They therefore present a significant challenge for governments and environmental activists trying to convince people to take action against global warming.
4. RATIONAL WIKI: Anthropogenic human-caused global warming, is the rising average temperature of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans and its related effects. Global warming denialism refers to fossil fuel industry-funded claims that global warming is: not happening, not caused by humans, or not significant enough to be a threat. They highlight hypothetical positive effects ( grow crops in the Arctic) while ignoring strong evidence for negative effects (crops will have lower nutrient levels). Deniers should not be confused with those that accept that anthropogenic global warming is a major threat, but may hold reasonable doubt about the effectiveness of proposed climate action.
5. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES: The concerted effort to discredit the scientific consensus over man-made global warming has been continuing for two decades in the United States, and shows no sign of weakening. It is very often described as an attempt on the part of corporate America, most notably the fossil fuel industries, to hinder governmental regulations on their activities. The US climate denial movement is complex, not just the mere defense of the oil and gas industries. There are additional factors which have been instrumental in blocking strong climate action. First, climate denial stems from the strong ideological commitment of small-government conservatives and libertarians to laisser-faire and their strong opposition to regulation. Second, in order to disarm their opponents, US climate deniers often rest their case on the defense of the American way of life, defined by high consumption and ever-expanding material prosperity. The US climate denial movement is best understood in these terms.
6. BIOSCIENCE JOURNAL: Increasing surface temperatures, Arctic sea-ice loss, and other evidence of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) are acknowledged by every major scientific organization in the world. However, there is a wide gap between this broad scientific consensus and public opinion. Internet blogs have strongly contributed to this gap by fomenting misunderstandings of AGW causes and consequences. Polar bears are a “poster species” for AGW, making them a target of those denying AGW evidence. Blogs that deny or downplay AGW disregard the overwhelming scientific evidence of Arctic sea-ice loss and polar bear vulnerability. By denying the impacts of AGW on polar bears, bloggers aim to cast doubt on other established ecological consequences of AGW, aggravating the consensus gap. To counter misinformation and reduce this gap, scientists should directly engage the public in the media and blogosphere.
7. SEE ALSO:  [CLIMATE DENIALISM RESEARCH]

LINKS TO THE ALL SIX CHAPTERS

[1980-1985]

[1985-1990]

[1990-1995]

[1995-2000]

[2000-2005]

[2005-2010]

LINKS TO THE ALL SIX CHAPTERS

[1980-1985]

[1985-1990]

[1990-1995]

[1995-2000]

[2000-2005]

[2005-2010]

1. 2005: HURRICANE KATRINA WAS CAUSED BY OUR USE OF FOSSIL FUELS
   A high level of interest in tropical cyclones derives from an unusually active hurricane season in 2004 when more than 14 tropical cyclones formed in the North Atlantic basin. Four of these storms intensified to Category 4 or greater and made landfall in the USA causing considerable damage. The even more dramatic 2005 season followed in its heels with more than thirty depressions. Four of them intensified to Category 5 and three made landfall. The most intense was Hurricane Wilma but the most spectacular was Hurricane Katrina which made landfall in Florida and again in Louisiana. Its devastation was facilitated by a breach in a levee system that was unrelated to AGW but its dramatic consequences made it an icon of the possible extreme weather impacts of fossil fuel caused global warming. Climate scientists stepped up quickly and said that Katrina was confirmed as a climate change even by climate models. More info:  https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/09/18/climate-change-hurricanes/
2. 2005: METHANE BOMB IN THE PEAT BOGS OF SIBERIA
   Man-made global warming is melting the vast peat bogs of Siberia. The melt will release enough methane and carbon dioxide to bring about climate change Armageddon by virtue of a positive feedback and its non-linear process gone berserk. This scare is repeated in 2007 saying that global warming is causing the Alaska coast to melt. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/04/reference-alaska-coasts-melting-bangkok.html
3. 2006: CORAL DOOMED TO EXTINCTION BY GLOBAL WARMING
   Climate scientists see all coral bleaching as anomalous and unnatural and therefore symptoms of human caused global warming, as if they had never seen coral bleaching before. In 2006, they issued an alarm that “it was already too late for the coral” because we have put too much CO2 into the atmosphere and the warming and acidification of the oceans thus caused will kill off all the world’s coral. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/09/reference-it-is-already-too-late-for.html
4. 2007: A PLAN TO SAVE BANGKOK FROM GLOBAL WARMING’S SEA LEVEL RISE
   It has been more than a year now that scientists and climate experts sought a budget of 100 billion baht to build a sea wall 80 kilometers long from the mouth of the Ta Chin river to the Bang Pakong river to protect the city of Bangkok from being inundated by the sea that was projected to rise by 20 cm per year due to man-made global warming. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/02/reference-group-floats-plan-to-keep.html
5. 2007: WE PASSED THE CLIMATE CHANGE TIPPING POINT AND ARE DOOMED
   Ahead of the Bali meeting in 2007, climate scientists flooded the media with press releases that were increasingly alarmist in their pitch to save the planet from fossil fuels, so much so that they got carried away and announced that it was too late to save the planet for we had passed the tipping point because the damage done by the carbon dioxide already in the air had put into motion irreversible non-linear changes that would lead us to climate doom whether or not we cut emissions. Soon thereafter, having realized their folly, they quickly reversed themselves just in time for Bali by saying that there was still time to save the planet after all. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/09/reference-sea-rise-is-virtually.html
6. 2007: OUR USE OF FOSSIL FUELS IS CAUSING GREENLAND TO MELT
   A comparison of Landsat photos taken on 8/11/1985 and 9/5/2002 shows that global warming caused by our use of fossil fuels is melting the massive Greenland ice sheet and exposing the rocky peninsula beneath the ice previously covered by ice. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/10/reference-melting-glacier-uncovers.html
7. 2007: HIMALAYAN GLACIER MELT WILL DEVASTATE BILLIONS IN ASIA
   The rate of retreat of the retreating Gangotri glacier in the Himalayan mountains has accelerated from 19 meters/yr in 1971 to 34 meters/yr in 2001. Extrapolated of the observed acceleration forward shows that global warming devastation due to carbon dioxide was only a decade away for people who depend on the Ganges and other rivers with headwaters in the Himalayas. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/12/reference-himalayan-glacier-melts-to.html
8. 2007-2010: CLIMATE CHANGE DRYING UP ANDES ICE AND WATER SUPPLIES 
   Global warming caused by our use of fossil fuels has devastated the Andes Mountains in South America where they are losing their ice and water supplies. We must help these poor people by reducing fossil fuel emissions and thereby curbing global warming and climate change. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2010/01/reference-vanishing-ice-and-political.html
9. 2007: THE ARCTIC IS SCREAMING
   Climate science declares that the low sea ice extent in the Arctic is the leading indicator of climate change. We are told that the Arctic “is screaming”, that Arctic sea ice extent is the “canary in the coal mine”, and that Polar Bears and other creatures in the Arctic are dying off and facing imminent extinction. Scientists say that the melting sea ice has set up a positive feedback system that would cause the summer melts in subsequent years to be greater and greater until the Arctic becomes ice free in the summer of 2012. We must take action immediately to cut carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2010/04/reference-less-ice-less-pups-bangkok.html
10. 2007: THE ICE FREE ARCTIC CLAIMS GAIN MOMENTUM
    The unusual summer melt of Arctic sea ice in 2007 has encouraged climate science to warn the world that global warming will cause a steep decline in the amount of ice left in subsequent summer melts until the Arctic becomes ice free in summer and that could happen as soon as 2080 or maybe 2060 or it could even be 2030. This time table got shorter and shorter until, without a “scientific” explanation, the ice free year was brought up to 2013. In the meantime, the data showed that in 2008 and 2009 the summer melt did not progressively increase as predicted but did just the opposite by making a comeback in 2008 that got even stronger in 2009. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/12/reference-polar-ice-may-go-in-five.html
11. 2007: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT BY HUMANS IS A WAR AGAINST NATURE
    In the Bali climate meeting scientists declare economic development is a bad thing because hurricanes, cyclones, snowstorms, and floods are killing people as a result of the war on nature waged by humanity in pursuit of economic development. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2007/12/reference-inconvenient-truth-in-bali.html
12. 2007: DEVELOPMENT BANKS TRICK POOR COUNTRIES INTO CLIMATE ACTION
    In the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol climate action plan, only the rich industrialized Annex-1 and Annex-2 countries have emissions reduction and other climate action obligations. Poor developing countries, classified as non-Annex, have no climate action obligation but in fact are allowed to increase their emissions to achieve economic development and property alleviation. Yet development agencies like the UNDP and development banks, particularly the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, whose stated mission is to help developing countries to develop are using their leverage with the poor instead to trick them into climate action by refusing development assistance for projects that violate the climate action and emission reduction standards of rich countries. These actions are illegal and criminal. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2007/12/global-warming-is-caused-by-worlds-rich.html
13. 2007: CLIMATE CHANGE DROUGHT IN THE ANDES MOUNTAINS
    A semi-arid region subject to droughts and supplied by melt water from evanescent glaciers that have come and gone in cycles for thousands of years is selected by climate scientists to show that fossil fuel emissions cause drought. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2007/12/reference-early-climate-change-victim.html
14. 2007: CLIMATE CHANGE REACHES A TIPPING POINT
    Since 1998, and most recently in 2007, we have been told on a fairly regular basis that climate change caused by our use of fossil fuels has reached the “tipping point”. When asked to define the term they said that it is not a point of no return and that a definition would be forthcoming; but that there is no doubt that we have reached the tipping point in 2007. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2007/12/reference-arctic-is-screaming-bangkok.html
15. 2007: REPORT BY THE CIVIL SOCIETY COALITION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
    The Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change has published a report showing that the mortality rate from extreme weather events in the period 1990-2006 is almost half of that for the prior 90 years of the 20th century and that this mortality rate is not rising but has been falling steadily since 1920. Climate scientists say that this report is not credible because its authors are in the pay of oil companies. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2007/12/reference-climate-change-hits-asia-hard.html
16. 2007: THE EXTINCTION OF ADELIE PENGUINS AND LOSS OF BIODIVERSITY
    The penguins are flightless and not well dispersed and therefore at risk of extinction but that extinction, if it happens, will lead to a new species and even greater biodiversity. This is how nature works. Nature does not need environmentalists, much less UN bureaucrats, to micromanage these processes nor is such micromanagement possible. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2007/12/reference-warming-threatens-penguins.html
17. 2007: CLIMATE ACTION EVEN IF THERE ARE ERRORS IN THE CLIMATE MODEL
    Climate scientists say that errors in their climate model do not detract from the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions because the reduction can only do good and can do no harm. They also warn us that contrarians that say otherwise are paid agents of the fossil fuel industry and not real scientists. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2007/12/reference-realistically-its-too-late.html
18. 2007: SCIENTISTS SAY THAT SEA LEVELS WILL RISE BY 7 METERS IN 100 YEARS
    Climate scientists say that at the current rate of increase in the use of fossil fuels, the sea level would rise by 7 meters in 100 years and devastate low-lying countries like Bangladesh. When these estimates were challenged and their internal inconsistencies exposed, the IPCC quietly revised the 100-year forecast downward 100-fold from 7 meters to 7 centimeters on their website but the news media alarm about 7 meters continued unabated with “thousands of years” quietly inserted in place of “100 years. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2007/12/reference-melting-greenland-ice-sheet.html
19. 2007: THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT INFERNO OF VENUS IS EARTH’S FATE 
    Climate scientists say that Venus represents earth’s fate if we don’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. It is yet another desperate attempt to scare us into going along with their war against fossil fuels. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2007/12/reference-venus-inferno-due-to.html
20. 2007: INDONESIA: FLOODS, DROUGHTS, LANDSLIDES, AND SEA LEVEL RISE
    Scientists say that an effect of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels is that droughts, floods, landslides, and rising sea levels are becoming commonplace in Indonesia. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2007/12/reference-crunch-is-in-mandatory-limits_9192.html
21. 2007: CLIMATE CHANGE DEVASTATION IN BANGLADESH BY CYCLONE SIDR
    Tropical cyclones over the Bay of Bengal that make landfall in Bangladesh with the severity of Cyclone Sidr or greater are common. The mother of them all was the cyclone of 1970. It killed 550,000 people and the devastation eventually led to the birth of the country we know as Bangladesh. It is not possible to represent these events as evidence that CO2 from rich countries is devastating poor countries. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2007/11/reference-how-equitable-is-climate.html
22. 2007: INUNDATION, DROUGHT, AND HURRICANES
    The Kiribati and Tuvalu islands are atolls and atolls often sink by subduction. Bangladesh is a delta where its natural dynamics contain sand spit formation and erosion. The Darfur area is semi-arid and prone to droughts. The North Atlantic Basin is an active tropical cyclone area known for occasional severe storms.
    The entire case presented by climate science against greenhouse gases in terms of such fearmongering rests on forecasts that are so far in the future that they can’t be proven wrong. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2007/11/reference-putting-climate-change.html
23. 2007/2008: THAILAND TEMP LOWER THAN 15C IS A THING OF THE PAST
    The Thailand meteorology department having subscribed headlong into the climate science activism against fossil fuels declared in 2007 that temperatures lower than 15C in Thailand was a thing of the past because of global warming caused by our use of fossil fuels (Rise in average temperatures seen, Bangkok Post, November 3, 2007). The very next year cruel nature gave these scientists temperatures well below the 15C mark. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/12/reference-hua-hin-villages-declared.html
24. 2007/2009: THE MAKING AND RECANTING CYCLE OF TIPPING POINTS
    There is an optimum level of fear at which climate research funding is maximized. The idea that global warming is past the “tipping point” or a point of no return is well beyond that optimum. No research funding for mitigation of global warming will be forthcoming if mitigation is not possible. Yet it is used when traditional fearmongering fails to get the desired attention and then quickly recanted to seek funds for climate action. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/03/reference-past-point-of-no-return.html
25. 2007/2009: POLAR BEARS WILL BE DRIVEN TO EXTINCTION 
    Climate scientists say that the Arctic is on its way to becoming ice free in summer and that therefore the polar bear should be declared an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act and we must act quickly and decisively to cut emissions and turn the climate temperature knob down to where the Polar Bear can survive. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/03/reference-latest-threat-to-polar-bear.html
26. 2007/2009: CLIMATE ACTION SUMMITS HELD TO SCHEDULE THE NEXT ONE
    Tens of thousands of climate scientists flew in from around the world to gather in Bali in 2007 and Poznan in 2008 and they are going to do it again in Copenhagen in 2009, and yet, these thousands of brilliant minds have yet to come up with practical plan of action for mankind to mitigate climate change that is allegedly being caused by human. The elusive nature of this agreement likely derives from a mis-specified and flawed problem statement for mankind neither causes climate change nor has any leverage over nature to mitigate climate change. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/03/reference-developing-responsibility.html
27. 2008: CLIMATE CHANGE TO CAUSE NARGIS-LIKE STORM SURGE IN THAILAND 
    In May 2008 Cyclone Nargis, with unremarkable maximum wind speeds of 100 mph, struck Myanmar and caused a freak storm surge that went up the Irrawaddy River and killed 140,000 people. Climate science was quick to claim Nargis as an impact climate change and reason to fear fossil fuels. This assessment created widespread panic in the region with Myanmar, Thailand, Bangladesh, and India all forecasting and fearing Nargis-like storm surges. In Thailand, the meteorology department had Samut Prakarn area residents in fear for years with repeated forecasts of destruction by Nargis-like storm surges. They never came and those scary forecasts have stopped coming. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/12/reference-fear-of-storm-surge-in-samut.html
28. 2008: POSITIVE FEEDBACK: ARCTIC SEA ICE IN A DOWNWARD SPIRAL
    Our use of fossil fuels is devastating the Arctic where the volume of sea ice “fell to its lowest recorded level to date” this year and that reduced ice coverage is causing a non-linear acceleration in the loss of polar ice because there is less ice to reflect sunlight. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/12/reference-poznan-only-marking-time.html
29. 2008: THE IPCC IS THE WORLD’S MOST RESPECTED SCIENTIFIC AGENCY
    The Bangkok Post declares that the IPCC is the world’s most respected scientific agency and pushes for the success of the Poznan climate talks. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/12/reference-greenhouse-gas-talks-falter.html
30. 2008: THE POZNAN CLIMATE MEETING IS MEDIA FEEDING FRENZY
    More than 10,000 delegates are attending a meeting in Poland of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from December 1 to the 12th. There has been a flurry of scary press releases saying that human activity is causing the earth to become warmer and that global warming will soon be out of control and that there will be devastating consequences to our use of fossil fuels, all of them based on hypothetical statements that state that if event X occurs then a devastation Y is likely to follow. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/12/reference-climate-change-is-quickening.html
31. 2008: GLACIERS IN ANTARCTICA FLOWING FASTER TO THE SEA
    Mt. Erebus along with most of the mountains in Antarctica are volcanic mountains and it is now known with certainty that volcanic activity under the ice there is causing great amounts of ice to melt and to cause glaciers to flow faster. The attempt by climate scientists to represent these events as climate change phenomena is inconsistent with this reality. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/11/reference-glaciers-falling-faster-into.html
32. 2008: THE ARCTIC WILL BE ICE FREE IN SUMMER IN 2008, 2013, 2030, OR 2100
    The unusually low summer sea ice extent in the Arctic in 2007
    The IPCC has taken note and has revised its projection of an ice free Arctic first from 2008 to 2013 and then again from 2013 to 2030. The way things are going it may be revised again to the year 2100. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/10/reference-arctic-to-be-ice-free-due-to.html
33. 2008: IMMINENT COLLAPSE OF PETERMANN GLACIER IN GREENLAND 
    Climate scientists looking through satellite pictures found a crack in the Petermann glacier in Greenland and concluded that it could speed up sea level rise because huge chunks of ice the size of Manhattan were hemorrhaging off. Yet, scientists who has been travelling to Greenland for years to study glaciers say that the crack in the glacier is normal and not different from other cracks seen in the 1990s. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/09/reference-worrisome-cracks-in-ice.html
34. 2008: MUST REDUCE CARBON FOOTPRINT WITH RENEWABLE ENERGY 
    Promoting the carbon footprint as the overarching environmental issue does more harm than good because it trivializes more important pollution issues and also because some measures taken to reduce the carbon footprint create more environmental problems than they solve. For example, the use of fertilizer to grow renewable energy crops causes an extreme form of water pollution by nitrogen compounds called eutrophication. Environmentalism has gone awry. It’s broke and it need to be fixed: More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/09/reference-how-green-can-you-get-bangkok.html
35. 2008: AN ALARMING WARMING TREND IS FOUND IN MOHONK NY
    Temperature data taken very diligently at Mohonk, NY since 1896 show a temperature increase of 16 Centigrade degrees over 112 years, equivalent to 0.14285 Centigrade degrees per year However, an examination of the Mohonk station shows a warming trend of 0.0133C/year, not 0.1428C/year. Over the same period, on average, the temperature at Rochester, NY increased 0.0056 degrees/year, at Albany, NY it decreased 0.00167 degrees/year, and at Maryland, NY it decreased 0.0074 degrees/year. Clearly it is not possible to use data from a single weather station to draw conclusions about temperature trends even in just the state of New York, much less the entire world. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/09/reference-weather-history-at-house.html
36. 2008: THAILAND GRIPPED BY FEAR OF NARGIS STYLE STORM SURGE 
    There has been much speculation in the Thai media recently as to the surge effects on the low-lying coastal mudflats of Samut Prakarn should a storm like Cyclone Nargis form in the Gulf of Thailand due to climate change and rising seas caused by fossil fuel emissions. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/09/reference-storm-surge-brunch-magazine.html
37. 2008: HURRICANE KATRINA IS THE HARBINGER OF WORSE YET TO COME
    The IPCC claimed that it had the scientific evidence to prove that our use of fossil fuels caused Hurricane Katrina to forecast with a great certainty that there was more to come in the 2006 hurricane season but the 2006 hurricane season turned out to be milder than normal. The IPCC blamed the dissipation of El Nino for the mild hurricane season in 2006 and issued a new warning that 2007 will be the hottest year on record and will bring a killer hurricane season worse than 2005 but the 2007 forecast also failed. The IPCC’s dream hurricane season has finally arrived in 2008 unannounced and unexpected with strong hurricanes Gustav and Hanna expected to be followed by Ike and a dozen others before the season is through. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/09/reference-busy-storm-season-likely.html
38. 2008: GLOBAL WARMING IS THE CAUSE OF ALL ICE MELT EVENTS
    When there was a greater focus on Antarctica climate scientists said that global warming was melting the West Antarctic Ice Shelf; but the melting was found to be localized and with an active volcano underneath the melting and the attention of “melt forecast” climate science shifted to Arctic sea ice after the an extensive summer melt was observed in September 2007. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/08/reference-arctic-sea-ice-drops.html
39. 2008: THAILAND PARALYZED BY FEAR OF CLIMATE CHANGE STORM SURGE 
    Climate scientists say that fossil fueled global warming causes extreme weather and then waits for weather events such as Cyclone Nargis that can be called extreme, claims that it was caused by global warming, and the forecasts more of the same in that area. In the very sad case of Thailand, the deadly storm surge of Cyclone Nargis was forecast to become normal for this region and a specific forecast was made that a cyclone would form in the Gulf of Thailand and that it would cause a storm surge that would devastate the province of Samut Prakarn. No such cyclone occurred but the economic and emotional distress caused by these forecasts were probably equally damaging. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/08/reference-fear-of-storm-surge-in-samut.html
40. 2008: THAILAND HOT SEASON WILL BE SOONER & HOTTER 
    Climate science predicted that in 2008 man-made climate change would cause the hot season in Thailand to arrive earlier than usual and to be so much hotter that parts of the country would experience heavy rains and floods while other parts will be hit by a severe drought (A hot summer expected to arrive early this year, Bangkok Post, February 3, 2008). None of this occurred. Tt was a normal year weather-wise. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/08/reference-hot-summer-expected-to-arrive.html
41. 2008: BOOK: THE GREAT WARMING, BY BRIAN FAGAN
    The book “The Great Warming” by Brian Fagan says that the climate is not at the mercy of man but that man is at the mercy of the climate. It is natural for climate to change. All we can hope to do is to adapt to the changes when they occur. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/08/reference-climate-change-been-there.html
42. 2008: THE HUMAN COST OF ECO EXTREMISM
    Environmental extremism is not benign but rather poses a serious risk to us all that in the long run is more dangerous than terrorism. Malaria, dengue, and other mosquito borne diseases, that had been all but eradicated by DDT, have been able to make a come-back because of a ban on DDT in the hysterical aftermath of the book “Silent Spring”. The lifting of the ban by the WHO in 2006 is a tacit admission that the worldwide ban on DDT was a mistake that had cost humanity millions of lives. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/08/reference-wage-war-on-health-menace.html
43. 2008: BANGKOK IS BEING INUNDATED BY SEA LEVEL RISE 
    The city of Bangkok is sinking due to subsidence. This is a real problem and its real causes must be addressed for a solution. It is cruel opportunism for climate scientists to use this tragedy to sell their man-made global warming agenda. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/07/reference-great-flood-bangkok-post-july.html
44. 2008: ASIA HIT HARD BY CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS
    Climate scientists say that man-made global warming has caused a rise in the sea level and an increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters in Asia. They cite the recent cyclone in Burma, a typhoon in the Philippines, and the earthquake in China. It is implied that these events could hav e been avoided or moderated had we not used fossil fuels. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/07/reference-world-bank-says-asian-cities.html
45. 2008: CLIMATE SCIENCE VERSUS THE G8 MEETING OF 2008 (G8=G7+RUSSIA)
    Climate activists at the G* meeting wanted the G8 to make a “commitment” to a specified greenhouse gas reduction by 2020. They were denied. Then they asked the G8 to “seriously consider” a reduction by 2020. They were denied. So finally they wanted the G8 to issue a statement of a “shared vision” for climate change for 2020. They were denied. Finally, they begged for and received a “shared vision” statement for 2050. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/07/reference-g8-climate-statement-pathetic.html
46. 2008: SEA LEVEL RISE INUNDATES ATOLL AND CREATES CLIMATE REFUGEES
    Climate scientists say that man-made global warming has caused a rise in the sea level sufficient to inundate an atoll in Kiribati, a chain of 33 such islands, and created climate refugees. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/06/reference-atoll-leader-asks-australia.html
47. 2008: THE POLAR BEAR IS THREATENED BY OUR USE OF FOSSIL FUELS
    The survival of the polar bear is threatened because man made global warming is melting ice in the Arctic. It is true that the Arctic sea ice extent was down in negative territory in September 2007. This event emboldened global warming scaremongers to declare it a climate change disaster caused by greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels and to issue a series of scenarios about environmental holocaust yet to come. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/06/reference-polar-bear-numbers-set-to.html
48. 2008: ADELIE PENGUINS IN ANTARCTICA ARE THREATENED 
    Climate scientists have determined that Adelie penguins in Antarctica are threatened because climate change is melting Antarctic glaciers although it is not clear whether the melting is caused by volcanic activity underneath the ice. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/05/reference-antarctic-melt-poisoning.html
49. 2008: THE FIRE BELOW: VOLCANIC ACTIVITY MELTING ICE IN ANTARCTICA
    A volcano under the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, that last erupted 2000 years ago, is now active and responsible for melting ice and for retreating glaciers in that part of the continent (The fire below, Bangkok Post, April 28, 2008). Yet, climate scientists claim that these changes are man-made and that they are caused by carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels as predicted by their computer model of the earth’s climate. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/04/reference-fire-below-bangkok-post-april.html
50. 2008: ABOUT THE PHRASE “CARBON FOOTPRINT” AND THE WORD “COULD” 
    Regardless of the fact that none of our extreme weather predictions have come true and that 2007 was not the hottest year on record, and that Antarctica is not melting like we said, please consider for a moment the devastating tragedy that could befall us if the earth did warm by an extreme amount although we can’t support that by the actual but boring data. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/04/global-warming-all-of-scary-forecasts.html
51. 2008: THE PHRASE OCEAN ACIDIFICATION ENTERS THE CLIMATE LEXICON
    Climate scientists say that carbon dioxide from human activity involving the use of fossil fuels is absorbed into the ocean where it forms carbonic acid and causes environmental devastation by killing shellfish and coral. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/03/reference-human-shadows-haunt-seas.html
52. 2008: GLOBAL WARMING WILL DEVASTATE CROP YIELDS & CAUSE FAMINES
    Global warming scientists used a computer climate model to determine that by the year 2030 yields of critical crops will fall sufficiently in southern Africa and in South Asia to cause famine. The good news is that this catastrophe can be avoided by giving up fossil fuels and using renewable energy. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/02/reference-inconvenient-truth-bangkok.html
53. 2008: GLOBAL WARMING IS KILLING OFF THE ADELIE PENGUINS 
    The population of Adelie Penguins in the northern reaches of the Peninsula has declined in recent decades but this decline has been more than offset by robust growth in other areas of Antarctica and other species of penguins are thriving in the Peninsula. The mix of penguin species in Antarctica has never been stable and has undergone dramatic changes over millennia. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/02/reference-last-march-bangkok-post.html
54. 2008: CLIMATE CHANGE IS CAUSING MASS EXTINCTIONS OF SPECIES
    Climate change is causing mass extinctions of species and is expected to devastate the biodiversity of the although in prior epochs of climate change the data in the fossil record show that climate change causes not a net reduction in the number of species but an explosion in the number of species. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2008/01/reference-plants-or-animals-begin-to.html
55. 2008: THE IPCC AR4 REPORT SELLS FEARS THAT HAVE BEEN PROVEN FALSE
    The summer melt of the Arctic ice is not unprecedented, extreme weather events have not become more frequent or more severe, and atolls in the South Pacific are not sinking under rising sea levels. The IPCC’s claim that Hurricane Katrina was caused by man-made global warming has been thoroughly discredited and their forecasts for more severe hurricane seasons in 2006 and 2007 have been proven wrong. They are merchants of fear and their method is the dissemination of convenient lies. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2007/12/reference-inconvenient-query-wholl-pay.html
56. 2009: CATASTROPHIC WARMING OVER THE WHOLE OF ANTARCTICA
    Temperature data 1957-2008 show that the whole of Antarctica including Western Antarctica, the Antarctic Peninsula, and Eastern Antarctica, is warming due to CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/01/reference-global-warming-hitting-all-of.html
57. 2009: SOUTHEAST ASIA HIT WITH SEA LEVEL RISE 
    It is reported that “Southeast Asia is facing problems from rising sea levels that bring more frequent flooding in coastal zones and river basins” (Thai firms not ready for climate change, Bangkok Post, January 22, 2009). It is noteworthy that none of these flooding events has been reported in the media. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/01/reference-thai-firms-not-ready-for.html
58. 2009: SEA LEVEL RISE CAUSING COASTAL EROSION IN PHUKET, THAILAND
    It is reported that an increase in coastal erosion observed this year in Phuket, Thailand, is due to rising sea levels caused by man-made global warming. Phuket is on the Andaman side of the isthmus of Thailand. Nearby is the Koh-Tapao sea level measuring station monitored by the University of Hawaii sea level database. The time series of these data from 1996 to 2008 do not show any trend. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/01/reference-coastline-lost-to-rising-seas.html
59. 2009: OUR USE OF FOSSIL FUELS IS CAUSING GREENLAND GLACIERS TO MELT
    Man-made global warming is causing Greenland’s glaciers to melt at an alarming rate. By the year 2100 all the ice there will have melted causing a calamitous rise in the sea level that will inundate Bangladesh, the Maldives, Bangkok, New Orleans, and atolls in the Pacific. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/01/reference-greenland-meltoff-not-so-fast.html
60. 2009: CLIMATE CHANGE WILL DRIVE SKI SLOPES TO HIGHER ELEVATIONS
    In 25 to 50 years global warming will have a measurable impact on ski slopes by melting snow at lower altitudes and forcing skiers to move uphill. Climate scientists appear to be more comfortable with forecasts with a time horizon long enough so that they cannot be proven wrong in their lifetime. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/01/reference-climate-change-forces-skiers.html
61. 2009: THE TUATARA REPTILE IS THREATENED BY CLIMATE CHANGE
    The tuatara reptile is one of a many species identified by climate scientists as being threatened by global warming caused by our use of fossil fuels. It is part of an overall theory that climate change threatens biodiversity because it will reduce the number of species by causing some of them to become extinct. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/01/reference-condemned-to-single-sex-life.html
62. 2009: CLIMATE ACTION, CARBON CREDITS, & THE CARBON TRADING SCHEME
    The carbon trading scheme allows rich countries to buy carbon credits from poor countries in a contract that prevents the poor country from pursuing development projects that would increase CO2 emissions or decrease CO2 removal by photosynthesis. The international carbon trading scheme allows rich countries to trade these contracts among themselves. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/03/reference-thai-carbon-sellers-need-to.html
63. 2009: STATEMENT BY WILLIAM HAPPER, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY.
    The current warming period began about 1800 at the end of the little ice age, long before there was an appreciable increase of CO2. There have been similar and even larger warmings several times in the 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age. These earlier warmings clearly had nothing to do with the combustion of fossil fuels. More Info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/03/excerpts-from-statement-to-u_02.html
64. 2009: CLIMATE CHANGE WILL TURN EUROPE INTO A DESERT BY 2040
    James Lovelock, of Gaia fame who rose to prominence as a guru of environmentalism in the 1960s, says that by the year 2040 carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels will turn Europe into a desert and that by the year 2100 the entire planet will be dead. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/02/reference-warming-to-wipe-out-most-life.html
65. 2009: MELTING OF ANTARCTICA MORE SEVERE THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT
    Climate scientists say that the melting of Antarctica is more severe than “previously thought” because the melt is not limited to the Antarctic Peninsula but extends to West Antarctica as well. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/02/reference-melt-in-antarctica-much.html
66. 2009: MARRIAGE, DIVORCE, AND CLIMATE CHANGE
    Australian authorities are urging married people not to divorce because living separate lives would increase their carbon footprint and exacerbate global warming. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/02/reference-divorce-hits-climate-babgkok.html
67. 2009: CIRCULAR REASONING IN CLIMATE SCIENCE
    Hypothesis must be tested by a different set of data than that used to develop them, for otherwise one falls prey to circular reasoning. The climate model of the IPCC contains this very fundamental scientific flaw because there is only one history. The historical climate data that are used to develop the model and its empirical parameters are the same data that are used to validate the model. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/02/reference-when-figures-dont-add-up.html
68. 2009: COLLAPSE OF THE WEST ANTARCTIC ICE SHELF
    New data show that the West Antarctic ice shelf collapses every 40,000 years or so and that this cyclical process has been regular feature of this ice shelf for millions of years (Antarctica ice collapses were regular, Bangkok Post, March 19, 2009). These melting episodes can raise the sea level by as much as 5 meters but the process takes a thousand years or more. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/03/reference-antarctica-ice-collapses-were.html
69. 2009: SEA LEVEL RISE DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING IS FLOODING BANGKOK
    Bangkok is sinking at about 2 or 3 cm per year and this phenomenon is blamed for the increasing severity of floods that occur when a rain swollen Chao Phraya River coincides with unusually high tides. These flooding incidents cannot be related to global warming or sea level rise. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/03/reference-bangkok-seeks-dutch-help-to.html
70. 2009: PALM OIL BIODIESEL BOOM IN ASIA: ENVIRONMENTAL CATASTROPHE
    A new biofuels plant in Singapore is to make bio-diesel from palm oil and sell the product to Europeans at around $900 per ton at a time when real diesel is available at $600 per ton. The reason for targeting the European market is that there is a greater likelihood of finding a high degree of gullible environmentalism that might motivate consumers there to pay more for diesel if they get can a warm and fuzzy feeling of having done something good for the environment. The reality of course is dramatically different here in Asia where the rapid growth in palm oil plantations has been called an environmental disaster. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/03/reference-singapore-made-biofuels-to.html
71. 2009: LCGM = LOW CARBON GROWTH MODEL
    Non-Annex developing countries like Thailand have no emission reduction obligation under the Kyoto Protocol and UNFCC Convention but ever since ceding that rational advantage to the poor countries, they have been working overtime to find a way around it using acronyms for each scheme as a way of making it seem important. The 2009 version of this effort is the “low carbon growth model” (LCGM). The bottom line is that developing countries must reduce emissions to save the earth from climate change catastrophe. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/03/reference-low-carbon-growth-is-model-to.html
72. 2009: THE WILKINS ICE SHELF IS COLLAPSING
    Climate scientists say that the Wilkins Ice Shelf collapse is caused by warming of the Antarctic Peninsula due to man-made “global climate change”. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/04/reference-warming-blamed-for-collapse.html
73. 2009: WE ARE APPROACHING THE ABYSS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
    Between 2005 and 2007 the UN repeatedly declares that we have passed the tipping point and that it is “already too late to late. The planet is doomed. But in 2009, Ban Ki Moon contradicts his staff and describes the effect of carbon dioxide emissions on climate as “our foot is stuck on the accelerator and we are heading towards an abyss”. That we are not at the abyss yet and there is till time to act. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/09/reference-action-needed-to-avoid-abyss.html
74. 2009: SEVERE DROUGHT IN SOUTHEAST AUSTRALIA
    Southeast Australia is a semi-arid drought prone area with a history of severe droughts during which its primary river system can go bone dry. The current drought there is part of this weather pattern. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/08/reference-mississippi-down-under.html
75. 2009: SEVERE DROUGHT IN NORTHERN CHINA
    Our use of fossil fuels has, through global warming, caused a prolonged drought and severe aridity in northern China and the appropriate response for us is to take climate action and cut emissions. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/08/reference-water-crisis-in-parched.html
76. 2009: SEA LEVEL RISE OF SEVERAL METERS BY 2100
    After sustained criticism from skeptics, climate scientists have revised their forecast for the rise in sea levels by the year 2100 from 5 meters to 38 cm. In releasing the rather innocuous new figure the scientists had to try extra hard to maintain the fear level saying that the lower figure does not mean we are safe and that things could turn out to be much worse. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/07/reference-study-confirms-rising-sea.html
77. 2009: SETTLED SCIENCE CANNOT BE PROVEN WRONG
    Rapid advance of a glacier in Argentina that was supposed to retreat is explained by climate scientists as an anomaly. “We are not sure why this happens. But not all glaciers respond equally to climate change” In other words, they don’t take data to test the hypothesis because their hypothesis is correct by definition. They take data to test the data. If the data support their theory the data are deemed to be good. Otherwise the data are deemed spurious and additional theories are needed to explain how these observations could occur in the age of global warming. In this kind of science, the man-made global warming hypothesis cannot be proven wrong by the data. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/07/reference-argentinian-glacier-defies.html
78. 2009: IMPACTS ON RICH COUNTRIES REVEALED AHEAD OF COPENHAGEN
    Climate scientists say that the excessive emphasis on the impact of global warming on poor countries was a mistake and that they need to find new ways to bring the horror of global warming home to the citizens of the rich countries in order to ensure the passage of the post Kyoto AGW mitigation measures they will present in Copenhagen. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/06/reference-its-going-to-be-hot-wet-and.html
79. 2009: CLIMATE SCIENTISTS STUDY INTENSITY OF CRASHING WAVES
    Climate scientists were sure they could prove that global warming is increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather but with nothing but Katrina to go on, they have turned to studying crashing hoping to scare us with increasing wave intensity as evidence of extreme weather. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/06/reference-global-warming-now-audible.html
80. 2009: CLIMATE CHAOS IN THE AMAZON BASIN 
    In 2005 the Amazon Basin was suffering from drought conditions and this year it was deluged under a devastating flood. The rapid succession of drought and flood is described by climate science as “climate chaos”. They have determined that it was caused by global warming driven by fossil fuel emissions. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/05/reference-amazon-hit-by-chaos-bangkok.html
81. 2009: GLOBAL WARMING CAUSES MALARIA EPIDEMICS
    The effort by epidemiologists to pin a malaria outbreak on global warming is quite possibly not unbiased scientific inquiry but rather an effort to fudge the data and the methodology until the findings meet the expectations and the utility of the global warming community and thereby facilitate further funding. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/05/reference-climate-of-disease-bangkok.html
82. 2009: CATASTROPHIC ICE MELT NEEDS TREATY AT COPENHAGEN
    Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels have caused the following alarming changes to our planet: (1) ice covering the Arctic Ocean shrank in 2007 to its smallest since satellite records began, (2) In Antarctica, a section of the Wilkins Ice Shelf has broken up in recent days, (3) glaciers in the Himalayan mountains are shrinking and threatening to disrupt water supplies to hundreds of millions of people, (4) melting permafrost in Siberia will release large quantities of methane into the atmosphere and hasten global warming, and (5) if all of the land based ice in Antarctica melted it would raise the sea level by 80 meters. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/04/reference-melting-ice-to-spur-new.html
83. 2009: THE ADB SELLING “ECONOMICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE”
    The Asian Development Bank issues a report on “the economics of climate change in Southeast Asia” – patterned after its mother report, “The economics of climate change” by Nicholas Stern and funded by the British. It tries to trick SE Asian non-Annex countries with no UNFCCC climate action obligation to take climate action with the fear of consequences if they don’t. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/04/reference-waking-up-to-climate-change.html
84. 2009: GLOBAL WARMING = REGIONAL WARMING IN SE ASIA
    Although climate science presents climate change as a global issue with global emissions changing global language, the ADB tries to trick SE Asian non-Annex countries into climate action with a report that implies that climate change in SE Asia is responsive to emissions from SE Asia and if no action is taken climate change will lead to decreasing rainfall and millions will suffer from water shortages”; “Rice production will decline threatening food security”; “Forests will turn into scrub land”; “Floods, droughts, cyclones, and other extreme weather events will become common”; “Deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory disease, malaria, and dengue fever will increase”; “Sea levels will rise by 70 cm or more inundating entire islands and low lying areas”; and the biggest lie of all, “All of these dangers may be mitigated by reducing CO2 emissions from fossil fuels”. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/04/reference-there-are-lies-damn-lies-and.html
85. 2009: CLIMATE CHANGE WILL KILL OFF THE WORLD’S CORAL REEFS
    Our carbon dioxide emissions are wreaking havoc on the world’s coral reefs according to climate scientists. Sadly, the obsession with carbon dioxide has done more harm to the environment and to coral reefs than good by belittling and hiding real pollution issues. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/04/reference-expensive-and-labor-intensive.html
86. 2009: CLIMATE SCIENTISTS INVENT THE PHRASE “RAPID SEA LEVEL RISE”
    Climate scientists say that climate action has become urgent because of the possibility of rapid sea level rise. We are urged to reduce “greenhouse gas emissions” from fossil fuels because in prior interglacial periods the sea level had risen by as much as 3 meters in 100 years and so we should expect it do so again in the interglacial period in which we now live. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/04/reference-rapid-sea-level-rise.html
87. 2009: BANGLADESH BEING INUNDATED BY RAPID SEA LEVEL RISE
    The oft repeated claim that Bangladesh is being inundated by rising sea levels caused by man-made climate change ignores the relevant data that the total land mass of the country is not decreasing. In fact, the total land mass of Bangladesh is increasing just as it always has by virtue of silt deposition. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/04/reference-taming-waters-of-bangladesh.html
88. 2009: THE WORD “ABYSS” IS USED TO SELL FEAR OF CLIMATE CHANGE
    Ban Ki Moon says that we are approaching the abyss and if Copenhagen fails we will soon find ourselves at the abyss – and suddenly everything that any UN bureaucrat says about climate change contains the word abyss. A new climate buzzword has thus been invented to hype the Copenhagen climate summit which incidentally failed miserably just as the rest of them have, all funded by taxpayers. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/09/reference-edge-back-from-abyss-bangkok.html
89. 2009: COPENHAGEN IS OUR LAST CHANCE. IF WE FAIL, THE PLANET IS TOAST
    Ban Ki-Moon says that he went to the Arctic Ocean and was horrified to see the remains of a glacier that just a few years ago was a majestic mass of ice and that had just collapsed – not slowly melted – just collapsed. He thereby became convinced that the only resolution for the “climate crisis” is a binding emission reduction agreement at the Copenhagen meeting in December 2009: More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/09/reference-why-copenhagen-talks-offer-us.html
90. 2009: ITALY WILL USE ITS VETO POWER TO BLOCK COPENHAGEN
    Citing the high cost of the EU carbon emission reduction plan ill timed to coincide with a long and painful global recession, Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi announced that Italy will not comply and moreover that he intends to use Italy’s veto power to block the measure. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/09/reference-brussels-not-amused-by.html
91. 2009: SUMMER ARCTIC SEA ICE EXTENT IN 2009 THE 3RD LOWEST ON RECORD
    The second lowest was 2008 and the first lowest was 2007. This is not a trend that shows that things are getting worse. It shows that things are getting better and yet it is being sold and being bought as evidence that things are getting worse due to rising fossil fuel emissions. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/09/reference-arctic-sea-ice-pack-at-record.html
92. 2009: USE OF FOSSIL FUELS CAUSING GREENLAND’S GLACIERS TO MELT
    In 2005 two glaciers in Greenland were found to be moving faster than they were in 2001. Scientists concluded from these data that the difference observed was a a long term trend of glacial melt in Greenland and that carbon dioxide was the cause of this trend. The assumed trend was then extrapolated forward and we were told that carbon dioxide would cause the land based ice mass of Greenland to be discharged to the sea and raise the sea level by six meters. They said that the only way out of the devastation was to drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. However, in 2009, just before a meeting in Copenhagen where these deep cuts in emissions were to be negotiated, it was found that the glaciers had returned to their normal rate of discharge. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/09/reference-effect-of-carbon-dioxide.html
93. 2009: HOW TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE BY RATIONING ENERGY
    The Institute for Public Policy Research in the UK proposes to fight climate change by rationing energy. The program would include gasoline, natural gas, heating oil, electricity, diesel, and even airline tickets and holidays. Each person or household will be issued ration cards for a prescribed amount of energy each month and when the that amount has been consumed, excess consumption will be possible only by purchasing carbon credits. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/09/reference-plan-to-issue-ration-cards.html
94. 2009: GLOBAL WARMING IS MELTING HIMALAYAN GLACIERS
    It is claimed that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are causing Himalayan glaciers to melt and thereby to threaten devastation but the available data do not support this conclusion. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/09/reference-himalayan-nations-first.html
    2009: CHINA’S GROWTH COULD OVERWHELM THE PLANET’S RESOURCES
    The old Club of Rome argument that “we can’t all live like white people because that would overwhelm the planet” is now made with climate change as the rationale. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/09/reference-chinas-growth-could-exceed.html
95. 2009: CLEAN DEVELOPMENT MECHANSIM + THE CARBON OFFSET SCHEME
    The CDM (clean development mechanism) and the carbon offset scheme offers the rich industrialized West to fight climate change simply by buying carbon offsets from poor countries, in effect, paying poor to stay poor so that the rich can stay rich by buying the right to their continued use of fossil fuels. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/09/reference-cleaning-up-our-act-bangkok.html
96. 2009: THREATENED POLAR BEARS “STARE AT THE MELTING POINT”
    Global warming caused by our use of fossil fuels is driving polar bears to extinction and threatening the livelihood of the people of Nunavut. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/10/reference-staring-at-melting-point.html
97. 2009: FOSSIL FUELED SEA LEVEL RISE IS INUNDATING SHANGHAI, CHINA
    Climate scientists say that sea level rise due to man-made global warming is causing Shanghai to be inundated with sea water. The truth is that the inundation problem in Shanghai was first noted and measured by geologists back in 1921 when atmospheric carbon dioxide was below 300 ppm. The problem is attributed to subsidence caused by the removal of ground water and the weight of the buildings in the downtown area of the city. The subsidence continues to this day and it is estimated that Shanghai is sinking at an annual rate of about one cm per year. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/10/reference-rising-cities-threaten.html
98. 2009: BANGLADESH HIT WITH CYCLONES AND CLIMATE REFUGEES
    Bangladeshis displaced by Cyclone Sidr in 2007 are “climate refugees” because they have been rendered homeless by a climate change event that was caused by carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and it suggests that cyclones like Sidr will continue to ravage this poverty stricken nation unless we forge a plan in Copenhagen and do away with fossil fuels. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/10/reference-climate-refugees-add-strain.html
99. 2009: THE ARCTIC WILL BE ICE FREE IN SUMMER BY 2029
    An alarm is raised that the extreme summer melt of Arctic sea ice in 2007 was caused by humans using fossil fuels and it portends that in 20 years human caused global warming will leave the Arctic Ocean ice-free in the summer raising sea levels and harming wildlife. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/10/reference-arctic-will-be-ice-free-in-20.html
100. 2009: SEA LEVEL RISE SINKING SOUTH PACIFIC ATOLLS 
     Our use of fossil fuels causes global warming. Global warming causes sea level rise. Sea level rise causes South Pacific atolls to become inundated. The inundation of these islands creates climate refugees. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/10/worlds-first-climate-refugees-age-july.html
101. 2009: VOLCANOES & CLIMATE CHANGE: POSITIVE FEEDBACK
     A positive feedback loop from hell that could cause explosive climate change is described between volcanic activity and climate change with each pushing the other forward. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/10/reference-volcanoes-stirred-by-climate.html
102. 2009: WARMING OCEANS MELT GREENLAND GLACIERS
     Some glaciers on north and northeast Greenland terminate in fiords with long glacier tongues that extend into the sea. It is found that the warming of the oceans caused by our use of fossil fuels is melting these tongues and raising the specter of devastation by sea level rise. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/10/reference-warming-ocean-melts-greenland.html
103. 2009: THE ARCTIC WILL BE ICE FREE IN SUMMER BY THE YEAR 2012
     Climate scientists continue to extrapolate the extreme summer melt of Arctic sea ice in 2007 to claim that the summer melt of 2007 was a climate change event and that it implies that the Arctic will be ice free in the summer from 2012 onwards. This is a devastating effect on the planet and our use of fossil fuels is to blame. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/10/reference-effects-of-arctic-warming.html
104. 2009: OUR USE OF FOSSIL FUELS IS MELTING ICE ON KILIMANJARO
     This old Gore hypothesis is endorsed by climate science but ss it turns out, the loss of ice interpreted here was due to aridity and not warming; the process is sublimation not melting; and it started at least as early as 1912 when atmospheric CO2 was below 300 ppm. Furthermore, the ice appears to have stabilized and the various projections of its demise by 2016, 2020, or 2030 have all been withdrawn. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/10/reference-thermostatic-time-bomb.html
105. 2009: TYPHOON KETSANA WAS A WARNING FROM NATURE
     Typhoon Ketsana devastated the Philippines in 2009 and it was a high profile news item so naturally it was adopted by the United Nations climate meeting in Bangkok to sell their war against fossil fuels. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/10/reference-nature-warns-climate-talkers.html
106. 2009: SEA LEVEL RISE IS INUNDATING SAMUT PRAKAN, THAILAND
     Encroachment by sea water in the Bangkok Groundwater Area, that includes Samut Prakan, is a well known effect of land subsidence caused by ground water extraction unrelated to carbon dioxide emissions, global warming, or climate change. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/12/reference-what-and-where-is-our-climate.html
107. 2009: GLOBAL WARMING IS MELTING THE HIMALAYAN GLACIERS
     Himalayan ice is rapidly vanishing because of human caused global warming and will be gone by 2035. The great rivers of Asia that are originate there will shrivel and die and cease to provide water to a quarter of humanity. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/12/reference-giant-climate-fraud-in.html
108. 2009: THE RICH COUNTRY POOR COUNTRY PUZZLE IN CLIMATE ACTION
     There are too many people in poor countries. They can’t all live like white people because that would overload the planet with too much carbon dioxide. So please keep the status quo and we will take care of you with billions of Euros of aid should global warming’s devastation strike. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/12/reference-low-carbon-is-economy-of.html
109. 2009: THE SUMMER SEA ICE EXTENT IN THE ARCTIC WILL BE GONE
     Summer melt of Arctic ice was the third most extensive on record in 2009, second 2008, and the most extensive in 2007. These data show that warming due to our carbon dioxide emissions are causing summer Arctic ice to gradually diminish until it will be gone altogether. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/12/reference-warming-trend-is-clear.html
110. 2009: FAILURE AT COPENHAGEN WILL DRIVE SPECIES TO EXTINCTION.
     It would be a sad chapter in human history if we commit economic suicide Jim Jones style in the vain and Quixotic belief that we are in control of the planet’s climate. The human race with all its knowledge and technology, is insignificant on a planetary scale. On what basis do we expect to be able to stabilize nature? We appear to be in the grip of some kind of mass insanity. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/12/reference-editorial-to-world-urges.html
111. 2009: SOUTH ASIA IS TOAST: MONSOON CHAOS WILL CAUSE CROP FAILURE
     In 2007, 2008, and 2009 climate science issued the dire warning that global warming caused by our fossil fuel emissions is weakening and destabilizing the annual South Asian monsoon weather pattern. Monsoons in South Asia will be weakened and delayed. The results will be devastating and will include drought, crop failure, and widespread hunger. These dire forecasts were finally withdrawn in 2010 when they were proven false. http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2010/04/reference-forecasters-predict-good.html
112. 2009: WARMEST EUROPEAN WINTER ON RECORD IN 2000 IS THE PROOF
     In the unusually cold winter of the year 2009, declared an anomaly and a case of natural variability, climate scientists evaluated the unusually warm winter nine of 2000 not as natural variability nor as an anomaly but as absolute proof of the theory of global warming by way of fossil fuel emissions: More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/12/reference-running-out-of-time-bangkok.html
113. 2009: WHEAT CROP FAILURE IN CHINA CAUSED BY CLIMATE CHANGE
     The article pretends to describe wheat production in all of China but cites only the failure of a new venture to grow wheat in semi-desert Gansu Province with where one finds large desert areas and where the only economic activity had been mining. It is true that the experimental wheat farms had rough years in the beginning but by 2017 the experiment had borne fruit with about 3000 hectares under cultivation. Wheat production is booming in the main wheat producing provinces of Heilongjiang, Henan, and Hebei. The implication of the article that wheat production in China has been adversely affected by fossil fueled global warming is inconsistent with the data. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/12/reference-chinese-farmers-struggle-with.html
114. 2009: FAILURE AT COPENHAGEN PITS POOR COUNTRIES AGAINST RICH.
     The Copenhagen climate summit was advertised by the UN and by climate scientists as a “do or die” watershed event for the global warming movement. Its spectacular failure threw the movement into a chaotic war between rich and poor with the poor developing countries accusing the rich industrialized countries of having been the perpetrators of climate change and demanding compensation. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/12/copenhagen-copenhagen-meeting.html
115. 2009: DESTRUCTION ON A GLOBAL SCALE WITH SUPERSTORMS
     In 2005 climate science had latched on to Hurricane Katrina as the harbinger of killer hurricane super storms created by fossil fueled global warming but after no further cyclone activity in the North Atlantic Basin in the next three years, they were rewarded with Cyclone Nargis in the Indian Basin. Though not unusually strong, Nargis did create a freak storm surge in rising tides that swept up the Irrawaddy River in Burma and claimed a horrific death toll. Nargis thus became the biggest news story in Asia. Climate scientists quickly changed their focus from the North Atlantic Basin to the Indian Basin and claimed Cyclone Nargis as a creation of climate change caused by fossil fuel emissions and as the harbinger of “destruction on a global scale” by human caused global warming. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/12/reference-destruction-on-global-level_18.html
116. 2009: DESTRUCTION ON A GLOBAL SCALE WITH SEA LEVEL RISE
     Bangladesh is a low lying delta where the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, and other Indian rivers drain. Over the last few decades an explosive growth of shrimp farming along the coast and construction of irrigation dams upstream in India has caused coastal salinity to move further upstream causing considerable harm to agriculture. This tragedy is now claimed by climate science as an impact of fossil fueled global warming by way of rising seas. Yet, if rising seas were the cause of the salinity problem, the land area of Bangladesh would be shrinking – but it is growing. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/12/reference-destruction-on-global-level.html
117. 2009: RAPID ECONOMIC GROWTH IN SE ASIA WILL CAUSE EXTREME WEATHER IN SE ASIA
     Global warming theory is strictly in global terms and yet it is often interpreted in regional terms as in this case where typhoons in Vietnam are interpreted in terms of SE Asian emissions. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/12/reference-climate-changes-dealmaker.html
118. 2009: THE MEKONG IS TOAST
     The Mekong River is drying up because there is not enough snow in the Himalayas. This tragic situation was created with fossil fuel emissions that cause global warming and climate change. It can be solved by cutting fossil fuel emissions and restoring the Himalayas to their former pristine and unchanging condition. http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2010/04/reference-non-water-flushing-bangkok.html
119. 2009: CLIMATE CHANGE COULD DEVASTATE AGRICULTURE IN CHINA
     Climate science has determined that IF climate change causes sufficiently extreme weather and IF they devastate agriculture in China, THEN the impact on the economic and social development of China would be incalculable”. The fear of global warming is now being delivered as pure hypothetical statements using the words “if” and “could”. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/12/reference-climate-warming-in-harvest.html
120. 2009: ONE HUNDRED ICEBERGS BREAK OFF FROM ANTARCTICA 
     Human caused global warming is causing havoc in Antarctica with potentially incalculable results. Over one hundred icebergs broke off and a huge flotilla of them are floating up to New Zealand. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/11/reference-over-100-icebergs-drifting-to.html
121. 2009: ANTARCTICA TO LOSING BILLIONS OF TONS OF ICE
     Our carbon dioxide emissions are causing the East Antarctic ice shelf to lose 57 billion tonnes of ice per year and that if CO2 emissions are not reduced this process could raise sea levels by 5 meters. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/11/reference-ice-loss-at-billions-of-tons.html
122. 2009: BIOFUEL BOOM IN SE ASIA TO SAVE THE PLANET FROM FOSSIL FUELS
     The recent rapid growth in palm oil plantations in SE Asia is not for the cooking oil market but for the renewable biofuels market. This market was created by climate scientists in their urgent call for a rapid increase in biofuels to replace fossil fuels as a way of mitigating global warming and saving the planet. The same climate scientists are now complaining that their medicine is worse than the disease, that their solution to global warming causes global warming, and that their single minded obsession with carbon dioxide compromises real environmental issues. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/11/reference-turning-up-heat-on-palm-oil.html
123. 2009: GLOBAL WARMING KILLING OFF THE CARIBOU IN THE YUKON
     In 1989 there were 178000 Porcupine caribou in the Yukon and “their number now is estimated to be 100,000” because global warming is killing off the caribou. Global warming causes freezing rain in the calving season and that makes it hard for calving caribou to feed. But if we don’t cherry pick the start of the study period as 1989 and look at all the available data we find that the population rose steadily from 100000 in 1972 to 178000 in 1989 and then decreased steadily down to 120000 in 2005. These data suggest, and caribou biologists agree, that caribou populations go through a 30 to 40-year cycle of growth and decay. This population dynamic cannot be related to global warming or carbon dioxide. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/11/reference-decline-of-caribou-bangkok.html
124. 2009: GUANGDONG CHINA HIT WITH DROUGHT AND WATER SHORTAGE
     Drought and a drinking water shortage in Guangdong are the result of global warming due to too much carbon dioxide in the air put there by our use of fossil fuels. However, China’s very extensive historical weather record in the Fang Zhi shows that cycles of drought and flood have been characteristic of this region for 2500 years long before atmospheric carbon dioxide rose above 300 ppm. Guangdong’s growing drinking water crisis is due to rapid industrialization and population growth with large numbers of migrant workers flooding into the region. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2009/10/reference-fallout-of-global-warming.html
125. 2010: ICELAND IS TOAST: CLIMATE CHANGE CAUSING VOLCANIC ERUPTION
     Fossil fuel emissions cause global warming, global warming in turn causes glaciers in Iceland to melt, and melting glaciers lighten the weight of the ice cap on volcanoes and thereby trigger eruptions (Ice cap thaw may awaken Icelandic volcanoes, April 17, 2010). That it was geothermal activity that caused the melting of the Eyjafjallajoekull glacier is not mentioned. Instead climate science tells us that the we must cut fossil fuel emissions to save Iceland from climate change hell. http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2010/04/reference-ice-cap-thaw-may-awaken.html
     http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2010/04/reference-800-flee-eruption-bangkok.html
126. 2010: CARBON NEUTRAL BHUTAN IS A CLIMATE CHANGE POSTER CHILD
     Bhutan is a tiny country. Its main features are poverty, illiteracy, and poor medical and infrastructure services. Bhutan is carbon negative, not carbon neutral as claimed by climate science. To achieve carbon neutrality, Bhutan must increase fossil fuel consumption many fold. http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2010/04/reference-kingdom-sees-big-struggle-to.html
127. 2010: GREEN ECONOMY WILL SAVE THE PLANET
     Climate science has determined that the earth is “overheated, under-resourced, and out of time”. Fortunately, although we are out of time, there is still time to save the planet. We can do that by moving to a Green Economy that would require that we stop using fossil fuels and change to renewable energy. http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2010/03/reference-green-economy-could-save.html
128. 2010: RISING SEA LEVEL SINKS COASTAL ISLAND IN BANGLADESH
     Climate science says that fossil fueled global warming is causing ice to melt and sea levels to rise and that the destruction that this process can cause is already evident in that the ocean has taken back an island from Bangladesh. (Note: New Moore Island, Talpatti in local lingo, is one of many evanescent islands that come and go on the coast of this delta nation but in the net land is gained not lost). More info here http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2010/03/reference-rising-sea-levels-sinks-new.html
129. 2010: THE CLIMATEGATE SCANDAL AND COPENHAGEN
     It appears that climate change will be harder to sell than previously thought. Hurricane Katrina, sinking tropical islands, climate refugees, and melting glaciers in the Himalayas have been oversold and they are no longer effective. The credibility of climate scientists has been eroded by the Climategate email scandal and also by the revelation of data anomalies. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2010/02/unwinding-of-climate-change-hype-once.html http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2010/01/reference-meeting-copenhagens-challenge.html
130. 2010: FLAWED CLIMATE ACTION PLAN OF KYOTO/UNFCCC 
     The UNFCCC emission reduction plan is confounded with a complicated classification of nations and their responsibilities and such bureaucratic double-speak as “Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities” (CBDRRC); and it is further corrupted by the built-in weakness of the carbon credit plan. These weaknesses have turned the UN emission reduction plan into a giant money game in which rich countries can pay developing countries to not develop and a great enthusiasm among countries classified as “vulnerable” to tout their vulnerability and demand money. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2010/01/reference-maldive-state-of-mind-bangkok.html Also this: https://www.die-gdi.de/uploads/media/DP_6.2014..pdf
131. 2010: CLIMATE CHANGE IS KILLING OFF POLAR BEARS AND THE WALRUSES
     Global warming is melting ice in the Arctic and devastating the ecosystem that nurtures the habitats of the Polar Bear and the Walrus. Urgent climate action is needed to save these great creatures of the North. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2010/01/reference-walruses-suffer-losses-as-sea.html
132. 2010: NATURAL VARIABILITY CAN TEMPORARILY OVERCOME AGW
     Climate scientists say the extreme weather is caused by man-made climate change if they can come up with a rationale to explain that effect. In cases where they can’t come up with a rationale the weather effect is explained as a case where natural variability had temporarily overcome human caused global warming. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2010/01/reference-cold-snap-not-end-of-global.html
133. 2010: FOSSIL FUEL CO2 = EXTERNAL PERTURBATION OF THE CARBON CYCLE
     Since Callendar 1938 and right up to Hansen 1981 and IPCC 2007 the human-caused global warming argument has been that the use of hydrocarbon fuels by humans since the industrial revolution injects new external carbon into the carbon cycle that is not part of the current account of the carbon cycle and therefore it is a perturbation of nature’s current account of the carbon cycle. This means that all human caused CO2 emissions are not at issue – only those from fossil fuels because fossil fuels are external to the carbon cycle and their use injects new carbon into the carbon cycle. So for example, human respiration is not human caused CO2 emissions because that CO2 belongs to the current account of the carbon cycle. Somewhere along the way the climate scientists lost track of this aspect of their own theory and have begun to identify even natural non-fossil fuel elements of the current account of the carbon cycle as causes of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide. More info: http://chaamjamal.blogspot.com/2010/01/reference-redd-alert-bangkok-post.html

LINKS TO THE ALL SIX CHAPTERS

[1980-1985]

[1985-1990]

[1990-1995]

[1995-2000]

[2000-2005]

[2005-2010]

LINKS TO THE ALL SIX CHAPTERS

[1980-1985]

[1985-1990]

[1990-1995]

[1995-2000]

[2000-2005]

[2005-2010]

1. 2000, CORAL REEFS HIT HARD BY GLOBAL WARMING
   Rapidly warming seas caused by global warming has turned coral reefs into endangered ecosystems. According to coral reef scientists meeting in Bali, 25% of the world’s coral reefs are already gone. Without urgent and immediate CO2 emission reductions coral reefs will be completely gone from the planet in 30 to 50 years.
2. 2000, SATELLITE TEMPERATURES SHOW UPPER ATMOSPHERE COOLING
   According to John Christy, satellite data show temperature of the upper atmosphere has been cooling by 0.3C per year since 1979. Climate scientists point out that warming of the surface and cooling of the upper atmosphere are not necessarily inconsistent if you take into account things like the Mt Pinatubo volcanic eruption and ozone depletion. It is possible for the upper atmosphere to cool while the earth’s surface is warming because volcanic debris in the stratosphere occludes sunlight and ozone depletion lowers the amount of heat being absorbed in the upper atmosphere.
3. 2000, GLOBAL WARMING IS THE RESULT OF HUMAN ACTIVITY
   According to an IPCC panel of scientists, human activities that release greenhouse gases like CO2 into the atmosphere are at least partially responsible for global warming because greenhouse gases trap heat reflected from the surface of the earth. The consequent global warming will raise surface temperature by between 1C and 3.5C by the year 2100. The warming will cause melting ice and thermal expansion of the oceans and raise sea levels by between one and three feet and flood coastal areas. There will be an increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme weather such as storms,droughts, and floods. Tropical diseases will spread into a pandemic. Plants and animals that fail to adapt to these changes will die off in waves of extinctions and loss of biodiversity.
4. 2000, CHINA TO BECOME NEW GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSION LEADER
   The Kyoto Protocol will cause the economies of industrialized nations to suffer and give developing countries an unfair advantage in global trade. China, with a booming, coal-based economy, is projected to zoom past the United States in greenhouse emissions by 2025.
5. 2000, GLOBAL WARMING IS UNDOUBTEDLY REAL
   A blue-ribbon panel of climate scientists from the National Academy of Sciences has issued a report saying that “global warming is undoubtedly real” and it is under way with dire consequences to follow. Global temperatures have risen more sharply in the last 20 years than at any time this century. The contradictory evidence from satellite data showing cooling of the upper atmosphere are irrelevant. There is no mention in the report of a link between global warming and human activity.
6. 2000, CLIMATE TALKS COLLAPSE
   The UN climate meeting in the Hague has collapsed in disarray over disagreements between the EU and the USA on how to curb greenhouse gas emissions. At issue is the use of “sinks” in the emission accounting with the USA saying that it should be able to use existing forests and agriculture as carbon sinks. Nations have been arguing over contentious positions on how they can do as little as possible to technically reach Kyoto targets. Under the Kyoto Protocol,worldwide emissions of heat-trapping gases must decline to 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
7. 2001, GLOBAL WARMING NOW UNSTOPPABLE
   A 500-member IPCC led by Sir John Houghton issued the most authoritative report on global warming so far. It contains the following alarming findings: so much CO2 has already been injected into the air that global warming is “already unstoppable”; the world is warming at an accelerating rate; tens of millions of people around the world will be driven from their homes in the coming decades to become climate change refugees; governments must take urgent action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions; climate change is now so rapid that it is not possible for us to adapt to these changes; human ecosystems and biodiversity will all be affected and it will affect the world economy; the temperature rise in the next 100 years will be between 1.4C and 5.8C, significantly higher than previously thought; “there is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities; human influences will continue to change atmospheric composition throughout the 21st century; global warming will persist for many centuries by virtue of the CO2 we have already put into the air; change caused by humans is far greater than the changes due to nature; global warming is caused by carbon dioxide trapping heat.
8. 2001, GLOBAL WARMING REPORT CREATES PRESIDENTIAL HEADACHE
   (Time) A study of global warming by the National Academy of Sciences ordered by President Bush has concluded, to the President’s chagrin, that, despite the uncertainties about global warming, it is real and that it is not natural but caused by human activities that produce greenhouse gases. The Bush team was surprised and “shocked” by the report which went counter to their stance on global warming which saw the issue as a left wing conspiracy to take control of energy policy. The report comes just in time for a trip by the President to Europe where leaders are furious with the US for not joining the Kyoto Protocol. Having rejected Kyoto out of hand W, now having to cede some ground to the Europeans, admitted that global warming was a problem.
9. 2001, GLOBAL WARMING ON MARS 
   Researchers say that Mars, too, may be a victim of global warming. The planet’s solid carbon-dioxide polar caps seem to have receded over the past Martian year (687 days). The more they evaporate, the more the atmosphere warms.
10. 2001, GLOBAL WARMING MAY TRIGGER ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE
    A report by the National Research Council (USA) says that global warming may trigger climate changes so abrupt that ecosystems will not be able to adapt. Look for local or short term cooling, floods, droughts, and other unexpected changes. A growing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere due to the use of fossil fuels is to blame. Some regional climates have changed by as much as 10C in 10 years. Antarctica’s largest glaciers are rapidly thinning, and in the last 10 years have lost up to 150 feet of thickness in some places, enough to raise global sea levels by 0.4 mm. Global warming is a real problem and it is getting worse.
11. 2001, IPCC REPORT
    Carbon dioxide from unhindered burning of fossil fuels will raise earth’s temperature 5.8C by 2100. The work of the panel over the last 10 years has now effectively ended the debate about man made global warming It is time for governments to get serious about reducing emissions.No country can afford to ignore the coming transformation of its natural and human environment. The poor and vulnerable are at greatest risk.
12. 2002, JAPAN RATIFIES KYOTO PROTOCOL
    Japan, the 4th largest CO2 emitter in the world ratified the Kyoto Protocol to reduce emissions and urged other industrialized nations to follow suit.
13. 2002, ICE SHELF COLLAPSE A WARNING
    A piece of ice the size of Rhode island broke off the Larsen ice shelf in Antarctica and within a month it dissipated sending a huge flotsam of ice into the sea. At about the same time an iceberg the size of Delaware broke off the Thwaites Glacier. A few months ago parts of the Ross ice shelf had broken off in a similar way. These events serve as a dramatic reminders that global warming is real and its effects are potentially catastrophic and underscores the urgent need for a binding international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
14. 2002, HUMANS CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING, U.S. ADMITS
    In major U-turn by the USA, the EPA has acknowledged for the first time that greenhouse gas emissions from human activity cause global warming but stopped short of endorsing the Kyoto Protocol as all 15 EU nations have done choosing instead to follow a voluntary emission reduction program of its own design. The EPA report is contrary to the position of the White House. President Bush distanced himself from the report saying that it was “put out by the bureaucracy” and that the report itself had caveats with respect to the uncertainties inherent in global warming science.
15. 2002, U.S. EPA REPORT ON GLOBAL WARMING
    The 2002 EPA report endorses the global warming theory that underlies the Kyoto Protocol saying that “Greenhouse gases are accumulating in the Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing global mean surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise”. Other excerpts: US greenhouse gas emissions will rise 43% from 2000 to 2020; a few ecosystems, such as alpine meadows in the Rocky Mountains and some barrier islands, are likely to disappear
    entirely; changes observed over the last several decades are likely due tohuman activities. It concludes that global warming is a threat and that it can be mitigated by reducing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels.
16. 2003, SOOT WORSE FOR GLOBAL WARMING THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT
    Soot that lands on snow has caused ¼ of the warming since 1880 because dirty snow traps more solar heat than pristine snow and induces a strong warming effect, according to a new computer model by James Hansen of NASA. It explains why sea ice and glaciers are melting faster than they should. Reducing soot emissions is an effective tool to curb global warming. It is easier to cut soot emissions than it is to cut CO2 emissions but we still need to reduce CO2 emissions in order to stabilize the atmosphere.
17. 2003, GLOBAL WARMING TO AFFECT SKI AREAS
    (UNEP report) Global warming will melt snow at lower altitudes forcing ski areas to move higher and higher up the mountain. Downhill skiing could disappear altogether in some resorts. A retreating snow line will cut off base villages from their ski runs by 2030. Climate change is happening now and we can measure it. Traditional low altitude ski resorts of Europe will have to either shut down or suffer higher costs of snow making. Global warming will push the altitude for ski resorts from 4265 feet to 4900-6000 feet. In Switzerland,several low-lying resorts are already having problems getting bank loans. Austria’s snow line is set to rise by 656 to 984 feet in the next 30-50 years leaving many ski resorts behind. Banks are now less willing to lend money to ski resorts. Temperatures are set to rise by 2C to 6C by 2100 unless dramatic action is taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to the IPCC, a body of 2000 scientists.
18. 2004, GRIM SIGNS OF GLOBAL WARMING
    Global warming has unleashed massive ecological changes that are already under way. These changes are ushering in a grim future including massive species extinctions, an elevation of sea levels by 3 feet, wholesale changes to the Arctic, and disruptions to the earth’s life support system. These changes should serve as a wake up call to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
19. 2004, PEW CENTER REPORT
    Observed impacts of global climate change in the US. Global warming is plain to see if you look at how it has affected wildlife. Half of the 150 species studied showed these effects. Global warming is changing life in your own back yard. Many species are going extinct in the southern edge of their range and doing better in the northern edge. Edith’s checkerspot butterfly is in sharp decline near the Mexico-California border where it has become too warm and dry, but their numbers are rising in British Columbia. The red fox is heading north and can now be found in the Arctic. In Florida and the Gulf coast people are seeing many many new species coming up from Mexico and the Caribbean. A previous worldwide study of 1500 species showed that this effect is global.
20. 2004, ARCTIC CLIMATE IMPACT ASSESSMENT
    An unprecedented 4-year study of the Arctic shows that polar bears, walruses, and some seals are becoming extinct. Arctic summer sea ice may disappear entirely. Combined with a rapidly melting Greenland ice sheet, it will raise the sea level 3 feet by 2100 inundating lowlands from Florida to Bangladesh. Average winter temperatures in Alaska and the rest of the Arctic are projected to rise an additional 7 to 13 degrees over the next 100 years because of increasing emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities. The area is warming twice as fast as anywhere else because of global air circulation patterns and natural feedback loops, such as less ice reflecting sunlight, leading to increased warming at ground level and more ice melt. Native peoples’ ways of life are threatened. Animal migration patterns have changed, and the thin sea ice and thawing tundra make it too dangerous for humans to hunt and travel.
21. 2004, US STATES SUE OVER GLOBAL WARMING
    Eight states and the City of New York have sued five electric power public utilities for failing to cut greenhouse gas emissions and for causing global warming. They are demanding emission reductions of 3% per year for 10 years. Currently carbon dioxide is not recognized as a pollutant by the Clean Air Act and the federal govt is therefore accused of abdicating its responsibility in the matter.
22. 2004, GLOBAL WARMING TO MELT GREENLAND ICE SHEET
    A meltdown of the massive ice sheet, which is more than 3km-thick would raise sea levels by an average seven meters, threatening countries such as Bangladesh, certain islands in the Pacific and some parts of Florida. Greenland’s huge ice sheet could melt within the next thousand years if emissions of carbon dioxide (CO
    2) and global warming are not reduced.
23. 2004, RAPID ARCTIC WARMING BRINGS SEA LEVEL RISE
    The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) report says: increasing greenhouse gases from human activities is causing the Arctic to warm twice as fast as the rest of the planet; in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia winter temperatures have risen by 2C to 4C in the last 50 years; the Arctic will warm by 4C to 7C by 2100. A portion of Greenland’s ice sheet will melt; global sea levels will rise; global warming will intensify. Greenland contains enough melting ice to raise sea levels by 7 meters; Bangkok, Manila, Dhaka, Florida, Louisiana, and New Jersey are at risk of inundation; thawing permafrost and rising seas threaten Arctic coastal regions; climate change will accelerate and bring about profound ecological and social changes; the Arctic is experiencing the most rapid and severe climate change on earth and it’s going to get a lot worse; Arctic summer sea ice will decline by 50% to 100%; polar bears will be driven towards extinction; this report is an urgent SOS for the Arctic; forest fires and insect infestations will increase in frequency and intensity; changing vegetation and rising sea levels will shrink the tundra to its lowest level in 21000 years; vanishing breeding areas for birds and grazing areas for animals will cause extinctions of many species; “if we limit emission of heat trapping carbon dioxide we can still help protect the Arctic and slow global warming”.
24. 2004 GLOBAL WARMING THE MOVIE
    Hollywood released a movie called “The day after tomorrow”, a dramatization of the horrors of global warming complete with superstorms, and a “climate shift”. There is death and destruction on a global scale Hollywood style. It is promoted by the global warming camp as “a teachable moment” and derided by skeptics as goofy. It helps to dramatically increase public support for global warming issues and for reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.
25. 2004 GLOBAL WARMING WILL LEAVE ARCTIC ICE FREE
    The Arctic ice cap is shrinking at an unprecedented rate and will be gone by 2070. It has shrunk by 15%to 20% in the last 30 years. This process will accelerate with the Arctic warming twice as fast as the rest of the world due to a buildup of heat trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.The findings support the broad scientific consensus that global warming is caused mainly by rising atmospheric greenhouse gases as a result of emissions from cars, factories and power plants.

LINKS TO THE ALL SIX CHAPTERS

[1980-1985]

[1985-1990]

[1990-1995]

[1995-2000]

[2000-2005]

[2005-2010]