Today (January 31, 2007) DMA: 0 07:00 AM - 08:00 AM WSMV-TV CH 4 (Nashville) (January 31, 2007) DMA: 30 12:00 PM - 12:30 PM KOAA-TV CH 5 and 30 (Colorado Springs/Pueblo) (January 31, 2007) DMA: 94 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM
00:13:54 Global warming: House Democrats are investigating charges that the Bush administration watered down scientific reports on climate change. Documents uncovered by the Government Accountability Project reveal that critical findings were eliminated. Scientists say Philip Cooney, a former oil lobbyist in charge of Bush policy, was responsible for doctoring the reports. He has since left to work for ExxonMobil. V; melting iceberg. I; Mark Austin, ITN, comments on melting iceberg. SB; Sen. John McCain, (R) AZ, comments on climate change. SB; Sen. Hillary Clinton, (D) NY, comments on climate change. SB; Sen. Barack Obama, (D) IL, comments on climate change. SB; Rick Piltz, former climate control official, comments on the charges. V; ExxonMobil sign. SB; Dr. Francesca Grifo, Union of Concerned Scientists, comments on the doctoring of reports. V; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I; Jerry Mahlman, National Center for Atmospheric Research, comments on the consensus of global warming. I; Carol Browner, former EPA administrator, comments on global warming. Andrea Mitchell reporting. 00:16:34
USA Today (January 31, 2007) circ. 2,272,815 Detroit Free Press (January 31, 2007) circ. 345,861
By Patrick O'Driscoll and Dan Vergano
. . . The gold-standard Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report represents "a real convergence happening here, a consensus that this is a total global no-brainer," says U.S. climate scientist Jerry Mahlman, former director of the federal government's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in New Jersey. "The big message that will come out is the strength of the attribution of the warming to human activities," says researcher Claudia Tebaldi of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo. . . . In Paris this week, the process of negotiating and revising the short summary is painstaking and "line by line," says Kevin Trenberth, one of the lead authors and climate analysis chief at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. More than 100 of the panel's 193 member nations are taking part in the negotiations on the summary, he says.
. . . Scientists are thinking the unthinkable. What can be done to save the planet from global warming if political measures fail? If governments cannot agree on the necessary cuts in carbon-dioxide emissions, can engineering projects such as giant mirrors in space save the world? . . . John Latham, of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, is working with Stephen Salter of Edinburgh University to increase the albedo of low-level clouds over the oceans, by atomising sea water to produce droplets that enter the clouds and make them whiter and more reflective. "The scheme could produce a global cooling, sufficient to balance the warming resulting from a doubling of the atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration, by seeding clouds in three oceanic regions which together cover about 3 per cent of the Earth's surface," Dr Latham says. "The only raw material required is seawater, the amount of global cooling could be controlled and, if necessary, the system could be switched off, with conditions returning to normal within a few days."
. . . In their opening salvo, Democrats leading a House hearing invited witnesses who accused the Bush administration of rewriting research reports and intimidating federal scientists. "Political interference is harming science and threatening the health and safety of Americans," said Francesca Grifo, senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. Her group surveyed scientists working at federal agencies and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Nearly half of those who responded to a questionnaire said they felt pressured to omit references to "global warming" or "climate change" in their research reports, Grifo said. . . . At the House hearing, Democrats accused the Bush administration of stalling action on climate change. A former federal worker assigned to the Boulder-based University Corporation for Atmospheric Research challenged the editing a Bush administration appointee did to research reports. That appointee, Philip Cooney, previously worked as a lobbyist for the oil industry.
Yahoo!News (India) (January 31, 2007) Indo-Asian News Service (New Delhi, India) (January 31, 2007)
Indo-Asian News Service (IANS)
US President George W. Bush's administration has systematically pressed climate researchers to play down the threat of global warming, watchdog groups have said. . . . Scientists at US government agencies and the independent but federally funded National Centre for Atmospheric Research reported at least 435 instances of political interference in their work over the past five years, signalling a 'system-wide epidemic', the group said. US agencies restricted media contacts by climate scientists, who 'routinely encounter difficulty' in gaining approval for official press releases that highlight global warming, said the Government Accountability Project, a watchdog group that co-authored the report.
Wall Street Journal (New York) circ. 2,049,786 (Registration required)
By Ian Talley
. . . In a report submitted for the record during the hearing by the science-based nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists and the group of government whistleblowers known as the Government Accountability Project, the groups found more than 100 climate scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and various federal agencies have faced political pressure to change or edit their scientific findings on climate change.
Los Angeles Times (January 30, 2007) circ. 851,832 Washington Post (January 30, 2007) circ. 724,242 Houston Chronicle (January 30, 2007) circ. 513,387 Chicago Sun-Times (January 30, 2007) circ. 432,230 San Francisco Chronicle (January 30, 2007) circ. 398,246 plus MSNMoney.com, Yahoo!News.com, Baltimore Sun, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, ABCNews.com, Baltimore Examiner, Tehran (Iran) Times and 37 other publications
By Angela Charlton (Associated Press)
The Eiffel Tower's 20,000 flashing lights will go dark for five minutes Thursday evening, hours before scientists and officials unveil a long-awaited report on global warming. . . . There was little sign of the late-night wrangling among countries that marked previous reports. The report must be unanimously approved by bureaucrats from more than 100 governments who can challenge the scientists' wording. "The government people determine how things are said, but we (the scientists) determine what is said," said Kevin Trenberth, a lead author of the report and director of climate analysis at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.
The Guardian (London, UK) (January 30, 2007) circ. 376,271 Outlook (New Delhi, India) (January 30, 2007) circ. 290,000
By George Monbiot
. . . After six years of obfuscation and denial, the US now insists that we find ways to block some of the sunlight reaching the earth. This means launching either mirrors or clouds of small particles into the atmosphere. . . . Another proposal, from a scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research, in Boulder, Colorado, suggests spraying billions of tonnes of sea-water into the air. Regrettably, the production of small salt particles, while generating obscuring mists, could cause droughts in the countries downwind. Another scheme would inject sulphate particles into the stratosphere. It is perhaps less dangerous than the others, but still carries a risk of causing changes in rainfall patterns.
Warren M. Washington, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, has received a Charles Franklin Brooks Award from the American Meteorological Society, officials announced Monday. . . . He specializes in computer modeling of Earth's climate and has published more than 100 papers in professional journals, as well as the book "An Introduction to Three-Dimensional Climate Modeling" with co-author Claire Parkinson.
International Herald Tribune (Neuilly, France) (January 30, 2007) circ. 242,182 New York Times (January 29, 2007) circ. 1,142,464
By James Kanter and Andrew C. Revkin
. . . Among findings in recent drafts are that the Arctic Ocean could largely be devoid of sea ice in summers later in the century; the Alps could shift from snowy winter destinations to summer havens from the heat; growing seasons in temperate regions will expand, while droughts will likely further ravage semi-arid regions of Africa and southern Asia. . . . Jerry Mahlman, an emeritus researcher at the National Center For Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who was a reviewer of the report’s single-spaced, 1,644-page summary of climate science, said that most of the leaks to the press so far were from people eager to find elements that were the scariest or most reassuring. He added in an interview yesterday that such efforts distract from the basic, undisputed findings, saying that those point to trends that are very disturbing.
Houston Chronicle (January 29, 2007) circ. 513,387 USA Today (January 28, 2007) circ. 2,272,815 Forbes.com (January 28, 2007) circ. 900,000 Los Angeles Times (January 28, 2007) circ. 851,832 Washington Post (January 28, 2007) circ. 724,242 New York Post (January 28, 2007) circ. 673,379 plus NewsMax.com, ABCNews.com, CBSNews.com, MSNBC.com, International Herald Tribune (Neuilly, France), FoxNews.com and 120 other publications
By Seth Borenstein (Associated Press)
Later this week in Paris, climate scientists will issue a dire forecast for the planet that warns of slowly rising sea levels and higher temperatures. But that may be the sugarcoated version. . . . The melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are a fairly recent development that has taken scientists by surprise. They don't know how to predict its effects in their computer models. But many fear it will mean the world's coastlines are swamped much earlier than most predict. . . . Even so, there are questions about how permanent the melting in Greenland and especially Antarctica are, said panel lead author Kevin Trenberth, chief of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. While he said the melting ice sheets "raise a warning flag," Trenberth said he wonders if "some of this might just be temporary."
Up the mountain from the Steamboat Springs Ski Resort, atmospheric scientists have studied everything from snow crystals and pollution to the impact of ultraviolet radiation on vegetation. . . . The findings made at Storm Peak could be important to how the ski industry adjusts to warming temperatures. . . . Weather information is also reported to the Western Region Climate Center, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
BusinessWeek (New York, New York) (January 29, 2007) circ. 985,516 Yahoo!Finance.com (UK & Ireland) (January 29, 2007)
By Alex Halperin
. . . Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., says that as a result of greenhouse gas emissions in coming years the southern and western U.S. and other regions of the world are like [sic] to encounter "more extremes of drought" and harsher storms and hurricanes, among other phenomena. Events that could be attributed to climate change could affect industries from energy to agriculture to insurance. Even investors who reject climate change as environmentalist hysterics might want to keep in mind that more and more governments and businesses are operating on the assumption that it's a fact.
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Feb. 2 releases the first part of a four-volume review of the science of climate change, the first such report since 2001. Measurements taken since then show that the world's frozen regions, or cryosphere, are shrinking ``significantly,'' said Roger Barry, director of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, who was review editor of one of the report's chapters. . . . The ice melt isn't limited to Greenland. The U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research said last month that by 2040, the Arctic Ocean may be experiencing summers that are nearly ice-free.
. . . 1. You said in your State of the State speech that you were going to spend one-fourth of your time on economic development. What have you done so far? (A.) Does all the time I've spent on the Labor Peace Act controversy count? Seriously, I spent a lot of time on the phone trying to work on the (National Center for Atmospheric Research) supercomputer selection. Unfortunately for Colorado, our good friends in Wyoming prevailed, but this will be good for the region. My staff and I also have spent a significant amount of time looking at the business-personal property tax issue.
Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey) (January 28, 2007) circ. 398,329
By Kitta MacPherson
. . . The report will say that global warming caused by human activity is no longer a theory. It is a fact. "This is slam dunk city," said Jerry Mahlman, the retired director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University, who reviewed a preliminary draft of the report. "We are certain that global warming is the real deal. We expect the warming of the planet to be pretty much incontestable." . . . "The report provides a full assessment of all the research and events of the past six years or so, since the last report in 2001," said Kevin Trenberth, a study author who heads the climate analysis section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. "During that time, there are nearly six new yearly records of temperature, and all are in the top 10 warmest years. The observational record has been extended back in time as well as up to date, and the evidence for warming is widespread."
. . . I bought our baby a gift from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. NCAR had a table in the exhibit hall full of items for sale (books, apparel, science kits, etc.) from their science store. Despite the fact that it's too large to be worn by a newborn (I think it's an 18-24 month size), I couldn't resist the "I'm a little vortex!" onesie. I'm sure by the time he gets to be 18 to 24 months, he'll be more of a little vortex than he will be in the first few months of life. If you want to check out what the NCAR store has to offer, you don't need to attend an AMS meeting or head for NCAR's home in Boulder, Colo. You can order most merchandise through their website.
Warren M. Washington, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, won the 2006 Charles Franklin Brooks Award from the American Meteorological Society. The AMS is the nation's leading professional society for those in the atmospheric and related sciences. The award is for "decades of service to the AMS and as a representative of the atmospheric sciences community at the highest level of policymakers."
New Scientist (London, UK) (January 27, 2007) circ.147,278
By Michael Brooks
. . . Though theories abound, no one - not even the meteorologists - can agree on the best way to measure a forecast's accuracy. Forecasters produce a whole slew of predictions every day, and those predictions can be checked against hard drives full of weather data. The problem is how best to put the two side by side to see how good the forecasts are. "A lot of the standards we use were developed more than 100 years ago," says Barbara Brown, an expert on forecast verification based at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. "It's really sad." It's time, she says, for meteorologists to put their house in order - something she hopes to work towards this month when meteorologists from around the world will gather in Reading, UK, to talk about methods of forecast verification.
Wyoming narrowly won the National Center for Atmospheric Research's new $60 million supercomputing center, and the University of Colorado's loss does not necessarily reflect a deeper competitive deficit for major science projects, NCAR and state officials say. "It was neck and neck," said Jeff Reaves, NCAR's associate vice president for business services, who was deeply involved in evaluating the bids. "The CU folks really deserve a great deal of credit in my view for really working hard to put together a competitive offer." . . . NCAR officials say the new center will employ 40 to 50 people, including high-performance computing experts who will probably move to Cheyenne.
San Jose Mercury News (January 26, 2007) circ. 274,382 Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, California) (January 26, 2007) circ. 185,036
By Mike Taugher
The seas have been rising for 18,000 years, but the pace has quickened. . . . Recent climate models suggest a sea level rise of four to 36 inches by 2100, although that range will reportedly narrow when a major report from an international team of climate scientists is released on Tuesday. . . . Lacko of the BCDC said that while sea walls seem to be an obvious solution to the threat of flooding around the bay, they would destroy wetlands and turn a living bay into nothing more than a ``giant reflecting pool.'' As Susanne Moser, a geographer at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., put it: ``Do we really want an America behind sea walls?''
. . . The National Science Foundation would need to approve annual debt service funding for the National Center for Atmospheric Research project. Also, the state Legislature - three weeks into this year's eight-week session - is being asked to commit a total of $40 million. But officials with Boulder.-based NCAR say they're pretty sure the NSF will come through for the supercomputer. "We have a pretty high level of confidence in that because we've been talking with people at the National Science Foundation on that and we've been having meetings with the people who would be providing that funding," said Jeff Reaves, associate vice president for business services for the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.
A supercomputer that will be built in Cheyenne over the next few years will be two to five times more powerful than the world's fastest computer now, officials with the National Center for Atmospheric Research said Thursday. By the time the computer is operational in 2010 or 2011, it's not expected to be the world's fastest -- several other super-fast computers are in the works around the world. But the center's deputy director, Larry Winter, said it would still be among the top 10. "There's a good chance that by 2010 we'll be able to buy a 1 to 2 petaflop scale computer. There aren't any of those right now," he said. . . . "This will be one of [the] very largest devoted to earth and environmental science," he said.
Boulder's National Center for Atmospheric Research announced Tuesday it will build its new $60 million national supercomputing center in Cheyenne. The supercomputer will, NCAR officials say, keep the United States at the forefront of weather, climate and Earth-system science for decades. . . . Richard Anthes, president of the University Corp. for Atmospheric Research — which manages NCAR — said Wyoming's plan will roughly double the computing power possible with the CU offer, and in less time. "The thing that tipped the balance was more computing power, faster, in Wyoming," Anthes said. "That had to be our major concern because we're a national center, and computing power is desperately needed." . . . Krista Laursen, who is managing the data-center project, said staffing remains uncertain but that 40 to 50 people will work in the new center, some who will relocate from Boulder.
. . . Money was the deciding factor, said Richard Anthes, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which manages NCAR. "The biggest reason was that we got greater financial contributions from a combination of Wyoming sources - the university and the state," Anthes said. Anthes would not divulge the amount of the Wyoming contribution because the plan has not yet been approved by the state legislature. In addition, the National Science Foundation, NCAR's main source of funding, must approve the plan.
. . . Construction on the $60 million data center for the geosciences will begin this year, according to an announcement Tuesday from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. The center is scheduled to open in 2010 or 2011. . . . "The data center project is a major step that will advance research in the geosciences and enable us to greatly improve our understanding of the world around us," NCAR director Tim Killeen said in a written statement. . . . "We could get more computing power - almost double as much - and a faster start on the facility, and a larger facility at the Wyoming site than any other site," UCAR president Rick Anthes said. "And that means you can almost immediately increase the computing power, which supports research in our atmospheric science community." The new center will be a partnership between NCAR and UCAR - both based in Boulder - the University of Wyoming and the state of Wyoming.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research announced today that it will build its new $60 million supercomputing center in Cheyenne, not Boulder. . . . The new partnership is contingent on approval from the National Science Foundation, NCAR's principal sponsor, as well as the Wyoming legislature.
Human-caused global warming is here — visible in the air, water and melting ice — and is destined to get much worse in the future, an authoritative global scientific report will warn next week. "The smoking gun is definitely lying on the table as we speak," said top U.S. climate scientist Jerry Mahlman, who reviewed all 1,600 pages of the first segment of a giant four-part report. "The evidence ... is compelling." . . . Look for an "iconic statement" — a simple but strong and unequivocal summary — on how global warming is now occurring, said one of the authors, Kevin Trenberth, director of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, also in Boulder.
. . . "Certainly, it will say that global warming is happening, and secondly, that it is due to humans," said Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and one of the lead authors of the report. "The whole weight of the evidence has simply increased to show that stuff is already happening." Trenberth would only speak generally about the report since it has not officially been released. "What this report does is provide the basis for subsequent actions," he said.
Boston Globe (January 21, 2007) circ. 397,288 Washington Post (January 16, 2007) circ. 724,242
By Marc Kaufman
. . . [T]he report found that, as the current satellites deteriorate, the number of space-based Earth-observation missions will decline steadily through 2010, as will the number of instruments in space to gather weather, climate and environmental data. "If things aren't reversed, we will have passed the high-water mark for our Earth observations," said co-chairman Richard Anthes of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "This country should not be headed in this direction. . . . We need to know more, not less, about long-term aspects of climate change, about trends in droughts and hurricanes, about what's happening in terms of fish stocks and deforestation."
International Herald Tribune (Neuilly, France) (January 21, 2007) circ. 242,182 News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina) (January 21, 2007) circ. 164,294 New York Times (January 20, 2007) circ. 1,142,464
By Andrew C. Revkin
. . . In fresh drafts of a summary of its next report, the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has said that it is more than 90 percent likely that global warming since 1950 has been driven mainly by the buildup of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases, and that more warming and rising sea levels are on the way. . . . Scientists involved in writing the report said the leaks were damaging and potentially misleading, mainly because the final statements are likely to go through further changes. “The language is far from final,” said Kevin E. Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who is a lead author of one section. “You can’t say what the I.P.C.C. says until it actually says it.” Jerry Mahlman, an emeritus researcher at the same center who was a reviewer of the report's 1,644-page, single-spaced summary of climate science, said that most of the leaks were from people eager to find elements that were the scariest or most reassuring. He added in an interview Friday that such efforts distract from the basic, undisputed findings, saying those point to trends that are plenty disturbing. "There's a pathetic sociology to all this spinning from both ends by deniers and exaggerators," he said.
The Hindu (Chennai, India) (January 20, 2007) circ. 900,000
Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy is keen that cloud-seeding operations should be continued for the next five years and global tenders in this regard will be called in a month, Agriculture Minister N. Raghuveera Reddy has said. . . . Minister for Lift Irrigation M. Mareppa wanted awareness to be created among farmers on the benefits of cloud-seeding. Roelof [Bruintjes] from National Centre For Atmospheric Research, USA, said that more than 250 programmes in 47 countries were currently on.
Parts of the North Atlantic are setting winter heat records, allowing species ranging from swordfish to jellyfish to thrive beyond their normal ranges. . . . "The global oceans have been warming since the middle 1970s and several studies have shown that the warming can be attributed to a human-produced signal," said James Hurrell of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research. A type of Black Sea jellyfish seems to have become established off Scandinavia, perhaps flushed out of the ballast tanks of visiting ships and now able to survive because of less chilly waters in winter.
. . . On Feb. 2 in Paris, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will summarize the key findings from its latest assessment of global climate change. . . . All 23 models agree that the planet will continue to warm as levels of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases rise in the coming decades, said William Collins of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. "This report will provide the most compelling evidence to date that climate is changing and that mankind is responsible for that change," said Collins, a lead author of the report's climate projections chapter. . . . Boulder atmospheric scientist Susan Solomon is one of two co-chairs of the team that produced the first of four volumes in this year's update. . . . In the 2007 update, that temperature range will be narrowed a bit, largely because of improvements in the climate models, NCAR's Kevin Trenberth said. "I think probably the low value (in the 2001 report) and also the high value came from models that probably had mistakes in them," Trenberth said Friday. . . . The 2001 report also stated that most of the warming over the past 50 years was likely because of buildup of greenhouse gases, largely from burning fossil fuels. "That's a pretty strong smoking-gun statement that directly ties human activity to climate change," said NCAR's Gerald Meehl, another leading participant in the upcoming report. "And I think we've got more evidence that supports that conclusion in greater detail now," Meehl said. "And when you really connect a cause and effect like that, I think it's a pretty powerful kind of argument." . . . In a 2005 report in the journal Science, NCAR researcher Tom Wigley said that even if greenhouse gas levels could be magically stabilized today, sea levels would rise 10 to 20 inches per century for the next 400 years or more, imperiling coastal regions.
Washington Post (January 20, 2007) circ. 724,242 Herald Sun (Southbank, Australia) (January 20, 2007) circ. 544,700 The Australian (Adelaide, Australia) (January 20, 2007) circ. 131,538 Reuters (January 19, 2007) plus Yahoo!News.com and Yahoo!7News.com (Australia)
By Alister Doyle
Parts of the North Atlantic are setting winter heat records, allowing species ranging from swordfish to jellyfish to thrive beyond their normal ranges in a shift linked by many scientists to global warming. . . . "The global oceans have been warming since the middle 1970s and several studies have shown that the warming can be attributed to a human-produced signal," said James Hurrell of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research.
National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation - Science Friday (January 19, 2007) DMA: 0 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
00:19:58 TZ; Winter: With this year’s wild weather, many people are wondering if global warming is causing this, or if it’s something else. I; Kevin Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric Research, talks about this week’s wild weather, with the West Coast getting snow, and the East Coast being relatively without snow. He describes factors that could be affecting this year’s weather, and the impact of El Nino and global warming. He describes how historical weather data compares to todays. They take calls from listeners who give their opinions on this topic. SB; call in comments. They talk about global warming’s impact on weather events, and climate change. They talk about hearings being held in the US and Europe, about global warming and climate change, and what he thinks will come out of these hearings. 00:37:48
. . . That prosperity and Washington's smiling winter faces won't stop the new legislative express on global warming. Nor will it stop naysayers who correctly proclaim that no politically viable proposal will ever do anything to slow planetary warming in a fashion that can even be measured. It's not just the usual suspects who tout this. Scientists way on the left of the global warming spectrum, like Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, and Germany's Paul Crutzen, now speak of technological "fixes," such as injecting particles into the stratosphere to block sunlight, precisely because they appreciate how little any global warming law could accomplish, and how much it would cost.
. . . Several scientists and writers interviewed at the society's conference, which ends on Thursday, stressed that most researchers believe there is little scientific debate about the causes of global warming. That does not mean there is a consensus. "There's not a consensus on anything. There are people who say the Earth is not round, there are people who say that the Earth is 6,000 years old," said Richard Anthes of the Colorado- based University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. "The vast majority of credible scientists from thousands of peer-reviewed papers agree that the strong balance of evidence is that the Earth is warming and the major cause of that is anthropogenic (human-caused) emissions." . . . "I think there's virtually no doubt that humans are a major player in warming the globe," said Robert Henson, author of the recently published "The Rough Guide to Climate Change." "There are still people out there who will contradict that, but they are not part of the scientific mainstream," he said.
A committee of prominent Earth scientists has recommended that the US government fund 17 new Earth-observing missions over the next decade. Without these steps, they say, researchers could be left for years without critical data on climate change. "Gaps in these measurements could be fatal," warns committee co-chair Richard Anthes, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. . . . The recommendations are designed to help society, not just scientists, says Anthes. "We've organized the report along societal themes such as weather, Earth hazards, climate, water resources and human health," he says.
The nation’s ability to track retreating polar ice and shifting patterns of drought, rainfall and other environmental changes is being put “at great risk” by faltering efforts to replace aging satellite-borne sensors, a panel convened by the country’s leading scientific advisory group said. . . . “We’re trying to present a balanced, affordable program that spans all the earth sciences,” said Richard A. Anthes, the co-chairman of the committee that wrote the report and the new president of the American Meteorological Society. . . . “This is the most critical time in human history, with the population never before so big and with stresses growing on the Earth,” Dr. Anthes said. “We just want to get back to the United States being a leader instead of someone you can’t count on.”
San Antonio (Texas) Express-News (January 15, 2007) circ. 270,067
By Cindy Tumiel
Weather scientists meeting in San Antonio on Monday called on federal agencies to spend $3 billion a year between now and 2020 to upgrade the aging network of weather and climate satellites that are nearing the end of their useful lives. By 2010, they said, more than half the satellites now used for climate and weather will stop working, leaving gaps in data that could hamper forecasts of potentially life-threatening weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes and tsunamis, according to a report by the National Research Council of the National Academies. . . . "This is important for the country; it's important for the world," said Richard Anthes, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, who was co-chairman of the committee. "We've got to make the case that this is something worth doing." . . . "Given the importance of weather, climate, ocean fisheries to our existence, our survival, this does not seem to be an unreasonable amount of money," Anthes said.
Cape Argus (Cape Town, South Africa) (January 17, 2007) CNN.com (January 16, 2007) West Australian (Osborne Park, Australia) (January 16, 2007) circ. 205,610 Yahoo!7News.com (Australia) (January 16, 2007) Reuters (January 15, 2007) plus MSNBC.com and Yahoo!News.com
By Ed Stoddard (Reuters)
. . . The report said maintaining current observation and predictive abilities will cost about $3 billion a year from 2010 to 2020 if its recommendations are carried out, but action needs to be taken soon. "This is only about $10 for every American. But it will probably save more money than it costs in the long run," said report co-chair Richard Anthes of the Colorado-based University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. . . . "Say your blood pressure has been gradually going up month to month, and then someone took away your monitor as you were approaching a dangerous level -- that gap in your knowledge could be fatal," Anthes said.
. . . Bad space weather caused a communications satellite to fail in 1998, affecting 80 percent of the pagers in the U.S., according to the Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling (CISM). . . . To make their predictions, Rice researchers use data from a spacecraft positioned directly between the Earth and sun. . . . CISM brings together a solar corona model developed by Science Applications International Corp., a solar wind model from the University of Colorado-Boulder and a model of interaction between the magnetosphere and ionosphere from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Rice contributes its convection model, which works as part of Dartmouth College's magnetosphere model.
00:29:28 TZ; Storms: Winter storms have hit much of the nation. V; storm damage in MO where the governor declared a state of emergency. V; National Guard. V; damage in OK where President Bush has declared a state of emergency. The governor’s inauguration parade was cancelled in TX due to the weather. V; citrus crops. SB; Claudia Tebaldi, National Center for Atmospheric Research, discusses how our climate is changing. Bill Tucker reporting. 00:31:21
The federal government on Friday launched a competition for the $563 million, five-year contract to manage the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, home to some of the nation's leading climate-change scientists. Since it was founded in 1960, NCAR has been managed by the not-for-profit University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a consortium of 70 research universities. UCAR's current contract with the National Science Foundation - known formally as a cooperative agreement - expires Sept. 30, 2008.
Wired Magazine (San Francisco, California) (January 11, 2007) circ. 547,069
By John Hudson
A constellation of microsatellites launched into low Earth orbit earlier this year is proving to be a worthwhile investment, providing more accurate weather forecasting and climatic data than ever gathered before. . . . Although small, the satellites are making as many as 1,600 readings per day, according to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, or UCAR, which designed the system. . . . The satellite constellation, called Cosmic (for Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate), uses available GPS radio signals to collect data on atmospheric temperature, water vapor and electron density. . . . "It's the world's most accurate climate thermometer," said Richard Anthes, president of UCAR. "As a (Cosmic) satellite sets behind the Earth in relation to the GPS satellite, it receives the GPS signal through multiple angles, giving us the ability to analyze the atmosphere in 'slices.'" . . . "What we can say is that the higher sea-surface temperatures of water vapor make for more intense storms, and so this is consistent with the evidence we're seeing," said Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at UCAR, during a news conference at the Center for Health and the Global Environment. "And so the environment in which these hurricanes form is changing, and it's changing in ways that provide more fuel for them through the water vapor and the changes in sea-surface temperature."
Los Angeles Times (January 10, 2007) circ. 851,832 Chicago Tribune (January 10, 2007) circ. 547,257 Lawrence (Kansas) Journal-World (January 10, 2007) circ. 19,203
By Robert Lee Hotz
On the fever chart of rising temperatures, 2006 was the warmest year on record for the 48 contiguous states, pairing a lethal summer heat wave with a winter so mild that in some places daffodils bloomed out of season and bears forgot to hibernate, government climate experts reported Tuesday. . . . "What we are seeing is much more than El Niño," said climate analyst Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "The overall pattern is consistent with our concepts of global warming."
USA Today (January 10, 2007) circ. 2,272,815 BusinessWeek (New York, New York) (January 10, 2007) circ. 985,516 Newsday (Melville, New York) (January 10, 2007) circ. 427,771 amNew York (January 10, 2007) circ. 311,000 Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald (January 10, 2007) circ. 212,078 plus Yahoo!News.com, KFMB-TV CH 8 (San Diego) and KBCI-TV CH 2 (Boise)
By Duncan Mansfield (Associated Press)
. . . The Department of Energy's Office of Science this week awarded 95 million hours of processing time on its top computers to 45 projects. . . . Meanwhile, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, NASA and others will be using the computers to try to predict climate, emissions and options for energy policies.
National Public Radio's On Point (Boston, Massachusetts) (January 9, 2007) DMA: 5
By Tom Ashbrook
. . . This hour On Point: freaky weather, fear of global warming, and the Democrats' playbook on climate change. . . . "The jet stream is way far north for this time of year. It's basically been in central Canada a lot of the time, extending to far Northern Europe. And when a storm system has dug in to the western, southwest United States, it's gotten cut off from the jet stream and basically been calmed and sat there for a couple of days.". . . Robert Henson, meteorologist and science writer at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, author of "The Rough Guide to Weather"
00:00:03 Meteorological Meltdown: Winter hasn’t shown up yet and some are blaming global warming. V; warm weather. GR; warmer winter information from NOAA. V; video courtesy of NOAA. I; Brenda Ekwurzel, Union of Concerned Scientists, says it’s El Nino. SB; Tom Karl, NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, talks about global warming. SB; Wayne Elliot, Met Office, talks about the warm weather. I; Robert Henson, National Center for Atmospheric Research, talks extensively about global warming. Mary Snow and Arthur Fennell reporting. 00:08:31
Newsday (Melville, New York) (January 9, 2007) circ. 427,771 Baltimore Sun (January 9, 2007) circ. 320,912 amNew York (New York, New York) (January 9, 2007) circ. 311,000
By Chuck Bennett and Justin Rocket Silverman
The spread of the mystery odor that caused a scare across the region may have been exacerbated by a common weather condition, experts said Monday. . . . "It could be a small amount of gas being released, but as long as it's under the inversion layer, a large area will smell the odor," said Jeff Weber, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. "That's because the gas is not going to dissipate, and that's why you had that lovely smell this morning." An inversion layer occurs when cold air gets trapped close to the surface, under a mass of warmer air. Weber said it is useful to think of an inversion layer as a cap that holds pollution -- and in this case, nasty odors -- in place.
International Herald Tribune (January 8, 2007) circ. 242,182 New York Times (January 6, 2007) circ. 1,142,464
. . . Exhaustive computer simulations carried out at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., suggest that the Arctic Ocean will be mostly open water in the summer of 2040 — several decades earlier than expected. Scientists attribute the loss of summer ice largely to the buildup of carbon dioxide and other man-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. . . . California’s Barbara Boxer is the new chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, replacing James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who regards global warming as an elaborate hoax drummed up by environmentalists and scientists in search of money. Ms. Boxer has already scheduled hearings, and there will be no shortage of legislative remedies to consider. All share one objective, which is to attach a cost to carbon dioxide through a cap on emissions.
Q: I saw a lovely rainbow recently. The sky just inside the bow seemed brighter than the sky outside the bow. Why? (Tom, Bo'ness, Scotland) A: The sky inside a primary bow is brighter than the sky immediately outside the bow, because raindrops scatter sunlight into the opposite part of the sky to form a circular disc of light there. The bright disc is the entire rainbow. . . . Further Reading . . . What is a rainbow? The National Center for Atmospheric Research
Times of India (New Delhi) (January 7, 2007) circ. 700,000
By Chidanand Rajghatta
. . . There hasn't been a single snow flake in Washington DC or New York so far this season, rendering useless daddy's teaser to kids: What happens to the white when the snow melts? . . . Computer simulations carried out at the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research indicate that the Arctic Ocean will most probably open water by 2040 — several decades earlier than expected.
National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Sunday (January 7, 2007) DMA: 0
John Ydstie speaks to Robert Henson of the National Center for Atmospheric Research about the unseasonably warm weather and what might be behind it.
ABC News
Good Morning America (January 6, 2007) DMA: 0 08:00 AM - 09:00 AM World News Saturday (January 6, 2007) DMA: 0
06:30 PM - 07:00 PM
By Bill Blakemore
00:02:10 TZ; Weather: The weather is out of whack, but is global warming to blame. V; Wilmot Mountain. I; Dennis Sheen, General Manager of Wilmot Mountain, discusses the situation. I; Diane Reese, Wilmot Mountain, discusses the situation. V; ice gone. I; unidentified people discuss the situation. GR; Planalytics, Inc. V; Golden Rainbow Ice Fishing Contest, Forest Lake. I; Angie Howell, Brick House Eatery, discusses the situation. V; Ford. V; national zoo. I; David Easterling, National Climate Data Center, discusses the situation. V; NOAA. I; Jerry Meehl, National Center for Atmospheric Research, discusses the situation. Barbara Pinto, Bill Blakemore report. 00:08:56
. . . Scientists say yes — in this way: What they know for sure is the warm winter fits the pattern, exactly, that has long been predicted for manmade global warming of more and more frequent unseasonable warm spells. . . . "Over the next two or three decades, we will see a trend of just more frequent warm spells and less frequent cold snaps," said Jerry Meehl, a climatologist.
. . . This winter's curiously warm weather across the Northeast and much of the Midwest has played havoc with more than seasonal businesses. In Washington, D.C., springlike temperatures have faked out flora, causing dogwoods and daffodils to bloom. . . . "There's been weird weather all across the United States," says Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, which was walloped by two major snowstorms last month. He blames an El Niño warming pattern in the Pacific for dry and warm conditions elsewhere.
Christian Science Monitor (Boston, Massachusetts) (January 4, 2007) circ. 60,723
By Peter Spotts
. . . Is global warming responsible? Researchers aren't sure. They point instead to a seesaw climate pattern that occurs over the North Atlantic, called the North Atlantic Oscillation or NAO. . . . Unlike El Niño, the phenomenon's reach isn't fully globe-circling. But particularly in the winter months, the NAO "is just as important for weather and climate across much of the northern hemisphere," says James Hurrell, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. . . . "There is a tremendous amount of certainty on a large global or hemispheric scale that certain things we're seeing are undoubtedly due to human influence on climate, such as the warming of the global oceans," Dr. Hurrell says. "But what people really want to know is: How will the weather in my region change? If seasonal weather is dictated by these patterns of natural variability, then it becomes absolutely critical to understand how those patterns work and how they are going to change in a changing climate."
Taipei (Taiwan) Times (January 3, 2007) circ. 300,000 Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City, Utah) (January 2, 2007) circ. 63,505 New York Times (January 1, 2007) circ. 1,142,464
By Andrew C. Revkin
. . . These experts see a clear need for the public to engage now, but not to panic. They worry that portrayals of the issue like that in “An Inconvenient Truth,” the documentary focused on the views of Mr. Gore, may push too hard. Many in this group also see a need to portray clearly that the response would require far more than switching to fluorescent light bulbs and to hybrid cars. “This is a mega-ethical challenge,” said Jerry D. Mahlman, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who has studied global warming for more than three decades. “In space, it’s the size of a planet, and in time, it has scales far broader than what we go-go Homo sapiens are accustomed to dealing with.” . . . Because of the scale and time lag, a better strategy, Dr. Mahlman and others say, is to treat human-caused warming more as a risk to be reduced than a problem to be solved.
The Guardian (Manchester, UK) (January 2, 2007) circ. 378,703
By Dan Glaister
. . . Where Hatfield the rainmaker's calling was to make it pour, Diepersloot, a peach and apricot farmer from the San Joaquin valley, wants to stop the hail that can ruin his crop. Diepersloot has installed 24 cannons on his 1,200-acre farm. At the approach of a storm, his 20ft cannons emit an electronic blast. As the sound waves travel up into the sky, they disrupt the water that is gathering to turn into hail, causing it to fall as mere rain. At least that's the theory, and an expensive one at that: Diepersloot's cannons set him back $50,000-$70,000 each (£26,000-£36,000).
"It's the science of nature," Diepersloot told the Associated Press. "The first year I had them, there was a storm where I saw my neighbour's fields had damage and mine didn't." The scientific establishment, however, sees things differently. "It would have to be something pretty major to upset hail," said Charles Knight of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. "If you exploded an atomic bomb in a cloud, that might do something."
Arctic polar bears are becoming canaries in the mine, warning of the consequences of global warming. Even the Bush administration has been forced, grudgingly, to acknowledge this. Last week, it proposed to put the bears on the threatened species list because rising temperatures in the Arctic are depriving them of the ice platforms from which they hunt seals. . . . Researchers say summer sea ice will decline by 50 to 100 percent, with a worst-case scenario from the National Center for Atmospheric Research predicting the ice could be all gone by 2040.
It is the time of year when the city of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks temporarily closes areas to protect nesting and roosting raptors between Feb. 1 and July 31. . . . Skunk Canyon, including Ridge 2, 3 and 4, the Aechean Pronouncement, the Deadnaught, the North Ridge and the entirety of Sacred Cliffs, accessible from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Trailhead at the west end of Table Mesa Road.
. . . A memorable scene in which an asteroid accompanied by an arrowhead of a spacecraft narrowly misses Earth has its roots at the Boulder-led B612 Foundation. That group, led by Southwest Research scientists Dan Durda and Clark Chapman, wants to launch a mission to test the diversion of an asteroid by 2015. Their preferred method, which involves something called a "gravity tractor," was conceived by NASA astronaut Ed Lu. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research from 1989 to 1992 and coached the Boulder High wrestling team. Durda said Lu "was noodling this idea when floating around on the space station" in 2003. Such spacecraft would fly within a few miles of a threatening asteroid for years, its own gravity nudging the rocky menace just enough to save humanity.
. . . "I wouldn't even call it a snowstorm," said meteorologist Matt Kelsch of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. "There will probably be some light snow (today), but the main thing is that it's going to turn colder again after a few warm days — 20s during the day and down to the teens or single digits at night."
Today, elected officials from Wyoming and representatives from the National Center on Atmospheric Research are expected to release more information on the deal they have struck to build a supercomputing center in Wyoming. . . . The project has two final hurdles to meet - approval by the National Science Foundation, which is a major funding source for NCAR, and approval by the Wyoming Legislature, which includes a funding package. . . . "Everyone has an opportunity to benefit from this," [Rep.] Olsen said. "The fact that (NCAR) chose us and not Boulder is gigantic. We're going to have to make room in the budget for the money they need. "The return on the investment is going to be huge."
