Forecasts of global temperature rises over the past 15 years have proved remarkably accurate, new analysis of scientists’ modelling of climate change shows.
The debate around the accuracy of climate modelling and forecasting has been especially intense recently, due to suggestions that forecasts have exaggerated the warming observed so far – and therefore also the level warming that can be expected in the future. But the new research casts serious doubts on these claims, and should give a boost to confidence in scientific predictions of climate change.
The paper, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Geoscience, explores the performance of a climate forecast based on data up to 1996 by comparing it with the actual temperatures observed since. The results show that scientists accurately predicted the warming experienced in the past decade, relative to the decade to 1996, to within a few hundredths of a degree.
The forecast, published in 1999 by Myles Allen and colleagues at Oxford University, was one of the first to combine complex computer simulations of the climate system with adjustments based on historical observations to produce both a most likely global mean warming and a range of uncertainty. It predicted that the decade ending in December 2012 […]
This article was published in partnership with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance [3].
When Michelle Obama visited a Walmart in Springfield, Missouri, a few weeks ago to praise the company’s efforts to sell healthier food, she did not say why she chose a store in Springfield of all cities. But, in ways that Obama surely did not intend, it was a fitting choice. This Midwestern city provides a chilling look at where Walmart wants to take our food system.
Springfield is one of nearly 40 metro areas where Walmart now captures about half or more of consumer spending on groceries, according to Metro Market Studies. Springfield area residents spend just over $1 billion on groceries each year, and one of every two of those dollars flows into a Walmart cash register. The chain has 20 stores in the area and shows no signs of slowing its growth. Its latest proposal, a store just south of the city’s downtown, has provoked widespread protest. Opponents say Walmart already has an overbearing presence in the region and argue that this new store would undermine nearby grocery stores, including a 63-year-old family-owned business which still provides delivery for its elderly customers. A […]
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor, opponents of same-sex marriage have scrambled to answer the central question: What is the government’s rational interest in preventing gays from marrying? The standard argument from moral disapproval was revoked by Romer v. Evans and Lawrence v. Texas. The argument that gay marriages undermine the family has been debunked by a decade of same-sex marriage in several countries. So, as Proposition 8 and DOMA wound their way through the courts, gay marriage opponents lit upon a more durable argument, seemingly grounded in science rather than animus or religion. Their case, presented most comprehensively by Princeton professor Robert P. George, is that only sex acts with a ‘dynamism toward reproduction
The majority of river and stream miles nationwide are in poor condition for aquatic life, according to an unprecedented survey from the Environmental Protection Agency.
The survey is the first statistically based survey of the condition of the nation’s rivers and streams, the EPA says. In 2008 and 2009, field crews sampled nearly 2,000 randomly selected river and stream sites that ranged from major rivers to small creeks.
To rate rivers and streams for their ability to sustain aquatic life, the EPA used a common index that measures the condition of insects, crayfish and other macroinvertebrates that live on the bottom of bodies of water. The survey found 21 percent of the nation’s river and stream miles in good biological condition, 23 percent in fair condition and 55 percent in poor condition.
The EPA’s draft report (.pdf) on its findings, released March 26, also notes chemical stressors and physical habitat stressors, but biological condition is the best indicator of the health of a body of water, the report says. ‘When the biology of a stream is healthy, the chemical and physical components of the stream are also typically in good condition.’
The ecoregion classified as the West–California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and […]
