The unique animal and plant species on Madagascar like this Verreaux's sifaka, a type of lemur, face a changing climate that could make parts of their island unsuitable for the species living there now. Credit: Martina Lippuner/WWF

An alarming study finds at 4.5 degrees warming, the world’s most biologically diverse ecosystems could see local extinction of half their plant and animal species...

   President Trump has nominated Mike Pompeo, a former Kansas congressman who was sworn in last year as CIA director, to replace former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Trump fired Rex Tillerson, a former Exxon CEO who supported staying in the Paris climate accord. Pompeo is a Koch brothers ally and climate policy critic...

The Commonwealth "has the potential, and the responsibility, to help drive meaningful global efforts and outcomes that protect ourselves, our children and our planet," 22 national science academies wrote in a joint statement. Credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

The scientists, from the UK, Canada, Australia and other Commonwealth countries, warn that stronger measures are needed to keep global warming under 2 degrees...

The intersection of Eighth Street and Atlantic Avenue is flooded in Ocean City, N.J., on Oct. 30, 2012, after the storm surge from Hurricane Sandy flooded much of the town. (Mel Evans/AP)

The country’s top independent scientific advisory body has largely approved a major climate report being prepared by scientists within the Trump administration — suggesting that another key government document could soon emerge that contradicts President Trump’s skepticism about climate change and humans’ role in driving it...

Severe flooding in Carlisle, north-west England, December 2015. Photograph: Andrew Yates/Reuters

Extreme weather is driving up uninsured losses and insurers must use investments to fund global warming resilience, says study...

Before discussing more of the problems with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) global warming information and predictions, it is necessary to frame this challenge to the IPCC’s reports appropriately. In the criticisms below, we are not in any way criticizing the thousands of climate scientists, many of whom at their own expense provide uncensored, accurate, and up-to-date global warming research to the IPCC’s bureaucrats...

On the outskirts of Kakuma in northwestern Kenya. Always arid, the area has become hotter and drier with the onset of climate change. Joao Silva/The New York Times

KAKUMA, Kenya — These barren plains of sand and stone have always known lean times: times when the rivers run dry and the cows wither day by day, until their bones are scattered under the acacia trees. But the lean times have always been followed by normal times, when it rains enough to rebuild herds, repay debts, give milk to the children and eat meat a few times each week...

‘The extraordinary – almost absurd – contrast between what we should be doing and what’s actually taking place fosters low-level climate denialism’ Photograph: Guido Dingemans/Alamy Stock Photo

The warnings about an unfolding climate catastrophe are getting more desperate, yet the march to destruction continues...

A view shows an ice flow floating on a lake in front of the Solheimajokull Glacier, where the ice has receded by more than 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) since annual measurements began in 1931, Iceland October 16, 2015. REUTERS/Thibault Camus/Pool

"The common joke in Iceland is to say that ... global warming is something we should cheer for - but it's no longer funny."

View southwest toward the head of Mueller Lake and terminus of Mueller Glacier notice stream dissecting stagnant ice at head of lake.  Picture is from Noel Potter, UMaine,  2/2018 

Climate scientists expect to find some "pretty pathetic" glaciers when they make this year's aerial survey of the South Island's ice-starved, post-summer snowline.

What they find could be one of the biggest "melt years" yet seen...

It is useful to now update the IPCC’s (the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,) four most recent 2014 average global temperature and time frame predictions while compensating for their known and regular underestimations of about 25-40%. Please keep in mind the IPCC’s 2014 prediction scenarios also do not include any calculations or adjustments for crossing more global warming tipping points during their prediction scenario periods...

Rolling waves driven by Cyclone Christian appear in the Elbe estuary near the North Sea close to Brunsbuettel, northern Germany, on Oct. 28, 2013. (Christian Charisius/European Pressphoto Agency)

Scientists on Thursday published an alarming scenario for what could happen to the planet’s oceans and fisheries by the year 2300 if very high levels of global warming are allowed to continue...

The Beast brought cold air from Siberia to cities unfamiliar with such harsh winter conditions, such as Rome. Image: REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

COLD SNAP: Dave Throup tweeted this picture of the Beast from the East, predicted to bring cold weather to the county next week. Picture: @DaveThroupEA

This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Robert McSweeney

While much of Europe is shivering in subzero temperatures, the Arctic and eastern US have basked in unseasonably warm conditions in recent weeks...

FILE PHOTO: A Man stands on his fishing boat in the harbour of Ajaccio on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica January 30, 2018. REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier/File Photo

Global fisheries output will slump by 20 percent by 2300 and by 60 percent in the worst-hit North Atlantic region if governments fail to slow long-term global warming, a U.S. team of scientists said on Thursday...

Severe flooding in Carlisle, north-west England, December 2015. Photograph: Andrew Yates/Reuters

A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook page during the past week. 

Editor's Pick:

Climate change threatens ability of insurers to manage risk.

Extreme weather is driving up uninsured losses and insurers must use investments to fund global warming resilience, says study...

(NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring)

Basic answers to basic questions about global warming and the future climate...

Anne Ward Penguin

In both moral and practical terms the world’s wealthy are responsible to fix our current global warming nightmare...

             Coal: it’s not an option. Kym Farnik

Analysis breaks down what it would take—and it’s a lot...

   The nuisance flooding that accompanies seasonal high tides in parts of the Miami area will become more common as sea level rises. Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

A new report shows how vulnerable U.S. coastal areas are to rising seas, with some flooding daily by 2100. San Francisco faces a double whammy: it's also sinking...

An aerial view of San Francisco. One of the greenest cities in the US is facing a major threat from global warming. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

California, Washington and Oregon have led criticism of Trump’s climate policies, but change hasn’t been easier closer to home...

Treasure Island, which sits between San Francisco and Oakland, is sinking fast, at a rate of a third of an inch a year. Frank Ramspott/Getty Images

If you move to the San Francisco Bay Area, prepare to pay some of the most exorbitant home prices on the planet. Also, prepare for the fact that someday, your new home could be underwater—and not just financially...

Frozen fields on the Lofoten Islands in the Arctic Circle in northern Norway. Scientists say conditions in the region are unprecedented. Photograph: Olivier Morin/AFP/Getty Images

Sea ice has hit record lows for time of year as experts say global warming probably fueled big storms in Europe and north-eastern US...

Overview:

Large-scale changes to our atmosphere and environment that normally happen over thousands of years are now happening over decades...

Waves from a winter storm in early March washed over houses in Scituate, Massachusetts, and flooded the streets. The nor'easter hit as tides were already high because of the nearly full moon. Credit: Scott Eisen/Getty Images

Two nor’easters fueled record tides in Boston in recent weeks, causing coastal flooding. Advocates warn infrastructure isn't being built to weather climate change...

Scott Pruitt described the Second Amendment as divinely granted, and condemned federal judges as a “judicial monarchy." | Pete Marovich/Getty Images

Radio archives from Oklahoma also show him warning of ‘judicial monarchy’ and advocating constitutional amendments to ban abortion and gay marriage...

http://katharinehayhoe.com

Weather patterns in the Arctic have been described as "freakishly warm." NPR's Michel Martin talks with climate science professor Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University about what's behind it...

Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson was impressed with the way Donald Trump watched the solar eclipse without glasses. Carlson described it as ‘perhaps the most impressive thing any president has done’. Photograph: Fox News

The fault lies entirely with the GOP. Focus on fixing it, not laying blame where it doesn’t belong...

A Texas National Guardsman carries a resident from her flooded home following Hurricane Harvey on August 27, 2017, in Houston, Texas.Lt. Zachary West/Army National Guard via Getty Images

New research claims that official estimates lowballed the risk by, uh, about a factor of three...

                          Scott Eisen/Getty

The Arctic is warming up more than twice as fast as the rest of the world, due to numerous feedbacks. At times, large areas over the Arctic Ocean can become 30°C or 54°F warmer than 1979-2000, as illustrated by the image below...

NWS Boston‏@NWSBoston [HAZARDS] Updated. Coastal flood warning E MA, advisory S MA & RI; hurricane / storm force wind warnings for the waters; high wind warning & advisory across the interior; flood watch for E MA, RI & CT; winter storm warning for the high terrain ... Mainly Friday through Saturday

Here is a a chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook page during the past week... 

Editor's Pick:

New research claims that official estimates lowballed the risk by, uh, about a factor of three.

A giant nor’easter — incongruously named Winter Storm Riley, like some Brooklyn kid’s play date — is expected slam into New England coast today, bringing snow, rain, high tides, and damaging winds.

The Boston Globe reports that the National Weather Service has “high confidence” that the eastern coast of Massachusetts is going to experience “moderate to major flooding.” It has “moderate confidence” that heavy rains of two to three inches could cause urban and street flooding throughout southeastern Massachusetts, including Boston...

   The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine is one of several military sites at risk from sea level rise, at new report from a panel of retired military officers warns. Credit: U.S. Navy

The retired admirals and generals say climate change is putting key military facilities at risk of costly damage that could knock out critical operations for weeks...

A snowshoe hare stands near Thule air base in Pituffik, Greenland. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Climate change is causing the season to start comparatively earlier the further north you go, say scientists

Drought conditions in Illinois may improve with hard spring rains, though it doesn't seem that way looking at this field in western Illinois. Madelyn Beck / Harvest Public Media

Western Illinois might be close to the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, but it’s the driest part of the state this year...

Drivers make their way along flooded Beach Road after the ocean breached the seawall outside Boston on Jan. 4, during the “bomb cyclone. Similar scenes will be possible Friday and Saturday in Boston, but at least there won’t be sea ice. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)

Even by New England standards, the Nor’easter forecast to explosively develop Friday and Saturday is set to be a whopper. With onshore winds topping 70 mph, a stalling ocean storm that will linger for days, and the full moon Thursday night, the stage is set for a worst case-scenario coastal flood event...

George W Bush speaks at the US ocean and atmospheric administration in 2002, where he emphasised the "scientific uncertainties" of climate change (Photo: George Bush White House)

The agreement’s challenges should not be painted as a collective global failure: the US, with its malignant politics, is the only country that truly matters...

The marshy, tundra landscape near Newtok, Alaska, is seen from a plane in July 2015. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

Scientists on Tuesday published new evidence that old or even ancient carbon, pulled out of the atmosphere and stored in the bodies of plants hundreds or thousands of years ago, is being set loose again from soils in the Arctic region.

A handout picture released by British Antarctic Survey shows the Larsen C iceberg. Photograph: Ali Rose/AFP/Getty Images

A new study finds that waiting 5 extra years to peak carbon pollution will cost 20 cm sea level rise...

An attendee wears a GOP elephant necklace during a California Republican Party convention in Burlingame, California. Stephen Lam / Reuters

"A lot of young conservatives are frustrated by the false choice between no climate action and a big government regulatory scheme."

Wictionary

This map will show how early spring has arrived in your state...

A polar bear testing the strength of thin sea ice in the Arctic. Credit Mario Hoppmann/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

 “There is no ice where there is almost always ice,” The Washington Post’s weather experts tweeted yesterday, referring to an area north of Greenland...

The intersection of 8th Street and Atlantic Avenue is flooded in Ocean City, N.J., after the storm surge from Superstorm Sandy flooded much of the town, aided by rising sea levels. Photograph: Mel Evans/AP

Faster melting of ice sheets is speeding up sea level rise..

Myself, our organization, and our allies are constantly struggling with how to communicate the truth about our current state of global warming. How do we effectively tell our members what many climate scientists know, but few will publicly state because of negative repercussions to their funding, careers, and personal safety?

Psychologist Per Espen Stoknes explains how to reframe discussions of climate change so that we feel inspired to act...

Source: http://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/arctic-temperatures/

Climate scientists are used to seeing the range of weather extremes stretched by global warming but few episodes appear as remarkable as this week's unusual heat over the Arctic. Zack Labe, a researcher at the University of California at Irvine, said average daily temperatures above the northern latitude of 80 degrees have broken away from any previous recordings in the past 60 years...

Workers in Rockport repair waterfront condominiums damaged by Hurricane Harvey on Feb. 22, 2018. Eddie Seal for The Texas Tribune

In the six months since state and federal officials decided to use the biggest housing recovery in modern history to rewrite the nation's disaster playbook, neighborly networks and organized charity have buoyed disheartened Texans on the coast...

Trump’s new infrastructure plan is nothing but a climate-wrecking giveaway to big polluters and the 1%.

The proposal would fast-track fossil fuel pipelines and gut bedrock environmental protections — at the expense of frontline communities and working people...

Sean McCabe for Rolling Stone

Extreme weather due to climate change displaced more than a million people from their homes last year. It could soon reshape the nation...

 Marshes near Jean Lafitte. Rising sea levels and land loss are driving back Louisiana’s coastline, and a fourth of the state’s wetlands are already gone.  Photograph by WILLIAM WIDMER

For the community of Jean Lafitte, the question is less whether it will succumb to the sea than when — and how much the public should invest in artificially extending its life...

Polar bear standing upright on pack ice in the Arctic ocean on the North Pole. Image: Arterra/UIG via Getty Images

In what seems to be becoming an annual occurrence, temperatures at the North Pole are about to reach or possibly exceed the freezing point this week as the North Atlantic and the North Pacific Oceans inject unusually mild air into the Arctic...

GENEVA—Attending a conference to discuss alarming new data on rising sea levels, a weary group of top climatologists suddenly halted their presentation Friday, let out a long sigh, and stated that the best thing anyone can do at this point is just try to enjoy the next couple decades as much as possible. “You know what, guys? Just go out there and have a good time—don’t worry about any of this,” said climate scientist Annalisa Feldt who tore in half the report she had compiled and suggested everyone consider traveling to a place they’ve never been before, or taking up a pastime they’ve always imagined might be fun. “Go see a show. Join an intramural sports league. Learn a musical instrument. Have more sex. Try skiing, if you never have, although that’s one you’d better do within the next five years or so.” Reiterating the need for people to live it up while they still can, the climatologists announced that if anyone was interested in joining them, they would be skipping the remainder of the conference to get completely shit-faced at the nearest bar...

Dead saiga antelopes in a field in Kazakhstan. About 20,000 of the species were found dead in one week. Photograph: Reuters

Scientists are alarmed by a rise in mass mortality events – when species die in their thousands. Is it all down to climate change?

The Figure is from paper #24.

A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below...

Nope, that won't do it... Photographer: Carlos Becerra/Bloomberg

Unfortunately, that’s what some scientists think humans will try to do...

Credit: Erika Maldonado Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Editor's Pick:

Seas Will Rise for 300 Years

And the longer it takes to reduce carbon emissions, the higher they will go...

The temperature difference from normal over the Arctic averaged over the next five days in the GFS model forecast. (University of Maine Climate Reanalyzer)

While the Eastern United States simmers in some of its warmest February weather ever recorded, the Arctic is also stewing in temperatures more than 45 degrees above normal. This latest huge temperature spike in the Arctic is another striking indicator of its rapidly transforming climate...