According to scientific expectation, the hottest year on record should have been the most recent year. In fact, the hottest year of the 20th Century was 1998, and since then temperatures have risen only about .02 degrees Fahrenheit. And yet, between 2000 and 2010 human activity has emitted 110 billion tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. According to global warming models, temperatures should have continued to climb, but instead they have stabilized. Although the change is not as intense as expected, 9  out of the 10 warmest years ever recorded have taken place since 1998.
read more

Back in 2011, the sun was so quiet that researchers were speculating that it might be entering a long term period of lowered output. Now that the current solar max has reached its climactic months and is proving to be the quietest in a century, that speculation is being renewed. If this is happening, global warming models could be derailed as Earth ends up facing another mini ice age similar to the one that began in the 1350s and did not end until the 1890s.  This would have a profound effect on Earth’s weather and could indeed save us from runaway global warming.read more

The spring of 2013 will be the coolest in 50 years in the British Isles. Two days ago, many parts of Upstate New York experienced a snowstorm, extremely rare for late May. At the same time, the Russian Arctic Station is being evacuated because the ice floe it is sited on has started melting much earlier than expected. So what’s happening? Why are the mid-latitudes unseasonably cold when the arctic is warm?read more

It is an odd and chilling feeling to see Hurricane Sandy called a superstorm. It’s going to go down in history as Superstorm Sandy.

I didn’t coin the word ‘superstorm’ but the Coming Global Superstorm, certainly brought it into the language. And the movie based on it, the Day After Tomorrow, fixed the idea of such storms in the public imagination.
read more