November

News in November 2014

November 2014: Recommendations to the President of the United States from the President's State, Local, and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience has been released. Read the report here.


RCI Affiliate David Robinson predicts a volatile winter this year. His research links East Coast winter and snow cover in Siberia during the month of October. Read more about his research and forecasting here.


Rutgers Energy Institute 2014-2015 Energy Innovation Contest  for undergraduates to create innovative plans to reduce student energy consumption and promote eco-friendly practices on the New Brunswick Campus. Registration deadline February 27, 2013. Click herefor more information.


What is causing the mid-latitude chill? RCI Affiliate Jennifer Francis is quoted in this UCAR article, this Washington Post Article, and this al-Jazeera article discussing her theory that the melting sea ice in the Arctic is behind recent colder winters. Read the article for contrasting  theories on the cause of the mid-latitude chill. Dr. Francis' work was also recently published in Nature Geoscience. Read more about it and listen to an  interview with Dr. Francis here.Rutgers University Global Snow Lab was mentioned in this Bloomberg news articleon the theory linking Siberian snowfall with winter weather in parts of the globe.


The U.S. and China, the two biggest carbon emitters  in the world, jointly announced their plans to reduce carbon emissions. Read the White House press release here and New York Times coverage  here, here, and here.


RCI Affiliate Alan Robock contributed to the latest IPCC report on climate change and was interviewed in this NJTVonline report.


RCI Affiliate Alan Robock discusses the potential risks and consequences of solar radiation management in this article about technology and climate change from The Toronto Star.

 


The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a 175-page synopsis of their work over the past 5 years in a new report. Among the conclusions: the character and severity of impacts from climate change and extreme events emerge from risk that depends not only on climate-related hazards but also on exposure (people and assets at risk) and vulnerability (susceptibility to harm) of human and natural systems andSurface temperature is projected to rise over the 21st century under all assessed emission scenarios. It is very likely that heat waves will occur more often and last longer, and that extreme precipitation events will become more intense and frequent in many regions. The ocean will continue to warm and acidify, and global mean sea level to rise. Read more about the report in this New York Times article .


RCI Affiliates Kenneth Miller, Yair Rosenthal, and James Wright are among the co-authors of  a paper in Science that argues that it was the establishment of the modern deep ocean circulation about 2.7 million years ago, and not a major change in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere that triggered an expansion of the ice sheets in the northern hemisphere and that changes in heat distribution between the ocean basins is important for understanding future climate change. Read more in this mycentraljersey.com article.Read about it earthtimes.orghere. The link to the original paper in Science is here.


USDA launches its Northeast Climate Hub to deliver science-based knowledge and practical information to farmers, ranchers and forest landowners within the northeastern United States from Maine to West Virginia with a focus on technologies and risk management practices.