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Researchers hope to use the fernlike Azolla to reverse the global warming effects of burning fossil fuelsJuly 15, 2014 Fifty-five million years ago, when scientists believe the Earth was in a near-runaway state, dangerously overheated by greenhouse gases, the Arctic Ocean was also a very different place. It was a large lake, connected to the greater oceans by one primary opening: the Turgay Sea. When this channel closed or was blocked nearly 50 million years ago, the enclosed body of water became the perfect habitat for a small-leaved fern called Azolla. Imagine the Arctic like the Dead Sea of today:...

Temperatures have plummeted to more than 10 degrees below average in places, while Sydney has had its coldest July weather in 44 years now has fallen in parts of Australia where such falls are so rare the weather bureau does not have the tools to measure it as temperatures plunged to more than 10 degrees below average. Antarctic air pushed up through central New South Wales and on to Queensland – known as the Sunshine State – over the past week bringing on a winter cold front not seen in some parts since the mid-1980s. In Queensland, snow fell in...

On Friday, congressional Democrats will attend the Naval Academy in Annapolis to discuss how the Academy plans to deal with flooding forecast for the future. Reps. Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD) and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) Jr., the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, will converse with Vice Adm. Walter E. “Ted” Carter Jr., who runs the Academy. The conference was triggered by an Army Corps study that estimated the water around Annapolis could rise as much as 3.8 feet by 2100.

Good weather forecast for remainder of July, hint at August.

Gov. Brown Talks To KCAL9 About Bill That Would Mandate Reduction In Gas Usage LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — As Gov. Jerry Brown prepares to travel to Rome next week for an international climate conference, the debate over a bill aimed at reducing gas usage in California is heating up. Brown fully supports SB-350, which would mandate a 50-percent cutback in California’s gas usage in the next 15 years, arguing that it’s a prime factor in global warming. “We’ve got a serious problem here,” he told KCAL9 Political Reporter Dave Bryan via satellite. “Burning oil and gas and coal and diesel...

Why science denialism and conspiracy theory walk together, suspiciously. A group of social scientists headed by Stephan Lewandowsky has released a study of online blog comments, concluding that climate-change deniers are strongly prone to conspiratorial thinking. That climate deniers are also conspiracy buffs might seem like one of those dog-bites-man findings for which social scientists are often ridiculed (“People in love do foolish things, study concludes”). But the background to this study is actually more interesting than its conclusion. Published in the Journal of Social and Political Psychology, the new paper, “Recurrent Fury: Conspiratorial Discourse in the Blogosphere,” is based...

Major roads have been closed and highway traffic is banked up as Australia's eastern states experience the best snowfall in a decade. ....

What, you ask, can be done to address climate change? A controversial, but cheap solution of last resort has emerged known as “solar radiation management.” A geoengineering technique, it would shoot particles into the sky to reflect sunlight back to space. “The central idea is to make the planet a little bit more reflective, which tends to cool it down, because it will absorb less sunlight. And that will partially and imperfectly compensate for the buildup of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which are tending to trap heat and make the earth warmer,” says Harvard environmental scientist David Keith, who...

Water levels in all the Great Lakes are now above their recorded long-term averages. The rise has submerged portions of beaches and washed away past Internet postings proclaiming man-made global warming as the cause of low water levels. On July 3, Lake Superior was two inches higher than its historic average for that date. Lake Ontario was three inches higher, and the other lakes were between 11 and 13 inches higher. The readings that day were also higher than the historic averages for the month of July. Lake Superior was seven inches higher, Lake Erie was 16 inches higher, and...

A lawsuit brought by environmentalists and federal regulators has forced a major utility to phase out coal use at six power plants in Iowa. Activists claim these retirements bring the total number of U.S. coal plants shut down to 200 — or 40 percent of the U.S. coal plant fleet. On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency and Justice Department of Justice announced an Iowa subsidiary of Alliant Energy agreed to pay $7.1 million in civil penalties to environmental projects for violating the Clean Air Act. The settlement also requires the company to stop burning coal or shut down six power...

It appears to be the obvious answer to the global-warming problem. We suck carbon dioxide out of the air and either recycle it into low-carbon fuel or stick it underground. As solutions go, it's simple, logical, even elegant. Also necessary. "Scientists are increasingly convinced that we are going to need large-scale removal systems to fight climate change," says Noah Deich, founder of the nonprofit Center for Carbon Removal. The key problem apparently isn't technological. Three startups are making significant strides in their efforts to create processes that could "harvest" millions of tons of CO2 from the air around us. The...

Canadian forest fires, which delivered unto us a Fourth of July weekend pall, seem to have inspired the release of a new report from the Minnesota Department of Health and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. We are being told that air pollution is killing about 2,000 people a year, a figure so preposterously guessed at it that they might as well have made it 175,000 people a year if it's alarm they are trying to sound. The following words were used: likely, estimates and roughly. Air pollution likely contributes to thousands of deaths each year, a state study estimates. The...

It has been 117 months since a major hurricane, defined as a Category 3 or above, has made landfall in the continental United States, according to 2015 data from the Hurricane Research Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).This is the longest span of time in which no major hurricane has struck the mainland U.S. in NOAA hurricane records going back to 1851.The second longest time between major hurricane strikes was the eight years between 1860 and 1869—146 years ago.A recent study published May 5 and co-authored by Tim Hall of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA)...

<p>Long-haul flights are getting longer due to stronger winds caused by global warming, according to a study.</p> <p>Scientists linked a small increase in return-journey times of long-haul flights with an increase in the variation of the jet stream, the high altitude air that flows from west to east.</p>

A new research carried out by scientists at the Universities of Ottawa and Calgary claims that global warming is killing bumblebees. The climate change is affecting the habitats of the bumblebees and making them shrink in size. The bumblebees in Europe and North America are at risk of disappearing. Researchers have said that other species may adapt to the change in climate to a certain level and can expand their homes, but the conditions in the climate change didn’t allow the bumblebees to expand their homes as well.

<p>A group of climate change activists staged a protest on one of London Heathrow airport's two runways on Monday, causing minor delays to flights, the police and airport officials said.</p> <p>"A group of people have breached the airport perimeter fence and are currently staging a protest on the northern runway," the airport said in a statement.</p>

Some 15 or so years from now, the “polar vortex” might not sound so bad. European scientists warn that by 2030, a decade of winters with deep freezing temperatures could bring about a “mini ice age” the likes of which hasn’t been seen in 370 years. Researchers at Northumbria University, led by Professor Valentina Zharkova, used mathematical models to predict solar activity will drop by 60% and trigger plunging temps around the world. The last time this happened was between 1645 and 1715, the Independent reported. More testing will be needed, but Zharkova is confident about her outlook.

The threat of climate change needs to be assessed in the same comprehensive way as nuclear weapons proliferation, according to a UK foreign minister. Baroness Joyce Anelay, minister of state at the Commonwealth and Foreign Office, said the indirect impacts of global warming, such as deteriorating international security, could be far greater than the direct effects, such as flooding. The report, commissioned by the Foreign Office, and written by experts from the UK, US, China and India, is stark in its assessment of the wide-ranging dangers posed by unchecked global warming, including: - very large risks to global food security,...

Maunder Minimum – Petri Dish of Political Change Posted on July 12, 2015 by Martin Armstrong Well the Global Warming pretend scientists are desperately trying to keep their funding. Now these con-artists are trying to claim that that it is just the surface water of the oceans that is cooling and the below the water is warming. When they stop driving cars and walk to work or ride a bicycle, then perhaps they are speaking at least what they believe rather than crying the planet is warming and we need to hand them billions of dollars to figure out some...

No, not really. But the conflicting headlines I’m seeing this week might as well say that. Apparently we’re all still doomed, but our first item in recent climate news deals with a different phenomenon than the usual screeds which, rather than melting the ice caps and drowning all of the coastal cities, is going to bring on a new mini-ice starting in about fifteen years. Rather than carbon emissions or fracking, the culprit this time is the sun. (From the Daily Mail) The Earth could be headed for a ‘mini ice age’ researchers have warned.A new study claims to...