Aafter a busy month of harvesting (Gareth) and breakfast broadcasting (Glenn), the Climate Show returns with all the latest climate news: from the thinning of Antarctic ice shelves and the intensification of hydrological cycle (floods and drought, that is) to satellites capturing solar energy and beaming it down to earth, we’ve got it all. And if that weren’t enough, John Cook looks at a new paper that explains the apparent lag between warming and CO2 increase at the end of the last ice age, and tips us off about an excellent outtake from ABC’s recent I Can Change Your Mind about Climate documentary, featuring Naomi Oreskes.
Watch The Climate Show on our Youtube channel, subscribe to the podcast via iTunes, listen to us via Stitcher on your smartphone or listen direct/download from the link below the fold.
Follow The Climate Show at The Climate Show web site, and on Facebook and Twitter.
News & commentary: [0:02:30]
WMO confirms 2011 as 11th warmest in long term record
“It was the warmest decade ever recorded for global land surface, sea surface and for every continent.”
Warm ocean currents cause majority of ice loss from Antarctica: Scripps, British Antarctic Survey.
“What’s really interesting is just how sensitive these glaciers seem to be,” added Pritchard. “Some ice shelves are thinning by a few metres a year and, in response, the glaciers drain billions of tons of ice into the sea. This supports the idea that ice shelves are important in slowing down the glaciers that feed them, controlling the loss of ice from the Antarctic ice sheet. It means that we can lose an awful lot of ice to the sea without ever having summers warm enough to make the snow on top of the glaciers melt – the oceans can do all the work from below.”
Dry parts of the planet to get drier, wet parts wetter: The Conversation, Science Magazine.
Kiribati as a refuge for corals: Pacific Islands May Become Refuge for Corals in a Warming Climate, Study Finds
World needs to stabilise population and cut consumption, says Royal Society
http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/people-planet/
http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/people-planet/report/
Key recommendations include:
- The international community must bring the 1.3 billion people living on less than $1.25 per day out of absolute poverty, and reduce the inequality that persists in the world today. This will require focused efforts in key policy areas including economic development, education, family planning and health.
- The most developed and the emerging economies must stabilise and then reduce material consumption levels through: dramatic improvements in resource use efficiency, including: reducing waste; investment in sustainable resources, technologies and infrastructures; and systematically decoupling economic activity from environmental impact.
- Reproductive health and voluntary family planning programmes urgently require political leadership and financial commitment, both nationally and internationally. This is needed to continue the downward trajectory of fertility rates, especially in countries where the unmet need for contraception is high.
- Population and the environment should not be considered as two separate issues. Demographic changes, and the influences on them, should be factored into economic and environmental debate and planning at international meetings, such as the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development and subsequent meetings.
Debunking the sceptic [37:15]
John Cook from skepticalscience.com talks about I Can Change Your Mind About Climate.
The telling outtake: Naomi Oreskes with Nick Minchin:
Dealing with the “lag”: http://sks.to/lag
Solutions [1:00:00]
Tinted Windows that Generate Electricity: A German company borrows the materials and manufacturing process of OLED displays to make a new kind of solar panel.
NASA Funding Satellite That Would Beam Solar Power Down to Earth
Solar Thermal Heating Could Eliminate CO2 Emissions from Cement Production
Thanks to our media partners: Idealog Sustain, Sciblogs, Scoop and KiwiFM.
Theme music: A Drop In The Ocean by The Bads.
Cracking episode… Really enjoyed it.
Nice! Next episode soon…