Heliogenic Climate Change

“Gabriela Chavarria of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has been picked as the science adviser for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Trained as an entomologist, Chavarria studied neotropical bumble bees and has since worked in conservation policy at Washington, D.C.–based NGOs. Since 2006, she has directed NRDC’s science program. Before that she was vice president for science and conservation at Defenders of Wildlife and headed conservation policy at the National Wildlife Federation. Chavarria was also a member of the Invasive Species Advisory Committee and served on the recovery team for the endangered black-footed ferret.

Among other issues, Chavarria will provide advice on how the agency should deal with climate change.”  “Fish and Wildlife Service Names Science Adviser“

This is truly ironic.  Tens of thousands of farm workers are out of work in California’s devastated central valley because enviros sued the feds to force stopping the pumping of irrigation water from the delta, supposedly because the delta smelt needed more water to survive.  Now it turns out the problem for the smelt was not too little water but pollution from wastewater treatment plants.  Tell it to the devastated farmlands and farm workers:

“A new study to be published in the academic journal Reviews in Fisheries Science recommends that efforts to restore the endangered California delta smelt and other declining pelagic fish should more sharply focus on reducing nutrient pollution to the species’ native waters. The research indicates these fish populations would greatly benefit from reductions in the amount of nitrogen flowing into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay-Delta from wastewater treatment plants and balancing the ratio of nitrogen and phosphorus contained in the discharged water.

“While a great deal of emphasis has been placed on ensuring there is enough water for delta smelt, we also need to recognize that the water also has to have the right chemical balance,” said Dr. Patricia Glibert of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. “The research shows us that reducing the amount of nitrogen from Bay-Delta wastewater treatment plants should aid the recovery of the delta smelt population. The high nutrient loads are affecting the algae at the base of the food web, which in turn, affect the food supply for the fish. This has altered the ecology of the system over many years.”

For her research, Dr. Glibert analyzed 30 years of water chemistry, river flow, plankton, fish population and effluent discharge data to determine possible linkages to the population of the delta smelt and other pelagic fish in the Bay-Delta system. The analysis reveals that declines in delta smelt population most closely coincide with effluent changes from the region’s major wastewater treatment plant.  …

The Bay-Delta is the subject of considerable national public awareness due to the sociopolitical and socioeconomic tension surrounding the plight of the endangered delta smelt (Hypomesus transpacificus) and the court-ordered modifications of water diversion projects to protect the species.”  “New research links decline of endangered California delta smelt to nutrient pollution“

“So about two weeks ago Sen. John Kerry, a lead author of the looming Kerry-Graham-Lieberman global warming/cap-and-trade legislation said about his bill, to disassociate from Earth Day loopiness: This is not an environment bill.

No kidding. No one on the planet claims it would change the climate in any way our most sophisticated instrumentation could discern. It’s about power.  …

Today we read in E&E Daily, from another co-sponsor Sen. Lindsey Graham: “It’s not a global warming bill to me. Because global warming as a reason to pass legislation doesn’t exist anymore. ”

Oddly, both remarkable statements have been ignored by the establishment press, slavish as they are to also seeing this agenda through to the end because, as Sen. Tim Wirth said in 1988 and Barack Obama in his 2010 State of the Union address, even if you don’t buy the excuse, their agenda is still “the right thing to do.”

[T]he issue is not the issue. The global warming then climate change then, uh, it’s jobs, that’s it, jobs, or maybe national security or…I dunno, what appeals to you? … agenda for promoting the energy-scarcity list of mandates, wealth transfers and lifestyle restrictions were just excuses for doing what these people have long insisted they, as your betters, be able to do to you.”  “Global warming:  the issue is not the issue“

Windmills kill tens of thousands of birds every year.  Journos yawn.  But if oil spills they go ballistic:

“What does it say when 11 men who perish on an exploding oil platform, or 30 poor souls who die in a 1,000-year Tennessee flood, get less coverage than two oil-soaked birds? It says news is driven from the left.

It is to the credit of the one media outlet that reported the paparazzi-like scrums of reporters trailing rescue workers as they tried to clean off one oil-soaked gannet caught in the oil spill off Louisiana waters after a rig exploded in the Gulf on April 20. Not only did the U.S. and European media obsess breathlessly about the bird, and later about a brown pelican that followed, they seemed to be panting for more.

That’s because birds are convenient tools for driving the radical green agenda to halt all oil drilling. TV media and the national papers pounded the bird story because it served a political purpose.  …

A look at the Los Angeles Times’ oil spill coverage, for one, shows birds featured daily in its blog and paper while the 11 oil platform workers have barely registered. On the blog, the news of the deaths wasn’t acknowledged until May 5, eight days after the workers’ employer identified them in a memorial Web site.”  “Meanwhile, In Nashville“

“The implicit claim that scientists are better qualified than nonscientists to answer ethical questions points to the broader problem with the liberal attitude toward science. It seems to be more about asserting the political authority of scientists than adhering to the scientific method. This is very clear in the global-warming debate, in which, as last year’s “Climategate” scandal showed, scientists disregarded the scientific method in order to promote an ideologically favored hypothesis. In ignoring the scandal and pushing ahead with its “climate” agenda, the Obama administration has shown that it is more interested in ideology than science.

The New York Times reports on another example: “a dire government report on cancer risks from chemicals and other hazards in the environment,” which is so alarmist that it has even “drawn criticism from the American Cancer Society, which says government experts are overstating their case.”

Here’s the key passage:

The chairman of the president’s panel, Dr. LaSalle D. Leffall Jr. of Howard University, said the panel stood by the report.

“This is an evenhanded approach, and an evenhanded report,” Dr. Leffall said. “We didn’t make statements that should not be made.”

He acknowledged that it was impossible to specify just how many cancers were environmentally caused, because not enough research had been done, but he said he was confident that when the research was done, it would confirm the panel’s assertion that the problem had been grossly underestimated.

He is confident that once the research has been done, it will confirm the conclusions that he has already reached–conclusions, by the way, that would seem to point in the direction of a vast expansion of government power, consistent with the administration’s ideology. Is this what the president meant when he promised to restore science to its proper place?”  “Everything Gives You Cancer?“

There is a good post by Steve Goddard over at WUWT on the Venus CO2 “runaway” warming fallacy.  Check it out.  Conclusion:

“So why is Venus hot?  Because it has an extremely high atmospheric pressure.  The atmospheric pressure on Venus is 92X greater than earth.  Temperatures in Earth’s atmosphere warm over 80C going from 20 kPa (altitude 15km) to 100 kPa (sea level.)  That is why mountains are much colder than the deserts which lie at their base.

The atmospheric pressure on Venus is greater than 9,000 kPa.  At those pressures, we would expect Venus to be very hot. Much, much hotter than Death Valley.

Wikipedia typifies the illogical “runaway greenhouse” argument with this statement.

Without the greenhouse effect caused by the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the temperature at the surface of Venus would be quite similar to that on Earth.

No it wouldn’t. 9000 kPa atmospheric pressure would occur on earth at an altitude many miles below sea level.  No such place exists, but if it did – it would be extremely hot, like Venus. A back of the envelope estimate – temperatures on earth increase by about 80C going from 20 to 100 kPa, so at 9,000 kPa we would expect temperatures to be in the ballpark  of :

20C + ln(9000/(100-20)) *80C = 400C

This is very close to what we see on Venus.  The high temperatures there can be almost completely explained by atmospheric pressure – not composition. If 90% of the CO2 in Venus atmosphere was replaced by Nitrogen, it would change temperatures there by only a few tens of degrees.

How did such bad science become “common knowledge?” The greenhouse effect can not be the cause of the high temperatures on Venus. “Group Think” at it’s worst, and I am embarrassed to admit that I blindly accepted it for decades.

Blame CO2 first – ask questions later.”  “Hyperventilating on Venus“

“1.  INTRODUCTION

Global warming scenarios from CO2 increases are envisioned to bring about rainfall enhancement and resulting upper tropospheric water vapor rise. This initial water vapor enhancement has been hypothesized and programmed in climate models to develop yet additional rainfall and water vapor increase. This causes an extra blockage of IR energy to space (a positive feedback warming mechanism). This additional rainfall and IR blockage is modeled to be approximately twice as large as the additional rainfall needed to balance the increased CO2 by itself. The reality of this additional warming and extra IR blockage has been questioned by many of us. This study analyzes a wide variety of infrared (IR) radiation differences which are associated with rainfall differences on different space and time scales. Our goal is to determine the extent to which the positive rainfall feedbacks as are included in the climate model simulations are realistic.  …

This analysis shows they are not realistic.  …

2.  FINDINGS

a)
The albedo increase occurring over the top of strong precipitation and cloudy regions rises at a greater rate than does the rate of decrease of IR within these rainy and cloudy areas. Rainy and cloudy areas are local places of enhanced net radiation to space (Tables 1 and 2 and in idealized form in Figure 3). We have many other areas of rain differences which give similar results. In almost all rain and cloud areas we find that albedo energy flux rises at a greater rate than IR energy flux is reduced.  …

3.  IMPLICATIONS OF THESE OBSERVATIONS

The above measurements are at odds with the Global Climate Model (GCM) simulations of precipitation increase associated with rising CO2 amounts. Models show large tropical upper tropospheric temperature and water vapor increases to be associated with increased rates of precipitation (due to CO2 increases) that are similar to increased rates of precipitation that this study measures. We do not observe such upper tropospheric temperature and moisture increases for rainfall enhancements as do the modelers.  …

The climate modelers have assumed that as CO2 increases it will cause a progressive blockage of IR energy to space and, in addition, a further blockage of IR energy to space will occur from the original increase in upper-level water vapor. Increased IR blockage brings about a gradual increase in global temperature.  …

Our observations do not agree with these GCM scenarios. Our observations indicate that tropical RH [relative humidity] and moisture (q) rather than rising with enhanced precipitation do the opposite and actually go down as precipitation rates increase.  …

We find that there is not a positive water vapor feedback as the modelers have assumed. In fact we see the opposite. As rainfall increases upper-level water vapor contents are weakly reduced.  …

8. CONCLUSION

We find that as rainfall increases that there is not a reduction of global net radiation to space as most of the climate models have assumed. There is a weak enhancement of radiation to space with increased rainfall. We find no positive water vapor feedback.  …

A reduction of upper level RH of about 4 percent to go along with a lowering of the emission level of 7 mb would allow a doubling of CO2 to proceed with no warming (Figure 20). We estimate the extra precipitation from a doubling of CO2 to cause a negative (not positive) temperature feedback of about minus 0.6oC.”  “THE ASSOCIATION OF OUTGOING RADIATION WITH VARIATIONS OF PRECIPITATION – IMPLICATIONS FOR GLOBAL WARMING“  h/t Climate Realists

“Abstract: This report compares the raw with the United States Historical Climatology Network Version 2 (USHCN V2) adjusted temperature records for the twenty-four USHCN listed temperature stations in the state of Pennsylvania. Averaging over the twenty-four stations the raw data yielded a small linear decline with temperatures trending -0.1 ± 0.1 ºC/century, while the U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USCHN) Version 2 adjusted data revealed an increase of 0.7 ± 0.1 ºC/century.  …

Conclusions: In the state of Pennsylvania the raw temperature record reveals no significant change in temperature over the period from 1895 to 2009. The USHCN V2 adjusted temperature record shows an increase of less than a degree Celsius over those years.  … In both the short and longer term cases the USHCN V2 adjusted data yielded trends that were roughly 1ºC per century higher than those found in the raw temperature records.”  “A REVIEW OF THE UNITED STATES HISTORICAL CLIMATOLOGY NETWORK VERSION 2: ADJUSTED TEMPERATURE RECORD FOR PENNSYLVANIA, U.S.A.“

“A recent study of ocean life in the depths near Greenland has turned up some 38 species of fish, 10 of which, like this anglerfish, were previously unknown to the region–and are quite ugly too. Scientists suspect that global warming may be drawing these unphotogenic fish to the region.

Although the study, conducted by the Natural History Museum of Denmark in the waters near Greenland, found 10 new species previously unclassified, many of the other fish appear to have recently moved to the area from elsewhere. According to the National Geographic, human activity and changes to their normal habitats may be what’s driving them north.

Rising ocean temperatures due to global warming–which could be drawing unfamiliar fishes to the region–and increased deep-sea fishing may be responsible for the spike in fresh fish faces seen off Greenland.”

“Strange new fish discovered near Greenland“  h/t Larry Tomasson

What planet is this AP journo living on?

“The European Space Agency is launching a satellite that scientists hope will help them pin down the effects of global warming on the Earth’s ice packs more precisely.

The CryoSat 2 mission, which starts Thursday after years of delays, will be able to pinpoint details of changes in polar ice so scientists can better understand the alarming picture of the world’s retreating ice caps.  …

For coastal cities and islands, the information may be a question of survival.

If all of the Earth’s polar ice and glaciers were to melt, sea levels could rise up to 230 feet (70 meters), Miller said.

If only Greenland became ice-free, it would mean a 21.33-foot (6.5-meter) rise, he said.”  “EU satellite to check climate change impact on ice“

Meanwhile, on planet Earth, arctic sea ice is at its 30-year average, antarctic sea ice continues to grow, and:

“The extent of sea ice over the Arctic Ocean grew until the last day of March, the latest the annual melting season has begun in 31 years of satellite records, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.”  “Arctic Sea Ice Melting Season Posts Latest Start on Record“

“At the suggestion of France’s science minister, Valérie Pécresse, France’s National Academy of Sciences will hold an official debate on climate change to try to defuse this newly explosive issue..

The Academy of Sciences debate, expected to be held by October of this year, follows two months of heated debate on radio and television, during which France’s two most prominent sceptics, Claude Allegre and Vincent Courtillot, have sown great doubt in the minds of a once unskeptical French public.  Allegre’s new book, L’imposture climatique (The Climate Fraud), has especially caused the French public to reconsider the conventional wisdom about global warming.  In this runaway best-seller (110,000 copies sold to date), Allegre, France’s most celebrated scientist and a former Science Minister in a socialist government, calls the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a “mafia-like system” that promotes a “baseless myth” about climate change.

In an attempt to stop the erosion of their public support, some 410 establishment scientists petitioned the current science minster, asking her to rebuke the skeptics and to express confidence in the climate research community.  Her response was to turn to France’s National Academy with a request for a debate on the subject. The Academy’s president, Jean Salençon, readily agreed in the hopes that an airing of the issues would calm some of the fury on the subject.

Noting that the Academy does not take sides on the issue, and that the Academy’s website already reports the views of scientists on both sides of the debate, Salençon aims to defend the scientific method and the principles of scientific inquiry, not any one scientific position. When asked if sanctions might be in the cards for Allegre, a member of the Academy, or any other climate sceptics, he replied: “Under no circumstances! There is no question of ethical sanctions. Even less of an expulsion. The nomination for the Academy of Sciences is perpetual. It cannot be reversed, not even through a resignation.”

The participants in the October debate have not yet been determined.”  “France to hold official debate on climate change“

“One of the best-kept secrets of British politics – although it is there for all to see on a Government website – is the cost of what is by far the most expensive piece of legislation ever put through Parliament. Every year between now and 2050, acccording to Ed Miliband’s Department for Energy and Climate Change (Decc), the Climate Change Act is to cost us all up to £18.3 billion – £760 for every household in the country – as we reduce our carbon emissions by 80 per cent.

Last Thursday – with northern Britain again under piles of global warming – another tranche of regulations came into force, as this measure begins to take effect. New road tax rules mean that to put a larger, more CO2 -emitting car on the road will now cost £950. New “feed-in” subsidies for small-scale “renewables” mean that the installers of solar panels will be paid up to eight times the going rate for their miserable amount of electricity to be fed into the grid, with the overall bill for this scheme estimated eventually to be billions a year.

Not the least bizarre of the Government’s strategies, however, is Decc’s new Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) scheme, requiring up to 30,000 of our largest energy users, such as ministries, councils, universities, hospitals, supermarket chains (and even “monasteries and nunneries”), to pay to register with the Environment Agency. Some 5,000 of them, using more than “6,000 megawatt hours” of electricity each year (equivalent to the needs of 1,250 homes), will then have to carry out a cumbersome audit of their carbon footprint, using “three different metrics”, in order to pay £12 for each ton of CO2 they emit – at a total initial cost estimated at £1.4 billion a year. This will eventually be contributed by all of us, either through taxes or, for instance, whenever we visit Tesco.

Even the 25,000 remaining non-participants in the scheme will still have to pay, between them, some £9.75 million to register with the Environment Agency, doubtless so they can be brought into the net at a later date. Meanwhile, as indicated by Decc’s 100-page Carbon User’s Guide, the “carbon efficiency” performance of the 5,000 participants will place them in an annual league table, with the worst performers having to pay cash penalties, to be given as bonuses to those at the top.  …

Once the scheme is established, of course, the idea is that, in future, the total amount of CO2 emitted will be capped, pushing the cost of each ton of CO2 even higher. All this and much more, such as the £100 billion the Government wants to see spent on useless wind farms, is designed to reduce Britain’s CO2 emissions within 40 years to where they were in the early 19th century.

Since we contribute less than 2 per cent of global emissions, while China continues to build a new coal-fired power station every week, these empty getures will do nothing to reduce the world’s overall “carbon footprint”. Not that this makes any difference to global warming anyway – but at least it will give the Government billions more pounds of our money, while we still have any of it left.”  “Climate Change Act has the biggest ever bill“

“Last week, a climate research centre at the University of Montreal, known by the acronym ESCER, warned that such groups are being forced to close across the country.

“The paper I have talked about makes the case that the IPCC used false evidence to conceal an important problem with the surface temperature data on which most of their conclusions rest. In principle, one might argue that my analysis was wrong (though most reviewers didn’t), but it would be implausible to say that the issue is unimportant or irrelevant.

Altogether I sent the paper to seven journals before it went to SP&P [Statistics, Politics and Policy]. From those seven journals I received seven reviews, of which six accepted the findings and supported publication. The one that rejected my findings contained some basic technical errors, but the journal editor would not respond to my letter pointing them out. Nature, Science and Geophysical Research Letters would not even review the paper, while the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society never acknowledged the presubmission inquiry. Global and Planetary Change received one review recommending publication, blocked another reviewer [Roger Pielke Sr.] before he could submit a report and then turned the paper down.

In the aftermath of Climategate a lot of scientists working on global warming-related topics are upset that their field has apparently lost credibility with the public. The public seems to believe that climatology is beset with cliquish gatekeeping, wagon-circling, biased peer-review, faulty data and statistical incompetence. In response to these perceptions, some scientists are casting around, in op-eds and weblogs, for ideas on how to hit back at their critics. I would like to suggest that the climate science community consider instead whether the public might actually have a point.”  “Circling the Bandwagons:  My Adventures Correcting the IPCC“  Alternate link here.  h/t Bishop Hill

Even though corals evolved and thrived in much warmer waters than today, and even though corals thrive today in “too warm” waters (Diversity of corals in “too warm” Indian Ocean surprises alarmists), modelers persist in creating doom and gloom in their virtual world:

“Cornell University researchers have found a new tool to help marine biologists better grasp the processes under the sea: They have created mathematical models to unveil the bacterial community dynamics behind afflictions that bleach and kill coral.  …

Now new mathematical models explain for the first time how beneficial bacteria on coral suddenly give way to pathogens when waters warm.  …

The model reveals how a healthy normal microbial community in the coral surface mucus layer protects corals from disease by preventing invasion and overgrowth by pathogenic bacteria. But when corals are stressed, for example by elevated temperatures (a heat spell), the community of microbes suddenly switches. Species associated with a healthy coral organism – “resident species” – decline as pathogens associated with coral disease take their place.”  “New mathematical model helps biologists understand how coral dies in warming waters“

“All public bodies should have a legal duty to protect their workers from climate change in the same way as institutions currently carry out health and safety checks, according to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution.

The body set up to warn Government about the risk of environmental disasters said climate change will cause floods, droughts and heatwaves in future.

In a key report on ‘Adapting Institutions to Climate Change’ the committee of experts recommended that every school, hosptial and business should have a legal duty to adapt to climate change. For example by putting in place flood defences and plans for water shortages.  …

“The planet is already slightly above the worse case scenario so if we do nothing we could be looking at a temperature rise of 4C (7.3F) by 2100,” [Sir John Lawton, chairman of the commission] said.  …

“That should become central because just like health and safety scenarios – where people are going to get killed or injured – people are going to get killed or injured by climate change and that is why it is important.”  …

“We have to accept that there is a real risk of [climate change] devastating people’s lives … ,” he said.”  “Climate change is the new health and safety“

Anthony Watts had a post awhile ago (while I was on the Colorado River) discussing the new paper “CONTIGUOUS U. S. TEMPERATURE TRENDS USING NCDC RAW AND ADJUSTED DATA FOR ONE-PER-STATE RURAL AND URBAN STATION SETS” by Edward R. Long, Ph.D., illustrating both the urban heat island (UHI) effect and the faulty adjusting of urban and rural raw data in the U.S.  The two graphs here are from the paper (extracted by Anthony).

The first graph shows rural versus urban raw data.  What is striking is that (1) the raw rural data show that the 1930s were warmer than today and (2) the UHI effect is evident and large.

The second graph shows the same data after NCDC adjusts it.  One would expect that the rural raw data would not be adjusted and that the urban raw data would be adjusted downward to take into account the UHI effect.  But instead NCDC adjusts the rural raw data upward until it nearly matches the urban data!  The NCDC adjusted temperature record is clearly urban biased.

“The GBR [Great Barrier Reef] is not actually threatened by anything. For over 40 years it has survived unscathed from a constant litany of purported threats, all dire, all demanding urgent attention, and of course funding. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on research with little achieved other than the establishment of a parasitic industry predicated on imaginary threats. This reef salvation industry now supports hundreds of researchers, bureaucrats and activists …

Generations of researchers have been schooled in a culture wherein threats to the reef are an unquestionable belief and all evidence is interpreted from such perspective. When evidence of good news cannot credibly be explained away, it is simply shelved, as were the extensive coral trout surveys by Ayling and the large ENCORE (Anon., 1994) experiment on enhanced nutrients. For a researcher to question the prevailing orthodoxy and insist on presenting evidence contrary to consensus belief would be professional suicide. The gravy boat steams on.

It is disheartening to see capable researchers, whose other extensive work clearly conflicts with claims made in this [Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority] report, lending their names to it and, worse yet, such conflicting evidence being glossed over or ignored.

It should be noted that the lead author is employed by GBRMPA, all of the 20 additional authors are either employed by them or are recipients of substantial funding from them and this study was funded by them. The authorship and rather unrestrained positive spin on the benefits and cost effectiveness achieved by GBRMPA management presents the appearance of a promotion piece for and by GBRMPA which the most productive and respected beneficiaries of their research funding have been invited to endorse. In such case, it would have been very difficult for any to decline or to offer much objection to the claims made. At the same time, their names and status would provide credibility and deterrence of criticism while greatly increasing the prospect of acceptance for publication in a prestigious journal. It is incongruous to note that all these employees and repeated recipients of generous GBRMPA funding, could, “…declare no conflict of interest.” (see footnote, p.1 of the report) when they are in fact assessing the value of their own work and that of the organisation which supports them. To compound the impropriety even further, PNAS also requires that, “Authors must acknowledge all funding sources supporting the work.” There appears to be no such disclosure in this study either.  …

It almost seems that somewhere there must be a handbook for agenda science as the reef salvation industry has managed to cover all of the same points of scientific malpractice as revealed by Climategate:

Hide or ignore conflicting evidence.
Dramatic claims and language.
Massage data.
Misrepresent data.
Offer conclusions only. Employ opaque data and methods.
Use peer review to publish in prestigious journals and block publication of conflicting studies.
Denigrate dissent without addressing its substance.
Assert authority and expertise,
Claim Noble Cause to excuse excesses.
Maximise credibility and defence with as many authors from as many institutions as possible.

Reef Salvation score – Ten out of ten.”  “Reef report lacks credibility“

New Moore Island and Lohachara Island are sediment islands in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta.  New Moore “emerged in the Bay of Bengal in the aftermath of the Bhola cyclone in 1970″ (from Wikipedia).  Such islands are created and destroyed by changing currents and sediment load in the river delta.  The delta as a whole is subsiding.  Sea level rise has nothing to do with it.  Now read the alarmist nonsense below from AP claiming the island is a “rock island” (NOT!) that was “submerged” by an “alarming increase” in sea level (NOT!) caused by “global warming”.  Even more embarrassing than the ignorant journo is the quoted professor, who one hopes knows better (if not then it’s even worse):

“For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have resolved the dispute for them: the island’s gone.

New Moore Island in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said.

“What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming,” said Hazra.

Scientists at the School of Oceanographic Studies at the university have noted an alarming increase in the rate at which sea levels have risen over the past decade in the Bay of Bengal.  …

Another nearby island, Lohachara, was submerged in 1996, forcing its inhabitants to move to the mainland, while almost half the land of Ghoramara island was underwater, he said. At least 10 other islands in the area were at risk as well, Hazra said.

“We will have ever larger numbers of people displaced from the Sunderbans as more island areas come under water,” he said.

Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation of 150 million people, is one of the countries worst-affected by global warming. Officials estimate 18 percent of Bangladesh’s coastal area will be underwater and 20 million people will be displaced if sea levels rise 1 meter (3.3 feet) by 2050 as projected by some climate models.”  “Disputed isle in Bay of Bengal disappears into sea“

“At least 15 U.S. states have sued the Environmental Protection Agency seeking to stop it from issuing rules controlling greenhouse gas emissions until it reexamines whether the pollution harms human health.

Florida, Indiana, South Carolina and at least nine other states filed the petitions in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, states said.

They joined petitions filed last month by Virginia, Texas and Alabama.  …

The state petitions call for the EPA to reopen hearings on the so-called “endangerment finding” the agency issued last year declaring the emissions dangerous to people.

“If EPA doesn’t reopen the hearings we will move forward to try to stop them from regulating greenhouse gases,” said Brian Gottstein, an assistant to Virginia’s Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli.

The states have complained that the EPA relied too heavily from reports by the U.N.’s climate science panel which included information that exaggerated the melting of Himalayan glaciers.

The EPA said it was confident it would withstand legal challenges on the issue. “The question of the science is settled,” spokeswoman Adora Andy said. The science “came from an array of highly respected, peer-reviewed sources from both within the United States and across the globe, and took into consideration hundreds of thousands of comments from members of the public, which were addressed in the finding,” she said.”  “States Sue EPA To Stop Greenhouse Gas Rules“