The Climate Has Already Changed

Human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases helped trigger the increase in extreme rain events seen in North America over the second half of the 20th century, a group of climate scientists reported Wednesday in the journal Nature.

In a second Nature paper, another group reported that human greenhouse gas emissions likely contributed to the horrendous floods that inundated England and Wales in the fall of 2000. Those scientists ran sophisticated climate simulations across a network of tens of thousands of home computers that volunteers loaded with climate-modeling software.

Via Kevin Drum, who adds:

My friend the geophysicist emailed the other day to tell me his house in Connecticut was still snowed in. “The main hypotheses for why we have so much snow,” he explained, “involve heat coming out of the now-open Arctic ocean in early winter. Once the ice cap freezes over temporarily, the wild weather calms down.”

Three for Friday

* College Writing Class Assignments with Real-World Applications.

10. Write a cover letter to a bank manager that claims your B.A. in literature gives you advantages that people who have degrees in business, finance or economics simply don’t have.

Damn straight. Alternatively, the literature student might consider getting a quick certificate in banking from Stephen Colbert “University.”

* America’s Ten Deadest Cities. Clocking in at #4: my beloved Cleveland, who population has nearly halved since 1950. (Thanks, Steve!)

* The aim of the Attribution of Climate-Related Events workshop was to discuss what information is needed to determine the extent to which human-induced climate change can be blamed for extreme weather events – possibly even straight after they have happened. Via this post from Kevin Drum talking more generally about adaptation, prevention, and reparation for climate change.

Monday Night Linkdump

* Don’t be evil: It looks as if Google has committed itself to killing Net Neutrality. Discussion at MeFi.

* Terrible flooding in Pakistan.

* Now so-called scientists have ruined the Bermuda Triangle, too. Where’s your sense of wonder, science? Where’s your sense of wonder? (via Alex G.)

* Temp U: Colleges are beginning to move their adjuncts off-payroll.

* Big Think is blogging a “Dangerous Idea” a day all month. The thing is they’re all terrible ideas.

* Lost Star Wars sequel footage found.

* Definition of a masochist: Mets’ fan who watches his team lose a one-run game to the hated Phillies, then hopes the Red Sox will beat the Yankees to make up for it.

* And President Maddow lets loose against Bill O’Reilly.

Just Another Thursday Night Linkdump

* Bad news, grad students: Lack of sleep linked to early death.

* Joe Lieberman thinks he’s found a loophole in that silly Constitution thing: revoking the citizenship of suspected terrorists. It’s a great idea that has no possible downside and could never be abused.

* Oh, and Lieberman’s take on the Gulf of Mexico disaster is “Accidents happen.” What could possibly go wrong, that hasn’t already gone wrong, to convince these people that offshore drilling isn’t worth it?

* Democrats demoralized. I wonder why.

* Supreme Court Upholds Freedom Of Speech In Obscenity-Filled Ruling.

* Facebook doing everything wrong.

* The flooding in Nashville has now been declared a national emergency. The Big Picture has pictures of what’s happening there.

* Genetically engineered crops lead to genetically engineered weeds. Via MetaFilter.

* The FCC will reclassify broadband in order to preserve its ability to protect net neutrality.

* Natural Catalogue (in Alphabetic Order). Photos from Agata Marzecova.

* Eric Cantor booed by Heritage Foundation audience for refusing to name Obama a “domestic enemy.” The lunatics are running the asylum.

* Matt Yglesias covers some important bipartisanship cooperation from the U.S. Senate.

* Oil disaster update: Less than a week after British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and unleashing what could be the worst industrial environmental disaster in U.S. history, the company announced more than $6 billion in profits for the first quarter of 2010, more than doubling profits from the same period the year before. Robert F. Kennedy explores the Cheney connection, while Nicole Allan blames Halliburton.

* Hope: The Tucson and Flagstaff city councils voted Tuesday to sue Arizona over its tough new immigration law, citing concerns about enforcement costs and negative effects on the state’s tourism industry.

* The Darjeeling Limited coming to the Criterion Collection.

* Horse names from The Wire.

* Tough but fair: Goran Tunjic carded for fatal heart attack during soccer game.

* And your feel-good/feel-terrible story of the day: Local boy with cancer turns into a superhero for a day.

Links!

Links!

* The headline reads, “Las Vegas Nervously Watches The Water Drop.”

* More likely that not, there will no major international climate deal at Copenhagen.

* NJ-GOV ’13: Cory Booker drops the murder rate in Newark.

* The Nation considers the Palin effect.

* New York, after the flood. Via io9.

Apocalypse Porn

The Big Picture has apocalypse porn from the devastating flooding of the Mississippi.