Real Climate Quick Hits

If you are not reading the web site, Realclimate.org regularly, you should be. As their banner says, they provide “climate science from climate scientists”–some of the top climate scientists in the country

While it helps to have some comfort with technical matters, the vast majority of the content is very accessible. Some good recent posts:

• If you are worried about global warming plunging us into another Ice Age (virtually impossible) or at least making Europe much colder (not that likely this century), then you probably want to be able to wow your friends by explaining why the “Gulf Stream” is not the same thing as the “Thermohaline Circulation,” which is not the same thing as the Meridional Overturning Circulation (which is also often called the North Atlantic Current).
• Perhaps you want to be able to explain why changes in solar activity are NOT the cause of recent global warming. Try here and here.
• But then you’ll want to be able to show why greenhouse gases ARE the cause of recent warming.

Realclimate should be a standard bookmark of yours, but I will periodically highlight their best.