Back in December, I wrote about British gamblers having the chance to wager on global warming. Now, global warming wagers have come to the U.S. One wager is whether Manhattan will be submerged before New Year's Eve, 2011. Four years? Mighty long odds of that happening.

I have no idea if this letter to the editor was facetious or sincere, I only know that it's worth a good laugh - something that's always welcome on a Friday!

Where can you go to watch global warming in action? Greenland, of course! Now Air Greenland (who knew?) has begun commercial flights from Baltimore, Maryland to Kangerlussuaq, a former military air strip in southern Greenland. From there, tourists are traveling north to Ilulissat, a town of 5,000.

It's been a popular spot for politicians seeking a global warming photo op, and has also become a hot-spot for rich tourists, who apparently find watching ice melt fascinating.

Katie Fehlinger talked a little about some of the other recent impacts of warming in the most recent edition on Headline: Earth, which I published here on Friday.

It's Friday - a good time for a little odd global warming news. Seems the number of cats and kittens being brought to animal shelters in the United States has spiked by about 30 percent over the past couple of years.

Why? Kathy Warnick, president of a national adoption organization called Pets across America says "Cats are typically warm-weather, spring-time breeders. However, states that typically experience primarily longer and colder winters are now seeing shorter, warmer winters, leading to year-round breeding."

With no "reproductive lull," more kittens are being brought to animal shelters during the winter months.

College students have been challenged to come up with digital games based on the theme of global warming. The winners will get cash, but even more than that - an invitation to visit Microsoft and present their entry to the Microsoft games management team for possible inclusion in Xbox LIVE Arcade. The first place prize is the opportunity to become an apprentice at Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business as part of its internship program.

I have to say when I first read the blog entry that I linked above, the thought crossed my mind that this might be a joke. But no! It's real. Microsoft is teaming up with Games for Change (G4C) to bring together the worlds of gaming and of social change. Gamers aren't the first group that comes to my mind when I think of the environmentally conscious, but G4C president and co-founder Suzanne Seggerman says, "We know from experience that young people are looking for ways to help make the world a better place, and who better to support this effort than an industry leader like Microsoft?"

Even though the above worm may look innocent enough (certainly slimy enough!), a German study has found that worms produce greenhouse gases that are 290 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The Materials Recycling Network (UK site) has more information in a recent post titled Worms are killing the planet, says top researcher.

Maybe we should start talking about WGW (Worm-opogenic Global Warming) instead of AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming)!

We've all heard about the potential disastrous consequences related to global warming, but no one seems to be talking about the possibility of global warming causing higher pizza prices, at least that I know of. Let me be the first (and probably the last).

I know this is a bit of a stretch, but bear with me. Many people are promoting the use of ethanol (alcohol made from corn) as a possible partial solution to global warming. A whyfile.org article (Alcohol: Cool Solution to Global Warming?) explains the logic. Not everyone agrees that ethanol will not help to ease any global warming concerns as is explained in this Reuters article (Ethanol May Not Ease Global Warming: UN) that was found in the Sydney Morning Herald indicates; however, more ethanol is being produced.

According to a recent article on ABC News (How More Ethanol Means Pricier Pizza), an increase in production of ethanol has resulted in higher dairy prices since more corn is being used for fuel rather than food for cattle. So, there you have it: more ethanol to try to combat global warming means higher dairy prices, which means more expensive cheese and more expensive pizza. That's right--global warming is causing higher pizza prices!!

The Onion posted an interesting little story not too long ago about addressing the Global Warming Crisis. Here is the Link.

By the way, have a safe and enjoyable holiday! Brett

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

The 7-Eleven Slurpee has made a comeback across northern Taiwan, according to an article in the Taipei Times. After sluggish sales in the north, the Slurpee was only sold in southern Taiwan starting in 1998. Last year, the Slurpee was brought back to the north. Why? According to Ray Chen, the Chief Marketing Officer of President Chain Store, which owns the worlds third largest 7-Eleven franchise, "As many consumers outside southern Taiwan complained about having no Slurpee to drink and as we think global warming effects will continue, President Chain decided to relaunch the product nationwide last year."

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

The White Ash Tree is in danger of being wiped out, and that could threaten a long baseball tradition. The wood from the ash tree has been used for decades to create a majority of the nation's baseball bats, including those for Major League Baseball. The main threat to these trees since 2002 has been the Emerald Ash Borer Beetle, which has been accused of killing 25 million ash trees from Michigan to Maryland, according to the article by Monica Davey of the New York Times. In late June, there were signs of the ash borer's arrival in northwestern Pennsylvania, where most of the wood comes from. What does this have to do with global warming? Some, but not all scientists believe that a warmer climate could aid the beetle's invasion by creating stressed trees and a quicker reproductive cycle of the Emerald Ash Borer. A warmer climate would also mean a longer growing season for the tree, making the wood softer, instead of ideally dense and flexible.

Photo courtesy of MSU Extension

One scientist, Dr. Dan Herms of the Ohio State University disputes any link between climate change and the beetle, saying the beetle has survived a wide range of temperatures in Asia.

I read in the article that maple wood is already another alternative to baseball bat making. My son, who is a big Yankee fan, made a baseball bat out of maple in woodworking class and there is no way you could swing that thing with any speed in a game since it was so heavy. Maybe I need to give Sammy Sosa a call. Brett

Japanese scientists have concluded that producing just 2.2 pounds of beef generates more carbon dioxide than the average car does every 160 miles, according to an article titled "Study Links Beef Production to Global Warming", on the Cattle network website. The study was published in the Animal Science Journal. The amount of energy needed to produce that same amount of beef is equivalent to leaving a 100-watt lightbulb on for 20 days, according to New Scientist Magazine. As I stated in an earlier post, livestock themselves produce a large amount of methane, which is considered a greenhouse gas.

Scientists have claimed that they have found the "missing carbon sink", which is a billion tonnes of human-generated carbon. The carbon was initially thought to be absorbed by northern forests, but unaccounted for in field studies, according to the report posted on Nature.com.

Now, scientists believe they have found the missing carbon sink in tropical forests, which are removing much more CO2 from the atmosphere than previously realized.

Lead researcher Britton Stephens from the National Center for Atmospheric Research also said "tropical forests are essentially in balance, absorbing as much carbon dioxide as they give off." But he also states "Cutting down tropical forests not only increases carbon emissions but also removes a strong sink and its potential for offsetting future emissions."

Consumer advocates are saying that insurance companies are now using global warming as an excuse to raise rates and even dump clients, according to an article in Scientific American.com.

Bill Newton, executive director of the Florida Consumer Action Network states "I think (insurance companies) are speculating on the fear of global warming and using it as an opportunity to raise rates."

David Snyder, vice president and assistant general counsel for the American Insurance Association says "If circumstances change due to global warming that alter the level of risk, insurance companies need to be free to reflect that risk."

Newton and Scientist Evan Mills believe that some insurance companies are employing a "global warming surcharge" to insurance premiums. Newton and Mills would like insurance companies to be transparent about the models they are using for setting premiums, but according to Newton, there are currently no state or federal laws requiring that companies provide this information.

Insurance representative Snyder states that there is no "global warming surcharge".

Here is the link to the interesting two-page article titled "Insurers Claim Global Warming Makes some Regions Too Hot to Handle."

We found this interesting article from the TimesOnline titled "Walking to the shops 'damages planet more than going by car'.

In the article, Chris Goodall, a Green Party candidate and author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life does a summary based on the greenhouse gases created by intensive beef production. He believes that a person will emit more carbon by walking to the store compared to driving, and that there would also be less carbon emitted if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes.

Here is a quote from Goodall, "The troubling fact is that taking a lot of exercise and then eating a bit more food is not good for the global atmosphere. Eating less and driving to save energy would be better."

You really need to read the article to understand what he is talking about.

Patrick, I guess this means you should get rid of that bicycle you ride to work!

James Hansen, who is NASA's lead scientist on global warming wrote a response last week specifically aimed at critics (mainly certain media outlets) who questioned the validity of his work. If you remember, Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit found some errors in the U.S. temperature data not too long ago which forced NASA to make corrections to their temperature statisitics. In the end, 1934 officially became the hottest year in the U.S. instead of 1998.

Here is a link to Hansen's angry response.

A university focusing on the effects of climate change has been proposed by Denmark.

The government would like to build the research center in Greenland in time for the 2009 U.N. Climate Summit in Copenhagen.

I do not know this for sure, maybe someone can correct me, but would this be the first climate university in the world. I guess it matters how you define a "climate university".

BTW, that completion time seems awfully optimistic, especially considering the weather conditions for construction during the colder months in Greenland. Down here in the U.S., it takes about 3 years to plan a high school and another 2-3 years just to build it, assuming everything goes according to plan. That did not happen in my locality, instead it was 3 years and 3 million dollars spent on the study, which came up with a plan to start a big renovation project by this winter. Eventually, there was a backlash by the public against the poorly thought out plan, and half the school board was voted out. The plan was then thrown out, and now we are back to square one, minus 3 million dollars. I am now optimistic will have a new or renovated high school by the time my 10 year old daughter is a senior!

As many of you have already heard, The Science & Public Policy Institute recently uncovered a graphical error in the book titled "The Down-To-Earth Guide to Global Warming," which is a children's book co-authored by global warming activist Laurie David. This story made some waves in certain media outlets over the past week.

In the book, there is a graph which compares the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere with climate temperature from present back to 650,000 years ago. The SPPI correctly pointed out the error and determined that the actual temperature curve in the chart was mislabeled as the CO2 curve and vice versa.

The SPPI seems to believe that the chart was deliberately manipulated by David and co-author Cambria Gordon. The SPPI states that the David-Gordon manipulation is critical because the central premise of the book argues that CO2 drives temperature, yet the ice core data clearly reveal temperature increases generally precede increasing CO2 by several hundred to a few thousand years.

I like the line at the end of their statement which ends with............before a single copy reaches any more innocent boys and girls. What do they think is in this book? Dirty pictures, slang? Give me a break!

I waited on this story for almost a week hoping to see a response from the authors so I could post both sides to the issue. Laurie David finally responds to the error uncovered by SPPI through the Huffington Post. David states that the illustration (graph) was accidentally mislabled, but that the text accompanying the illustration is accurate. David says that the illustration will be corrected in the next edition. Good thing, we cannot have any more of those young children being traumatized by these mislabeled graphs.

What do you think of this whole story? Was the graph purposely altered to fit an agenda or was it a simple mistake that was blown out of proportion.

The Huffington Post is a politically left-of-center online news and blog site founded by Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer. Some of the notable contributors are John Conyers, John Kerry, Joe Scarborough and Bill Maher.

According to their website, the SPPI in a non-profit institute for research and education, free from any affiliation to any corporation or political party. You can read their beliefs about climate change here

There have been a couple of stories recently in the media in regards to Dr. James E. Hanson, a lead climate scientist with NASA. Hansen, is best known for his leading role in predicting the potential dangers of man-made induced global warming.

The first story from the Washington Times that came out last week talked about a 1971 article in the Washington Post that warns of an impending ice age within 50 years. The article states that a colleague of Dr. Hansen came to this chilling conclusion by resorting in part to a new computer program developed by Dr. Hansen. The article says nothing about what that computer program actually concluded and there is nothing in there that quotes or mentions what Hansen actually believed back then. So, in fairness to Dr. Hansen I refrained from posting anything about this until I saw a response from Dr. Hansen himself, and here it is. The computer program according to Hansen was a 'Mie scattering' code to calculate light scattering by spherical particles, which is more useful for Venus studies and according to Hansen did not make him responsible for a 1971 climate theory. Hansen in his response, though, does not state what his predictions about the future climate were back in 1971. Maybe he doesn't remember.

The second story about Hansen just came out a couple of days ago. There were reports that James Hansen received $720,000 from a George Soros program. Soros is a major contributor to many democrats, the environmental movement and women's groups. According to the Investor's Business Daily editorial, Hansen was a "NASA whistle-blower" standing up to the U.S. government by being funded by Soros' Open Society Institute (OSI), which gave him "legal and media advice." In Hansen's response he calls this claim "whacko." Hansen states that he did not receive one thin dime from George Soros, but he was offered pro bono legal advice from the Government Accountability Project (GAP) which tries to defend whistle-blowers, and he accepted. He does not rule out that the GAP might have received the funding.

Al Gore and the U.N's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have jointly won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, which does not come as too much of a surprise, as there have been hints of this for a little while now. Their efforts to make the world aware of man-made climate change and to lay the framework to fight it earned them the prestigious award. Congratulations to Mr. Gore and those involved with the U.N. panel.

I would love to hear your comments on this story. Do you think that Gore and the IPCC are deserving of the award? What are your reasons for why they should or should not have been selected.

I thought some of our readers may get a kick out of these local reports from Florida this morning, especially since several of our regular commentators are getting in the constant habit of posting localized daily weather observations, which really mean very little, if anything, when you are looking at overall global climate trends, and I know most of you are fully aware of that already.

The reports are courtesy of the National Weather Service.......

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT...SUMMARY
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MELBOURNE FL
1009 AM EST THU JAN 03 2008

..TIME...........EVENT...........CITY LOCATION...........LAT.LON...
..DATE............MAG............COUNTY LOCATION..ST........SOURCE......REMARKS..

0730 AM.......SNOW...........DAYTONA BEACH.............29.21N 81.03W
01/03/2008 E0.0 INCH.......VOLUSIA............FL......BROADCAST MEDIA

SNOW FLURRIES REPORTED FROM PORT ORANGE NORTH TO DAYTONA
BEACH AND ORMOND BEACH. SEVERAL REPORTS RECEIVED OF
FLURRIES STARTING APPROXIMATELY 730 AM IN ORMOND BEACH
AND STILL BEING OCCURRING AS OF 0905 AM IN PORT ORANGE.
REPORTS RECEIVED FROM OBSERVER...SPOTTERS AND VIA NEWS
CHANNEL 13.

0900 AM.......SNOW............2 NNW SCOTTSMOOR........28.79N 80.89W
01/03/2008....E0.0 INCH..........VOLUSIA ...........FL.....CO-OP OBSERVER

SNOW FLURRIES REPORTED AT APPROXIMATELY 9 AM IN NORTHERN
BREVARD COUNTY NEAR THE TOWN OF SCOTTSMOOR.

0930 AM......SNOW............SHARPES.................28.43N 80.77W
01/03/2008 E0.0 INCH.........BREVARD.............FL.....PUBLIC

SNOW FLURRIES REPORTED NORTH OF COCOA IN SHARPES AT
APPROXIMATELY 930 AM.

Low temps this morning around central Florida...

Daytona Beach 32
Leesburg 30
Orlando 31
Vero Beach 33
Apopka 27
Avalon 29
Ft. Pierce 33
Fort Myers 32

I suspect the citrus crop came out OK, but probably not for some vegetables.

The last time I was down in Florida (DisneyWorld), which was Nov of 2006, there were reports of flurries just north of Orlando. That was the same day when we went to Sea World and practically froze. I thought Sea World was over hyped.

By the way, I am going skiing with my 11 year old daughter after work later this afternoon. I figure the conditions will be about as good as they can get here in central PA before the big warm up begins this weekend and into next week.

I took a poll of the responses from the previous blog just for fun. This is clearly not a scientific poll and far from it! Keep in mind the polls are still open. Here's a running count..........

Wednesday morning update, looks like AGW has nudged ahead of the deniers. Polls will close
this evening.

Skeptics.................69 votes........77%
AGW Proponents.....11 votes.........12%
Deniers....................10 votes.........11%
Apathetics................0 votes......... 0%

Second place still undecided...

If a guest blogger replaces a guest blogger, does that make the new person a guest guest blogger?

With that in mind, here's a post from guest guest blogger Kate from our marketing department--she had seen the post I'd done about the green initiatives related to the Pirates (Finally, First at Something) and found a related topic.

Paul

While it seems the Pirates may be implementing green initiatives, The French news agency AFP reports Japanese professional baseball players have pledged to cut playing time by six percent, or 12 minutes, to reduce carbon dioxide emissions (Japanese baseball joins fight against global warming).

The Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) commissioners' office said that by reducing game time, it will reduce the amount of energy that must be produced to stage the game. This in turn will contribute to reducing carbon emissions.

For me, this is a great move. While I like to follow my Phils, games tend to drag.... How long should it take to walk up to the plate and swing the bat?

The NPB players agree it should take under 15 seconds. An AP article (Japan baseball looking to fight global warming with shorter games) explains that pitchers must throw within 15 seconds of receiving the ball when no runners are on base. Also, teams will be limited to 2 minutes and 15 seconds to take the field when switching from batting to fielding.

The measures to fight global warming coincide with Japan's pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. The nation has been behind in reaching its mark to reduce gasses by six percent between 2008 and 2010.

On a much lighter note............

The Daily Mail (yea, I know it's a British tabloid) had a "shocking" post the other day (thanks Laura!) about the climate change hypocrisy of certain famous celebrities. Just looking at their list I would say that Mr. Travolta is the worst offender of the bunch (a boeing 707 and a private runway. Are you kidding me!). Leo and Charles probably could have been left off the list. Sorry folks, Al Gore did not qualify. Here is the link to the story by Tom Sykes.

Congratulations Paul!

Paul Yeager, who is a forecaster and managing editor of AccuWeather.com has on several occasions graciously filled in for me on this blog just just released his first book Literally, the Best Language Book Ever. The book is a compilation and analysis of words, phrases and expressions that we should never use again. Paul has more about his book right here on his AccuWeather.com blog. Here is the link to Paul's book on Amazon.com.

Sorry Paul, I did not mean to lump you with the "high" journalistic quality of the Daily Mail, just bad timing. LOL.

If you are in California and looking for a new car, there will be new scale on the window sticker, in addition to the MSRP and the options starting as soon as next month. What is it? It's a "Global Warming Score".

Just like the traditional California "Smog Score", the California "Global Warming Score" will be shown on a scale of 1 to 10, according to HybridCars.com. The higher the score, the more "friendly" the car. The score takes into account the emissions of greenhouse gases from the vehicle's operation and the production of fuel to power it.

Here is a link to the global warming score table.

A wind farm.

When I first encountered this story my first reaction was "yea right!" "Who came up with this study?" After reading the article, I can see how a massive deployment of wind farms could alter local weather, in terms of surface wind, but I still find it hard to believe that they could steer storms and change global weather patterns.

The story via LiveScience.............

A group of scientists from the University of Maryland based their calculations from the study on the idea that all land from Texas to central Canada and from the Great Lakes to the Rocky Mountains were covered in one massive wind farm. My first thought.............that is one big eye sore.

Anyway, through their calculations they determied that this massive deployment of wind farms would slow wind speeds 5 or 6 mph. This would cause waves to radiate across the northern hemisphere and alter storm tracks. I find that hard to believe, especially since large scale storms are mostly directed by powerful, upper-level (25,000-30,000 feet up) jet stream winds. Those wind turbines would have to be insanely tall to have any effect in my opinion, and I am not talking those 300 footers either, not even close!

But, as I kept reading I found that the scientists from this study admit that this great expanse of wind farms is highly unlikely to ever occur (no kidding!). They do feel that if we go by the Department of Energy projections, which say that 20% of our electricity will come from the wind by 2030 that some altering of the weather could still happen.

In 2004, David Keith of the University of Calgary and his colleagues estimated the drag from wind farms if they covered 10 percent of the Earth's land surface. They concluded that global cooling would occur in polar regions and global warming would result in temperate regions such as North America at about 30 degrees North latitude.

Ten percent of the Earth's land surface is still a very small part of the earth when you add in all the ocean area, so I find the results of this earlier study a bit of a stretch as well. Keep in mind, this is just my personal opinion.

Have a happy thanksgiving everyone!

The odds of a "white Christmas" in temperate zones have diminished in the last century, according to European climate and meteorology experts and will continue to do so through the century due to climate change, or should we say global warming. Better yet, maybe we should stick to the NASA and IPCC approved global climate change. (see my blog over this past weekend regarding terminology).

According to the Reuters article, the odds of a "white Christmas" are rapidly diminishing in places like Oslo, Norway.

Oddsmakers in Britain even place bets on whether or not there will be a "white Christmas" at a particular location. Hmm....Maybe I should get in on that action. Those odds have got to be awfully long for London.

The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center has satellite data collected since 1978 showing northern hemisphere snow cover for the March-April period has declined by about 2 million square km (772,300 sq mile) to 36 million square km. (From the Reuters article).

Snowlovers should not get too concerned. Gerhard Mueller-Wetermeier, a German climatologist noted that there will be plenty of snow in many temperate zones for decades to come with little noticeable change. Also, keep in mind, warmer air can hold more moisture and in northern temperate zones, including higher elevations this could certainly translate to more snowfall.

Below is our latest U.S. prediction for snow cover on Christmas Day. If this prediction ends up fairly accurate then the areal coverage of snow (trace or more) in the Lower 48 would actually be above the normal. Also, I read that this may end up being the first year since 1971 that all of Canada has a "white Christmas". I personally think it will be about 99.5% of the country, as some of the immediate southern coastal areas of Atlantic Canada and western Vancouver Island may end up green/brown.

I wish everyone a safe and cheerful holiday season!