The study of weather conditions and patterns as averaged over a given period of time.
7
votes
2answers
305 views
Are the IPCC climate change models overestimating sensitivity to carbon dioxide?
A recent report in The Register suggests that we might be currently overestimating the degree to which the world will warm with increasing carbon dioxide.
Climate sensitivity is, crudely, the slope ...
12
votes
3answers
558 views
Is climate close to a “tipping point”?
James Hansen has long used the idea of a climate tipping point in his public arguments for urgent and drastic action to combat climate change (For an extended exposition of his idea, see a pdf of one ...
3
votes
1answer
287 views
Will reducing atmospheric CO₂ reverse the effects of climate change over a few decades?
There are many calls to help bring down Carbon Dioxide levels. But what are the effects of such an action?
My intuition of the earth as a slow-moving complex system tells me that it will settle into ...
12
votes
3answers
641 views
Could Global Warming be good for life?
A paper from Nature Geoscience (reported by the BBC here) claims that the carbon dioxide humanity has pumped into the atmosphere is holding off a new Ice Age.
This has revived an old idea best ...
7
votes
1answer
217 views
Does low solar activity cause cold weather?
I'm in Ireland where a few papers have recently parrotted an independent body's assertion that we're heading for low solar activity and, accordingly, a very cold winter. The statement has been ...
18
votes
3answers
760 views
Did we have a “global cooling” 40 years ago?
I was reading Superfreakanomics and the book argues that we had a global cooling period 40 years ago? Is that claim accurate?
12
votes
2answers
452 views
Does the Mount Washington wind speed record have scientific validity?
A record wind gust of 231 miles/hour was recorded in 1934, according to http://www.mountwashington.org/about/visitor/recordwind.php
Wind speeds of this magnitude are commonly known to damage or ...
70
votes
5answers
3k views
Do human activities contribute to climate change?
There is lots of evidence that I have seen showing correlation between human activities and climate change but what evidence is there to support causation?
