“Storm Tracks and Climate Change” is the title of an article that appeared in the August issue of the Journal of Climate by Lennart Bengtsson, Kevin Hodges, and Erich Roeckner. Sounds interesting…

Bengtsson and colleagues ran the European Centre/Hamburg Model Version 5 (ECHAM5) climate model under conditions of increasing greenhouse gases as defined by the IPCC’s A1B scenario—a mid-range scenario that produces about 3ºC of global warming between 1990 and 2100. They then compared future storm tracks and intensities (in the years 2071-2100) against model-generated tracks using observed changes in greenhouse gases and particulates.

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Last week, WCR commented on research by Jeffrey Knight and his colleagues, tying natural variations in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) to long-term patterns of Atlantic hurricane activity (including the enhanced level of storm activity beginning in 1995). Immediately another paper appeared Geophysical Research Letters, by Rong Zang and Thomas Delworth titled “Impact of Atlantic multidecadal oscillations on India/Sahel rainfall and Atlantic hurricanes.” Zang and Delworth work for the Department of Commerce’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton.

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(alternative title: Bad News for Future Bananas)

So what do you think? Is it good news that a species adapts to climate change or not? Given that evolution is a fact, should it even be news at all? Or should some nice, cuddly species adapt (e.g., koala bears, owls, baby seals) but not others (e.g., Colorado potato beetles, hissing cockroaches)?

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A new paper by Jeff Knight and colleagues finds further evidence to support their findings, reported last year, that the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) is a real, physical phenomenon (as opposed to a statistical artifact) involving multidecadal variations in surface temperature primarily in the North Atlantic region and that its oscillations have consequences on regional climate, including North Atlantic tropical cyclones.

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Today’s (September 6th, 2006) Washington Post, features Ben Giliberti’s Wine of the Week—a Tamar Ridge 2005 Pinot Gris from Tasmania. After extolling the virtues of this rich white, peary, with a hint of almond and French oak, Giliberti proclaims it to be “one of the most exciting pinot gris I have tasted from anywhere lately” adding “global warming…appears to working in Tasmania’s favor.”

Let’s guess that there’s a post-it note stuck to the editor’s monitor when it comes to global warming: “No Fact Checks, Please.”

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For nearly 100 years, Californians have claimed to be the innovators that the rest of the United States and the world ultimately follow. Not so on global warming. Instead, the California Legislature and Governor Schwarzenegger have just passed and signed global warming legislation that is an awful lot like a watered-down version of the failed Kyoto Protocol. That’s sooo 1990s.

That Protocol was supposed to reduce our emissions of Carbon Dioxide, the main human-generated global warming gas, to 7% below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. Nationally, emissions are up about 18% since then. Recognizing this failure, the California law merely cuts back California emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, a 25% cut.

Why on earth did they do this, and what will it accomplish?

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