How good are the simulations of the most up-to-date climate models? Authors Kim et al. (2012) assessed the seasonal prediction skill for the Northern Hemisphere winter and found a number of biases that have yet to be overcome… Read More
Projections of CMIP5 Models: Will They Ever Come Together? (30 Apr 2013)
An unfortunate conclusion of this study is that “accepting model spread as a way to portray uncertainty of the projection estimate may result in an overestimation of the projected warming and at the same time indicate little model agreement on the mean value.” What is more, “a non-negligible part” of this sad state of affairs “is due to model deficiencies,” which have yet to be overcome to the point that all model results come together and converge on a common projection… Read More
The Potential for the Evolution of Plant Phenotypic Plasticity (30 Apr 2013)
According to Zhang et al. (2012), “a key question in ecology and evolution is to what degree variation in ecologically important traits is heritable, because heritability determines the potential for evolutionary change of traits,” which phenomenon significantly enhances the ability of a species “to adapt to changing environments,” such as the changes climate alarmists are predicting for the entire planet over the next several decades or more. Their study, is an attempt to answer that “key question”… Read More
Too Slow to Evolve? Behavioral Plasticity May Compensate (30 Apr 2013)
Refsnider and Janzen (2012) write that “adaptation to climate change may be impossible even when high genetic variation is present if the rate of environmental change is too rapid and the population demography is insufficiently dynamic,” adding that “species with temperature-dependent sex determination may be particularly threatened by climate change, because altered temperatures could skew sex ratios.” Yet for long-lived reptiles, this study shows that behavioral phenotypic plasticity appears to provide an adaptive mechanisms that seems to overcome such challenges… Read More
Effects of Temperature on Mortality in Tropical Tanzania (1 May 2013)
Even in the relatively warm temperature conditions of the tropics, it is relative cold that kills far more people than relative heat… Read More
Modeling the Asian Summer Monsoon (1 May 2013)
How good are the simulations of the most up-to-date climate models? Not very good, and with both of the world’s most advanced climate modeling systems “performing poorly,” in the estimation of Kim et al., in simulating monsoon precipitation that affects almost half of the world’s population, it would appear that the climate modeling enterprise still has a long ways to go before anyone should get too excited about what the fruits of that endeavor are suggesting… Read More
Insect Pest Nightmares of European Grapevine Growers (1 May 2013)
Will they worsen or be dispelled if temperatures rise further in the future? Based on the results of this paper, current assumptions of an increasing importance of E. vitis as a grapevine pest under future climate change are likely incorrect… Read More
Dr. Idso is the founder, former president, and currently chairman of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.
