We are inching closer to a tipping point in the environment that is leading to more extreme weather conditions. Lower snow packs and hot, dry summers make for ideal conditions for the kind of wild fires we are seeing now.

Forests turn from carbon sink to carbon emitter because of pine beetle epidemic

B.C.’s forests experienced heavy carbon losses between 2003-2012, a dramatic change from the previous decade whey they were absorbing carbon, an analysis by the Sierra Club of B.C. shows.

The province’s forests emitted an estimated 256 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere between 2003 and 2012. In the previous 10-year period, they absorbed 441 million tonnes from the atmosphere, according to a report released this month by the environmental group.

Life on Earth is in trouble. That much we know. But how bad have things become – and how fast are events moving? How soon, indeed, before the Earth’s biological treasures are trashed, in what will be the sixth great mass extinction event? This is what Gerardo Caballos of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and his colleagues have assessed, in a paper that came out on Friday.

Interesting computer visuals of climate modelliing and global weather systems.

Of all the climate deniers, one scientist has been particularly closely involved in the campaign against the climate science consensus for the majority of his career: Dr. Willie Soon.

UPDATE Feb. 2013: New FOIA results show new funding to Willie Soon from secret Donors Trustnetwork, Koch brothers and Southern Company. 

PolluterWatch.org has more on Dr. Willie Soon.

Introduction:

We have seen a quantum jump in extreme weather events in the Northern Hemisphere in the last several years. Droughts, deluges, and heat waves are increasingly getting “stuck” or “blocked,” which in turn worsens and prolongs their impact beyond what might be expected just from the recent human-caused increase in global temperatures.

As U.S. President Barack Obama and a Republican-led Congress spar over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, a new analysis of worldwide fossil-fuel reserves suggests that most of the Alberta oil the pipeline is meant to carry would need to remain in the ground if nations are to meet the goal of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius.

Debate over the plausibility of a catastrophic release of methane in coming decades due to thawing Arctic permafrost has escalated after a new Nature paper warned that exactly this scenario could trigger costs equivalent to the annual GDP of the global economy.

Federal scientists who keep a close eye on the Arctic ice would like to routinely brief Canadians about extraordinary events unfolding in the North.

But newly released federal documents show the Harper government has been thwarting their efforts.

In 2012, as the Arctic ice hit the lowest point ever recorded, scientists at the Canadian Ice Service were keen to tell Canadians about the stunning ice loss.