If global temperatures continue to rise, Antarctica’s melting glaciers will cause the oceans to rise, as well as drastic changes in climate. However, new research by British Antarctic Survey shows that Antarctica paradoxically saw a 10 percent increase in snowfall over the last 200 years. The increase in snowfall doesn’t contradict previous estimates of ice loss around Antarctica’s coast, but it does make the picture more complicated. Previous climate change models, proposed in 2013, predicted that global sea levels would rise by a meter by the year 2100 due in part to melting Antarctic ice, but those estimates have proven to be flawed. —Outer Place, 9 April 2018
A new consistent reconstruction of the solar activity of the last 9000 years offers a more reliable estimate of the long-term evolution of the solar variability. —Chi Ju Wu et al. (2018) Astronomy & Astrophysics 5 April 2018
Following four years of trials, which saw thousands of wheat varieties tested in the unforgiving sub-Saharan heat, scientists have successfully turned what was first thought of as a “crazy idea” into a vital new food crop. With more than 1 million smallholders living along the Senegal River basin, which also runs through Mali and Mauritania, it was an important strategic area to trial the wheat. The strain of wheat can withstand constant 40C [104 degrees Fahrenheit] temperatures and has been developed by the International Centre for Research in the Dry Areas (Icarda). —Mark Hillsdon, The Guardian, 23 March 2018
The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has criticised Ofcom for its ruling against a BBC interview with Lord Lawson. In his interview with the BBC’s Today Programme on 10 August 2017, Lord Lawson pointed out that while some extreme events had increased, others had diminished.
Overall, however, extreme weather events had not increased according to the IPCC. Without providing any evidence to justify disputing the IPCC’s conclusions, Ofcom claimed that Lawson’s statement about the extreme weather was incorrect and not sufficiently challenged by the BBC presenter during the interview.
Ofcom, however, appears to base its ruling on information from unnamed complainants, the BBC (and possibly from other unnamed sources) without publishing that information or where it obtained it from. As a result, nobody is able to see it and judge its credibility. It did not ask Lord Lawson for any information regarding his statements. That Ofcom should judge on scientific matters without justifying their decision sets a worrying precedent concerning the oversight of journalists. —Global Warming Policy Foundation, 10 April 2018
Scientists in the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) have calculated how much false warming NOAA-14 reported so the false warming could be removed from a long-term global atmospheric temperature record collected by MSU’s on satellites since mid-November 1978. —University of Alabama, Huntsville, 6 April 2018
A heat tolerate wheat is a good thing and I’m all for it. In some location it will help provide food. We also need a variety of wheat that can do well in extra cold weather. There is a better than even chance that we will be entering a mini ice age.