Climate Change Weekly #59
Professor Susan Crockford, a zoologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Victoria, Canada, reports polar bears have successfully adapted to severe climate change many times in the past and will likely adapt to future climate change, as well.
Crockford, who has been published many times in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, presented the evidence for polar bear resilience at a public lecture at the University of Toronto. Her lecture built upon several scientific papers she has written on the subject.
“We tend to hear nothing but alarming messages about the current status and future welfare of polar bears from animal advocates of all kinds, including lobby groups and activist scientists,” Crockford said in a press release announcing her lecture. “Many of these tales of imminent doom, however, have important facts left out, glossed over or misrepresented – and much of the uncertainty in the underlying research has been downplayed.”
“It is still not known for certain when polar bears evolved but there is no question that, in the many millennia they have existed as a separate species, they have survived very significant changes in climate,” Crockford said in the press release. “Polar bears successfully adapted to times when there was both much less, and much more, Arctic sea ice than exists today. Polar bears obviously have strategies for surviving dramatic changes in sea ice conditions – we just don’t know yet what all of them are.”
SOURCE: Forbes.com
IN THIS ISSUE
Bast spells out requirements for cooperative discussion … NOAA’s Hoerling debunks Hansen … Drought caused by La Niña, concludes German weather service … U.S. carbon dioxide emissions fall dramatically … Tropical species resilient to climate change … 1930s still the king of record-high temperatures
BAST SPELLS OUT REQUIREMENTS FOR COOPERATIVE DISCUSSION
A cooperative discussion on climate change requires the elimination of pejorative terms such as “denier” and a commitment to discuss climate events in proper context, Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast wrote in response to a recent Wall Street Journal editorial by Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp. Krupp’s editorial called for cooperative solutions to climate change, with the precondition that skeptics agree a global warming crisis exists.
SOURCE: Somewhat Reasonable
NOAA’S HOERLING DEBUNKS HANSEN
NOAA climate scientist Martin Hoerling debunked assertions by NASA Goddard Institute climate alarmist James Hansen that global warming is causing a variety of weather and climate catastrophes. Hoerling’s take-down of Hansen is particularly powerful because Hoerling often aligns himself with global warming alarmists.
SOURCE: Watts Up With That?
DROUGHT CAUSED BY LA NIÑA, CONCLUDES GERMAN WEATHER SERVICE
Drought conditions in Europe during the past two years are due to a powerful La Niña and a positive North Atlantic Oscillation, concludes the German National Weather Service. Moreover, there is no long-term increase in drought, the Weather Service reports.
SOURCE: No Tricks Zone
U.S. CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS FALL DRAMATICALLY
U.S. carbon dioxide emissions fell dramatically during the past year, reaching their lowest level since 1992, reports the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA). The shale gas revolution is dramatically reducing natural gas prices, which is inducing many electric providers to switch from high-emissions coal to low-emissions natural gas, EIA observes.
SOURCE: Associated Press
TROPICAL SPECIES RESILIENT TO CLIMATE CHANGE
Tropical species will have an easier time adjusting to future climate change than previously expected, scientists report in a study published in the British Ecological Society’s Functional Ecology. Computer models developed by the scientists indicate “tropical species may not be as vulnerable to climate warming as previously thought.”
SOURCE: Watts Up With That?
1930S STILL THE KING OF RECORD-HIGH TEMPERATURES
The top five years for setting record high temperatures were all in the 1930s, U.S. Historical Climatology Network data show, debunking claims that global warming is causing a rash of high-temperature records. Media claims that an unprecedented number of stations are breaking high-temperature records fail to note many of these stations did not exist in the 1930s, Steven Goddard notes in his Real Science blog.
SOURCE: Real Science
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