The Chalmers Climate Calculator allows the user can decide on when and how fast emissions of CO2 are reduced and what this emissions scenario implies in terms of CO2 concentration and global average surface temperature change.Example of questions that can be explored with the model: What if we delay emission cuts for another 10,...
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Three United States senators – Sens. Lindsay Graham, Orrin Hatch and James Inhofe – last week demonstrated continued confusion about the scientific support for climate change. Senator Graham, R-SC: “The science about global warming has changed. I think they’ve oversold this stuff, quite frankly. I think they’ve been alarmist and the science is in question.” Senator Hatch, R-Utah:...
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The U.S. Climate Action Report is one of the most significant documents on U.S. policy initiatives and actions to address climate change. It also provides a review of federal efforts “…to increase scientific understanding of climate change, and provide foreign assistance to help other nations mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.”...
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From 1998 to 2009, appropriations for agencies’ work related to climate change totaled about $99 billion; more than a third of that sum was provided in fiscal year 2009. In addition, climate-related tax preferences reduced tax revenues, by a much smaller amount, from what would have been collected in their absence. For most of...
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The World Meteorological Organization’s latest report demonstrates that 2000-2009 is the warmest decade since modern measurements began recording temperatures around 1850. In its annual report, “WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate,” the WMO also found that 2009 is nominally ranked as the fifth warmest on record. “Data sources compiled by the...
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Measuring the greenhouse gas emissions from a city, state, or country requires comprehensive tabulations of energy use, land-use changes, industrial emissions and many other factors. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has recently explored new methods for managing carbon emissions inventories. Using NASA’s Terra satellite, the agency surveyed the “greenness” of California’s vegetation...
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U.S. forests and soils currently contain the equivalent of 50 years of carbon dioxide (CO2), but have sufficient capacity to store significantly larger quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere as a means to mitigate climate change, according to the findings of the first phase of a groundbreaking national assessment by scientists at the U.S....
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President Obama’s Chief Science Geeks, John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco, tried to alleviate concerns about the disclosure of more than 1,000 controversial e-mails and several thousand documents stored on the computers of climate scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit. “There is, and there will remain after the dust settles in this current controversy, a very...
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