The Detroit Free Press reports:

Congressional negotiators are close to agreement on an increase in fuel economy standards to 35 miles per gallon by 2020, with some caveats to satisfy U.S. automakers.

What caveats?

The compromise would preserve the distinction between cars and trucks, something Detroit automakers have fought for, while giving federal regulators strict limits on how to put the increases into place. It also would include a provision backed by the UAW aimed at keeping small-car production in the United States.

Still, much better than no deal at all.

Well, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories has collected many of the most popular carbon calculators — including their own — and compared their features here. Pick one and go for it!

NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center reports that the Northern Hemisphere year to date (January through October) is the hottest since record-keeping began in 1880.

And NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts (another) warm winter (duh):

NOAA Climate Prediction Center forecasters remain confident in predicting above average temperatures for much of the country — including southern sections of the Northeast — and below normal precipitation for the southern tier of the nation.

Click on the map to see the details of the forecasts.

Do you want the latest data — some not yet published — and the best post-IPCC scientific predictions for the stunning collapse of Arctic ice and unexpected shrinking of the Greenland (and Antarctic) ice sheets? Then you should definitely watch (UPDATE: this C-SPAN video) of yesterday’s American Meteorological Society seminar (see note on link below).

The seminar is by three of the world’s top cryosphere experts: Dr. Mark Serreze (NOAA), Scott Luthcke (NASA), and Dr. Konrad Steffen (CIRES) — full bios and program summary available here. I will post their presentations when AMS puts them online (which will be here).

I have spent a great deal of time studying the ice and sea level rise issue (see links below) and still found the presentations informative and startling. It is very safe to say the Arctic Sea will be essentially ice free by 2030, and I’d personally bet on 2020 — any takers?

The most interesting presentation to me was the last one, by Konrad Steffen, who made a convincing case that the IPCC is “underestimating the rate of sea level rise” this century significantly. He expects one meter or more by 2100. The modelers are busy at work trying to account for ice dynamics in ice sheet collapse — but it may take 4 or 5 years for them to do that. When they are finished, sea level rise estimates for this century are likely to double or triple.

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The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), in its new 2006 Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, reports:

In 2006, globally averaged concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere reached their highest levels ever recorded … 381.2 parts per million (ppm), up 0.53 per cent from 379.2 ppm in 2005.

Note this is a one-year rise of 2.0 ppm, continuing the accelerated trend of the past decade, which is due to increases in global economic activity and carbon intensity, together with decreased efficiency of natural sinks, like the ocean.

Why worry so much about soaring CO2 emissions? The WMO explains:

CO2 is the single most important infrared absorbing, anthropogenic gas in the atmosphere and is responsible for 63% of the total radiative forcing of Earth by long-lived greenhouse gases. Its contribution to the increase in radiative forcing is 87% for the past decade and 91% for the last five years. For about 10,000 years before the industrial revolution, the atmospheric abundance of CO2 was nearly constant at ~ 280 ppm.

We have radically altered the composition of the atmosphere, and the bill is coming due.