Climate Change | featured news

Scientists at the respected University of Innsbruck say that between 1902 and 2007, glaciers contributed 11 centimeters (4.33 inches) to a total sea level rise of about 20 centimeters (nearly 8 inches).

Climate scientists agree the Earth will be hotter by the end of the century, but their simulations don’t agree on how much. Now a new study suggests the gloomier predictions may be closer to the mark.

Green advocacy groups on Saturday released an ad reminding voters in Ohio and Virginia that Republican nominee Mitt Romney has mocked President Barack Obama for promising in 2008 to try to slow climate change. The ad from the ClimateSilence.org campaign, which is led by Forecast the Facts and Friends of the Earth Action, will be funded with donations from supporters, who as of early Saturday afternoon had pledged $8,720.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, portions of his city still underwater, has endorsed President Obama for reelection, citing the 44th president’s initiatives to counter climate change and saying that Mitt Romney has “reversed course” on stands he took as governor of Massachusetts.

On the eve of the first presidential debate, a flurry of new polls suggest most Americans support clean energy and policies to reduce climate change — topics that have garnered scant attention on the campaign trail.

Climate Central points out what should already be obvious: As it’s getting hotter, we’re seeing more wildfires — and the wildfires are getting bigger. Even as the 2012 wildfire season continues — there are nearly 1 million acres actively burning right now — the site parsed the data to pick out long-term trends linking fires, size, and heat. Here are some of the key findings from its report...

Led by NASA’s James E. Hansen, the study said it was nearly certain that events like the 2011 Texas heat wave were caused by the human release of greenhouse gases.

The relentless, weather-gone-crazy type of heat that has blistered the United States and other parts of the world in recent years is so rare that it can't be anything but man-made global warming, says a new statistical analysis from a top government scientist.

In an opinion piece in Saturday’s New York Times titled “The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic,” Muller writes: “Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.”

Polar bears first appeared 4-5 million years ago - but the animals have interbred with brown bears as Earth has warmed and cooled, say Penn State researchers.