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Unforced Variations: Jan 2014

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First open thread of the new year. A time for ‘best of’s of climate science last year and previews for the this year perhaps? We will have an assessment of the updates to annual indices and model/data comparisons later in the month.

AGU 2013 preview and participation

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So, it’s that time of year again.

Fall AGU is the largest Earth Science conference on the planet, and is where you will get previews of new science results, get a sense of what other experts think about current topics, and indulge in the more social side of being a scientist. The full scientific program is available for searching here.

In recent years, there has been an increasing amount of virtual content – including live streaming of key sessions and high profile lectures, and continuous twitter commentary (follow the hashtag #AGU13), that give people not attending to get a sense of what’s going on. Gavin and Mike are attending and will try and give some highlights as the week goes along, here and via twitter (follow @ClimateOfGavin and @MichaelEMann).

Some obvious highlights (that will be live-streamed) are the Frontiers of Geophysics lecture from the Jim Hansen (Tuesday, 12:30pm PST), Senator Olympia Snowe (Monday, 12:30pm), Judith Lean (Tues 10:20am), the Charney Lecture from Lenny Smith (Tues 11:20am), James Elsner on tornado connections to climate change (Tues 2:40pm), David Grinspoon (the Sagan lecture, Thurs 9am), and Bill Ruddiman (Thursday 2:40pm). Some full sessions will also be livestreamed – for instance, The future of IPCC session (Tues 10:20am-12:30pm), and the Climate Literacy sessions (Tues 4:00pm-6:00pm, Wed 8am-12:30pm).

For attendees, there are a number of events close to our hearts: A bloggers forum for discussion on science blogging (Mon 5pm), the Open Mic night hosted by Richard Alley (Mon 7:30pm at Jillian’s Restaurant), and the AGU 5k run on Wednesday morning (6:30am).

Also AGU and the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund have organised a facility for individual consultations with a lawyer (by appointment via lawyer@climatesciencedefensefund.org) for people either who have found themselves involved in legal proceedings associated with their science or people who are just interested in what they might need to be prepared for. There is a brown bag lunch session on Friday (12:30pm PST) for a more informal discussion of relevant issues.

There are obviously many individual presentations that will be of interest, but too many to list here. Feel free to add suggestions in the comments and look out for updates all next week.

Unforced Variations: Dec 2013

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This month’s open thread. It’s coming to the end of the year and that means updates to the annual time series of observations and models relatively soon. Suggestions for what you’d like to see assessed are welcome… or any other climate science related topic.

Cows, Carbon and the Anthropocene: Commentary on Savory TED Video

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Guest post by Jason West and David Briske

Allan Savory delivered a highly publicized talk at a “Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED)” conference in February of this year (2013) entitled “How to fight desertification and reverse climate change.” Here we address one of the most dramatic claims made – that a specialized grazing method alone can reverse the current trajectory of increasing atmospheric CO2 and climate change.

The talk was attended by many conferees and has since been viewed on the TED website over 1.6 million times. It has received substantial acclaim in social media, some of which is available at the Savory Institute website, but it has also received considerable criticism (of particular note is a blog post from Adam Merberg and an article in Slate magazine. Although these criticism quickly followed Mr. Savory’s presentation and are broadly supported by the available science, his sweeping claims have continued to resonate with lay audiences. An apparent example is his invitation to deliver a speech to Swiss Re during their 150 year anniversary celebration in London in September, in which he is quoted as saying “…only now due largely to my TED talk on the desertification aspect of the global problem, was the public becoming aware of such hope in a world so short on solutions…”.
[Read more…] about Cows, Carbon and the Anthropocene: Commentary on Savory TED Video