Posted on 14 July 2013 by John Hartz

SkS Highlights

Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming, a new basic level rebuttal by gpwayne, generated the loudest comment thread buzz of the articles posted this past week. Given how loudly the deniers beat the drum of the myth, "There is no actual empirical evidence that carbon dioxide emissions are causing global warming," the interest in this post is not surprising.  

Toon of the Week

H/T to I Heart Climate Scientists Facebook page.

Quote of the Week

"Governments are allowing and encouraging fossil fuel companies to go after every conceivable fuel", said Hansen, "which is an obtuse policy that ignores the implications for young people, future generations and nature. We could make substantial parts of the Earth uninhabitable."

James Hansen: Fossil fuel addiction could trigger runaway global warming by Nafeez Ahmed, Earth Insight, The Guardian, July 10, 2013

Report of the Week 

The U.S. Department of Energy released a new report which assesses how America’s critical energy and electricity infrastructure is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.  Historically high temperatures in recent years have been accompanied by droughts and extreme heat waves, more wildfires than usual, and several intense storms that caused power and fuel disruptions for millions of people. These trends are expected to continue, which could further impact energy systems critical to the nation’s economy.

The U.S. Energy Sector Vulnerabilities to Climate Change and Extreme Weather report, which builds on President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, notes that annual temperatures across the United States have increased by about 1.5°F over the last century. In fact, 2012 was both the warmest year on record in the contiguous United States and saw the hottest month since the country started keeping records in 1895.

SkS Week in Review

• 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28B by John Hartz
• Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong by Dana
• Climate Change and the Nature of Science: The Carbon “Tipping Point” is Coming by Micha Tomkiewicz 
• 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28A by John Hartz
• 129°F is Close But No Cigar by Rob Honeycutt
• Charles Krauthammer's flat-earther global warming folly by Dana
• Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming by gpwayne
• The Consensus Project self-rating data now available by John Cook
• Climate Change Denial now available as Kindle ebook by John Cook

SkS Rebuttal Article Created 

Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming by gpwayne is a new 'basic' level rebuttal of the myth: There is no actual empirical evidence that carbon dioxide emissions are causing global warming.

Coming Soon on SkS

• They changed the name from global warming to climate change (gpwayne)
• Science does inform policy … sometimes (gws)
• 2013 SkS News Roundup #29B (John Hartz)
• Wretched week for a typical trio of climate contrarians (Dana)
• A tale told in maps and charts: Texas in the National Climate Assessment (Dana)
• 2013 SkS News Roundup #29B (John Hartz) 

In the Works

• John Christy and high temperature records in the US (Klaus Flemløse)
• New Basic rebuttal #43: There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature (gpwayne)
• How do we know more CO2 is causing warming? (gpwayne)
• New Basic rebuttal #87: It's albedo (gpwayne)
• How did Ancient Coral Survive in a High CO2 World? (Rob Painting)
• 282 years of global warming in one graph (keithpickering)

SkS in thw News 

The Consensus Project was referenced by President Obama, Bloomberg, Organizing for Action, The Conversation, Slate Bad Astronomy, Australasian Science.

Dana's Charles Krauthammer's flat-earther global warming folly was re-posted on The Raw Story.

D.R. Tucker at The Huffington Post referenced SkS' Human activity continues to warm the planet over the past 16 years in debunking Charles Krauthammer.

K Kaufmann at MyDesert.com referenced Dana's Media Overlooking 90% of Global Warming.

Shauna Theel at Media Matters referenced various SkS resources in debunking Patrick Michaels in Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong (also re-posted at Climate Progress).

Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy referenced various SkS resources in debunking Matt Ridley (also re-posted at Climate Progress).

John Mashey and Graham Readfearn at DeSmogBlog referenced various SkS resources for debunking Murry Salby.

We'll have more on this trio of debunkings later this upcoming week.

SkS Spotlights

The Science of Doom is a "go to" website for anyone seeking to better understand the mathmetics of climate science. The site is devoted to evaluating and explaining climate science in a very structured manner.