Greenland ice melt shocks scientists — The Oregonian. A good article on the subject, with the added bonus of an explanation of how ice loss in the Arctic will affect the U.S.’s climate:
The melting removes an insulating blanket from the ocean surface, releasing warmth from the water into the cold air above as towering columns of warmer air.
Those columns appear to reorient global air flows the way a boulder falling into a stream reorients the current, said Jacob Sewall, a professor of geosciences at Virginia Tech, who has used atmospheric models to study the effect. The result is that the stream that carries storms over the West Coast of North America shifts north, turning much of California drier, and the Northwest wetter.
Calif. lawmaker chides EPA for approving coal plant — The Boston Globe. “Remarkably, EPA refused to consider the global warming effects of the plant or to require any measures to mitigate that harm, contravening a Clean Air Act mandate and ignoring EPA’s ample discretionary authority to act,” wrote Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.Hefty Rebate For Backyard Wind Turbines In California — Environmental News Network. Homeowners who install a turbine that costs between $12,000 and $15,000 to purchase and install and is rated at 1.8 kiloWatts, are eligible for a $4,100 rebate from the state of California.