Stephan: Little by little we are refining our understanding of the data describing climate change. Here is an example of what I mean.
Difficulties in making weather measurements in the Arctic have led to underrepresentation of this rapidly warming area in historic temperature records.
Credit: British Columbia Ministry of Transport
A new NASA-led study finds that almost one-fifth of the global warming that has occurred in the past 150 years has been missed by historical records due to quirks in how global temperatures were recorded. The study explains why projections of future climate based solely on historical records estimate lower rates of warming than predictions from climate models.
The study applied the quirks in the historical records to climate model output and then performed the same calculations on both the models and the observations to make the first true apples-to-apples comparison of warming rates. With this modification, the models and observations largely agree on expected near-term global warming. The results were published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Mark Richardson of […]
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Jeremy Deaton, - Alternet
Stephan: One of the interesting things about trends is that once you pick them up you realize there are all sorts of unexpected consequences. Here is an example of what I mean, and I take it as good news.
The 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Facility in Nevada is the first utility-scale concentrating solar plant that can provide electricity whenever it’s needed most, even after dark.
Credit: SolarReserve
The Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas just became the new home of the country’s largest rooftop solar installation, a sprawling 26,000-panel array smack dab in the middle of Sin City. The project is just the latest jewel in the crown for Nevada solar energy geeks. Just down the road on Interstate 15 sits the Ivanpah solar power station, the world’s largest solar thermal plant.
Despite Nevada’s emergence as a national leader on clean energy, Silver State legislators have intervened on behalf of power utilities to slow the growth of solar. In doing so, they have exposed a divide among conservatives when it comes to clean energy.
Recent policy fights have pitted right-wing grassroots […]
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