Week in review – science edition

by Judith Curry
A few things that caught my eye this past few weeks.

Why did the trend of #Arctic #sea #ice loss accelerate after about 2000?” Meehl et al. (2018) offer an explanation. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL079989 …
Antarctica’s iceberg graveyard could reveal the ice sheet’s future. [link]
Latif: Decadal Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation slowing events in a climate model [link]
Koutsoyiannis: Extreme-oriented selection and fitting of probability distributions. [link]
Strengthened linkage between midlatitudes and Arctic in boreal winter [link]
Scientists discover evidence of long ocean memory [link]
Less ice in Arctic Ocean 6000-7000 years ago [link]
How badly is humanity’s growing acoustic footprint damaging ocean life? [link]
Solar geoengineering is projected to decrease, not increase, harmful UV radiation. [link]

Influence of global warming on the rapid intensification of western North Pacific tropical cyclones  https://buff.ly/2KxIdkj 
A new study (http://bit.ly/2IopQvq  ) has found the Larsen C ice shelf in #Antarctica experienced a recent 3-year spike in late season surface #melt in part due to warm winds coming from the peninsula’s mountains. http://bit.ly/2IsNWFp 
Intensification of the Northern Hemisphere land CO2 sink in 2000s, while declines from the SH.  Press Release http://bit.ly/2Vk5ebr  Paper http://go.nature.com/2Vj5PKv 
Why California burns – its forests have too many trees [link]
Backward and forward drift trajectories of sea ice in the northwestern Arctic Ocean in response to changing atmospheric circulation https://buff.ly/2FBWPJP 
New analysis technique for  systematic evaluation of simulated extratropical variability.  https://rdcu.be/bumCH 
Atmospheric Circulation Response to Anomalous Siberian Forcing in October 2016 and its Long‐Range Predictability –https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2018GL081580#.XJugGrUtqYg.twitter …
Predictable hydrological and ecological responses to Holocene North Atlantic variability [link]
the link between dry season rainfall and the PDO in NE India. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41630-2 …
2 years of mooring data along the West #Antarctic Ice Shelf finds new controls for the flow of very warm water. [link]
 “The contribution of global #warming to western U.S. #snowpack loss has in reality been large and widespread since the 1980s, but mostly offset by natural variability in the #climate system.” https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL081080 …
Reassessing California’s overdue earthquake [link]
Mid-latitude net precipitation decreased with Arctic warming during the Holocene [link]
Jakobshavn Isbrae has been thickening since 2016, after two decades of thinning and retreat https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0329-3 …
A deposit of teeth and bones recently discovered in an island cave in the Philippines may have belonged to a newly identified species closely related to humans and “unknown previously to science [link]
Arctic warming is causing a 60-fold increase in permafrost landslides [link]
SWEDEN GLACIERS GAINED MASS From 1970-2001 After Rapid 1920s-’60s Retreat [link]
The day the dinosaurs died. [link]
Synoptic weather patterns that bring light winds, clear skies and high humidity, result in reef scale meteorology that appears to have a greater influence on coral bleaching events than the background oceanic warming trend. [link]
Assessing the robustness of Antarctic temperature reconstructions over the past 2 millennia using pseudoproxy and data assimilation experiments (open access) https://buff.ly/2IhHpNR 
Polar warming: even east Antarctica is starting to melt [link]
The Recovery Glacier will be Antarctica’s biggest contributor to a global rise in sea level. We’re starting to understand what controls its melting.  https://eos.org/research-spotlights/subglacial-water-can-accelerate-east-antarctic-glacier-flow …
What climate models get wrong about future water availability [link]
Historical record of floods in Midwest https://realclimatescience.com/2019/03/superstitions-fingerprint-in-climate-science/ …
Trees release flammable methane—here’s what that means for climate https://on.natgeo.com/2UTiVO9 
How confident are predictability estimates of the winter North Atlantic Oscillation? https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/qj.3446#.XJkArDHQjvg.twitter …
Essential gaps and uncertainties in the understanding of the roles and functions of Arctic sea ice https://buff.ly/2Id1HIf 
“To learn where #Antarctica is vulnerable to #ice shelf loss, we divided it into 14 sectors, applied extreme melting to each sector [&] ran our ice flow model 1000 years into the future.”  https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL081229 …
The renaissance of hydrology [link]
The Effect of El Niño on Flood Damages in the Western United States https://buff.ly/2UfxCiy 
“we conclude that historical European LULC change which took place over a relatively short duration (20 years) likely had an impact on the water and energy balances at regional to continental scales” https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab0db3 …
Cluster‐Based Evaluation of Model Compensating Errors: A Case Study of Cloud Radiative Effect in the Southern Ocean. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2018GL081686 …
Air pollution from corn production might contribute to thousands of deaths each year. [link]
Ice drove past Indo-Pacific climate variations: Uncovering the drivers of Indo-Pacific regional climate during the Last Glacial Maximum is important for understanding how hydrologic cycles might change in the future. https://eos.org/articles/ice-drove-past-indo-pacific-climate-variance …
Research Spotlight: The tropical Pacific’s “global warming hiatus” is over — it’s been shifting toward El Niño–like conditions since 2011. https://eos.org/research-spotlights/ocean-warming-resumes-in-the-tropical-pacific …
Size matters–The size of particulate matter in the atmosphere determines how it deposits in the body and leads to different health challenges. [link]
New, high resolution dataset: *71 Climate Extremes Indices *from 1970 till 2016 suited for sectoral impacts assessment and hot spot analyses. – *Data here: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.898014 … *More info here: http://www.energy-a.eu/71-climate-extreme-indices-in-1-dataset/ …
New paper: Urbanization has increased minimum temperatures 1.7K in the UK https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/03/31/new-paper-urbanization-has-increased-minimum-temperatures-1-7k-in-the-uk/ …
Radiative Forcing by Dust and Black Carbon on the Juneau Icefield, Alaska https://buff.ly/2FCBeAN 
New research article: Impact of millennial-scale oceanic variability on the Greenland ice-sheet evolution throughout the last glacial period https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-15-593-2019 …
Heat transport pathways into the Arctic and their connections to surface air temperatures (open access) https://buff.ly/2OuSNXA 
Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Human‐Perceived Temperature Extremes and Underlying Uncertainties https://buff.ly/2UZ5hJB 
Northern Hemisphere Snow-Cover Trends (1967–2018): Comparison between Climate Models & Obs – CMIP5 “climate models were found to poorly predict observed trends”  res.mdpi.com/geosciences/geosciences-09-00135/article_deploy/geosciences-09-00135.pdf?filename=&attachment=1 …
What ancient rivers on mars reveal about its ‘great drying’ [link]

Assessment of contemporary satellite sea ice thickness products for Arctic sea ice (open access) https://buff.ly/2Kv87VV 
.

Social Science, Technology & Policy
The levees protecting #NewOrleans will be too low in 4 years- because putting weight onto delta soils accelerates subsidence. [link]
New thermal battery could be game changer for storing renewable energy [link]
Dealing with the concrete – CO2 problem [link]
Robust abatement pathways to tolerable climate futures [link]
Localities in the #Mekong delta that is predicted to be hardest hit by climate change have shifted 40,000 ha of farming land to aquaculture and growing fruit trees as part of efforts to make climate-smart agriculture. https://en.vietnamplus.vn/farming-production-adapts-to-climate-change/150811.vnp …
EPA scientists price out the cost of climate change [link]
What do we know about cities and climate mitigation? [link]
When Does “It Will Hurt the Poor” Outweigh “It’s Good for the Environment?” https://niskanencenter.org/blog/when-does-it-will-hurt-the-poor-outweigh-its-good-for-the-environment/ …
Why not thorium? A forgotten war technology could safely power Earth for millions of years. Here’s why we aren’t using it. [link]
Why the Green New Deal is financially lethal [link]
Let nature heal climate and biodiversity crises [link]
The dirty secret of Electric Vehicles : cobalt mined by exploited children in the Democratic Republic of Congo and how to dispose of used lithium batteries [link]
Storing electricity with pumped hydro [link]
A lawsuit was filed recently at the Court of Justice seeking to stop the European Union from counting wood grown in the United States and elsewhere as a renewable energy source. [link]
Solution to the nuclear waste problem [link]
Climate chaos is coming – and the Pinkerton’s are ready [link]
Reflecting on 50 years of geoengineering research [link]
The “indigenous depopulation” of the Americas during the 1500s may have contributed to one of the Little Ice Age’s chilliest cold snaps. https://eos.org/articles/european-contact-with-the-americas-may-have-triggered-global-cooling …
Are you biased against nuclear power? Yup, say scientists https://grist.org/article/are-you-biased-against-nuclear-power-yup-say-
On the use and misuse of climate change projections in international development [link]
Inexpensive heating reduces winter mortality [link]
North Carolina has ordered Duke to excavate all of its coal ash ponds in the state: http://bit.ly/2FTbv8J 
New reports offer solutions to protect agains recent surge of climate liability lawsuits [link]
Ocean plastic pollution: A convenient but distracting truth? [link]
Heaven or high water: selling Miami’s last 50 years [link]
Flood insurance reform won’t be pleasant. But it’s necessary. http://ow.ly/2IK630oh9CL 
Climate change as anarchy: The need for a new structural theory of international relations [link]
The hidden air pollution of our homes [link]
About Science & Scientists
Insightful new article about the IPCC: “the legitimacy of deliberation relies on its presentation of a greater breadth and variety of relevant knowledge and information” https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10584-018-2180-8.pdf …
The new science of how to argue – constructively [link]
How diverse teams produce better outcomes [link]
Excellent overview of the college admissions scandal [link]
Duke Univ: The untold story of how students risked their careers to fight a cover-up [link]
Garth Paltridge: Climate’s Uncertainty Principle https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019/04/climates-uncertainty-principle/ …
Larry Kummer:  The noble corruption of climate science [link]
On trying to get Camille Paglia fired from her university position [link]
Mathematicians have discovered the very fastest way to multiply. [link]
Schools need to teach kids how not to be offended.  Giving offense is the price of diversity, not an impediment to diversity [link]
Science activism: Direct link to Letter in Science now signed by over 4500 scientists supporting the young climate protesters https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aax3807 …
Activists must stop harassing scientists [link]
Pluto has been officially reclassified as a planet [link]
In quantum games, there is no way to play the odds [link]
Gender: is gender a mere tool of the patriarchy? or is it hardwired before birth? [link]
Climate change and the 10 warning signs for cults [link]
Lincoln on how to handle criticism [link]
Although we’ve been told that peer review has been essential part of science since 17th century, it’s really only been widely used since late 20th (e.g., Nature started in 1973). https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/700070 …
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/03/20/retire-statistical-significance-the-discussion/ … Is it right to campaign to collect signatures for what is a scientific method and statistical inference? The answer is not so simple
Proof finds that all change is a mix of order and randomness [link]
How ideological bias in academia hampers the search for truth https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56eddde762cd9413e151ac92/t/58b5a7cd03596ec6631d8b8a/1488299985267/Left+Wing+Bias+Paper.pdf …
Why we need the Knightian uncertainty hypothesis [link]
The twitterization of the academic mind [link].  Social media has made scholars impatient, vicious and dull.

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