climate april 2012

blood stain from suicide in Athens thanks to capitalism 

Story here.

QUOTES

The longer the political elite--whether in Washington or Paris, whether socialist or right-wing, whether Democrat or Republican--ignore the breakdown of globalization, refuse to respond rationally to the climate crisis, and continue to serve the iron tyranny of global finance, the more it will shred the possibility of political consensus, erode the effectiveness of our political institutions, and empower right-wing extremists.

C Hedges the globalization of hollow politics CD 23 Apr 2012

The contiguous United States experienced the warmest March ever in the warmest start of the year ever in the warmest 12-month period ever, according to new data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

CD staff record warm March temps continue CD 9 Apr 2012

There is currently no tax on carbon or even any pressure to live and act responsibly in the US.

Jason Mraz global warming is a now event HP 28 Apr 2012

CLIMATE ART

350.org video Things Happen

MORE TAKES

R Solnit American Dystopia: the 2012 Hunger Games CD 1 May
D Korten a plea for Rio+20: don't commodify Nature CD 25 Apr
C Hedges the globalization of hollow politics CD 23 Apr 2012
R Koehler when we grow up, we'll fall in love w Earth CD 19 Apr
J McWilliams the myth of sustainable meat NYT 12 Apr 2012
P Krugman cannibalize the future NYT 12 Apr 2012
J Walljasper biking boom benefits everyone CD 3 Apr
R Koehler war crimes and the myth of 'bad apples' CD 22 Mar
M T Klare our new 'tough oil' world Nation 13 Mar 2012

EVENTS & NEWS

US: Alabama suffers monster tornado (pics) BF 27 Apr 2012
US: powerful cold storm targets Northeast accuweather 23 Apr
EU: Asian tiger mosquito moves to the north Zeit 24 Apr 2012
Greenland may slip-slide due to surface lake melting SD 16 Apr
US: tornadoes rip through Midwest (pics)  yahoo 15 Apr (text)
US: record warm March temperatures continue CD 9 Apr 2012
US: Alaska snowfall record reuters 8 Apr 2012
See: Alge trotzt Klimawandel mit rasanter Evolution Spieg 8 Apr
EU: Matterhorn crumbling in face of climate change CD 4 Apr
US: dolphins pay heavy price for Deepwater spill Guard 31 Mar
US: 1 conservative makes news, supports electric cars HP 31 Mar
US: Oel schaedigt Korallen in der Tiefe Spiegel 27 Mar 2012
US gov proposes first carbon limits for plants reuters 27 Mar
U.S. inches towards energy independence NYT 23 Mar 2012
Elektroraeder erobern juengere Kundschaft Zeit 21 Mar 2012
U.S. South: floods feared after storms hit Time 20 Mar 2012
U.S. record temperatures soar, highs continue 20 Mar 2012
US: record tornadoes hit Dallas/Ft Worth 12 Mar 2012 (pics)
UK: after two dry winters, spring hosepipe ban Guard 12 Mar

FINDINGS

(ESA's cryosat is now in orbit & at work)
ESA Cryosat website
... Satellit liefert erstmals genaue Daten zum Eis Zeit 24 Apr

(the cognition of the American disenlightenment)
book review: the science of science denial Kos 15 Apr

(heat & humidity --> fungus!)
Emerging fungal thrats to animal, plant and ecosystem health
M Fisher et al Nature 484 (2012): 186-194 12 Apr
... fungus threat escalates for food, wildlife yahoo 11 Apr

(Greenland ice sheet more sensitive than thought)
Multistability and critical thresholds of the Greenland ice sheet
 A Robinson et al, Nature Climate Change 11 Mar 2012
... Groenland-Eis koennte komplett abschmelzen Spiegel  12 Mar

(Tree-ring reconstructions are tricky when trees don't grow)
Underestimation of volcanic cooling in tree-ring based reconstructions
M Mann et al Nature Geoscience 4 (2012): 202-205 5 Feb 2012

(Climate simulations allow weather-link only in the extreme)
Wetterextreme lassen sich global nicht mitteln
T Stocker IPCC interview Die Zeit 29 Mar 2012

(but then again, they DO allow links to extreme weather)
climate change causing extreme weather: IPCC Xinhua 29 Mar
Extremwetter traegt Handschrift des Menschen Spiegel 29 Mar

(We may already have passed the tipping points)
Planet under pressure declaration
... Planet near irreversible point of warming CD 27 Mar 2012
... Planet is in critical state SciDev Net 20 Mar 2012

(ditto)
the geological record of ocean acidification
B Hoenisch et al Science 335 (2012): 1058-1063 2 Mar
... ocean acidification rate may be unprecedented Xinhua 1 Mar

THE MARKET AT WORK

E Brown how Goldman captured Europe CD 18 Apr
S Pizzigati pothole nation CD 16 April 2012
M Niman, post peak oil economy AN 15 Apr 2012
M Krugman Europe's economic suicide NYT 15 Apr 2012
M Klare the new Third World of Energy, the US CD 2 Apr
J Kunstler the fantasy of energy independence CFN 2 Apr 2012
D Orlov trained for success, bred to be eaten COrlov 26 Mar 2012
M Cha Tar Sands: TransCanada wins, Earth loses CD 21 Mar 2012
M Fraser how austerity destroyed our small towns Alternet 12 Mar

DATA

IPCC 2012 SREX Special Report: 
Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation (SREX)
IPCC pdf homepage -- summary 20 p; report 594 p.
... Weltklimarat-Bericht liegt vor Die Zeit 29 Mar 2012
... Mumbai, Miami on list for weather disasters yahoo 28 Mar 

DENIAL & DISENLIGHTENMENT

US: pothole nation 16 Apr 2012
US: 6 scary extreme energy sources being tapped now15 Apr 2012
US: OMG! Weatherman blames tornadoes on c-change! 4 Apr
US: a very sick country CD 2 Apr 2012
Africa aid being outweighed by costs of oil imports Guard 1 Apr 
Bush's hometown runs out of water thanks to climate grist 30 Mar
how cities fail their cyclists in different ways Guard 30 Mar 2012
conservatives losing trust in science, study finds yahoo 29 Mar
big shock: conservatives' belief in science plummets Kos 29 Mar
the war on teachers WP 13 Mar

CIVIL EVOLUTION

Noam Chomsky: Mayday HuffPo 30 Apr 2012
Study: earning $50k = happiness tipping point Time 19 Apr 2012
California solar energy bill HuffPo 17 Apr 2012
Sonnenstrom ist rot Zeit 12 Apr 2012
GM pulls funding from denialist Heartland institute Guard 30 Mar
China explores possibilities of low-carbon future Xinhua 13 Mar 
Vietnam announces nat'l strategy on climate change Xinhua 7 Mar
Subventionen fuer Solartechnik gekuerzt Zeit 1 Mar 2012

NEOLOGISM

Energiewende

The Mad Hun's word on loan from Bavaria

the tough oil world
Michael T. Klare

Saudi-Amerika
Heike Buchter in Die Zeit 29 Mar 2012

REMINDER

We have fifty-five months left.

climate march 2012

CLIMATE ART

"There's No Tomorrow"
animated video(35 min)
by Dermot O'Connor 2012
at idleworm

Global Temperature Evolution 1979-2010 edition

"This is the true global warming signal."  Foster/Rahmstorf 2012

QUOTES

"The close agreement between all five adjusted data sets suggests that it is meaningful to average them in order to produce a composite record of planetary warming.  Annual averages of the result are shown in figure 8.  This is the true global warming signal."

G Foster, S Rahmstorf
"Global temperature evolution 1979-2010"
Environmental Research Letters 6 (2011): 6 DOI

"If you take climate change seriously, you have to throw out the free-market playbook."

N Klein, interview, CD 29 Feb 2012

MORE TAKES

T Friedman pass the books. hold the oil.  NYT 11 Mar 2012
D Suzuki deny deniers their right to deny! HuffPost 9 Mar 2012
F Vahrenholt hier irren die klimapaepste Zeit 6 Mar 2012
N Klein throw out the free-market playbook CD 29 Feb 2012
B Watson growth myth leads to meltdown CD 20 Feb 2012
M Mann battle-hardened by the climate wars Slate 17 Feb 2012
Op-Ed a terrible transportation bill NYT 8 Feb 2012
D Bocking why growth is disreputable Spiegel 27 Jan 2012
G Lakey how swedes broke the 1 percent CD 26 Jan 2012
E Negin it's climate change, stupid HuffPost 23 Jan 2012
N Klein to conservatives, CC is a Trojan Horse Nation 2011
M Moore the winter of our occupation CD 2011

EVENTS & NEWS

US Northeast, Midwest see record high temps 12 Mar 2012
UK anti-Green rollback begins 12 Mar 2012
Australia floods inundate New South Wales 5 Mar 2012
US Midwest storms devastate five states 5 Mar 2012
Spain wilts in driest winter for 70 years 4 Mar 2012
Thailand floods force record economic contraction 20 Feb 2012
Canada's government is muzzling its scientists 18 Feb 2012
Romania military helps frozen towns 13 Feb 2012
USA peak everything--why everything costs more 13 Feb 2012
Italy snow falls in Rome 3 Feb 2012
US Repubs step up attacks on green agenda 2 Feb 2012
Europe cold spell continues, death toll rises 2 Feb 2012
China man-made pollution visible from space 1 Feb 2012
Mexico severe drought strikes country 31 Jan 2012
Alaska all time coldest record nearly broken 30 Jan 2012
USA new federal planting map reflects warming 25 Jan 2012
USA conservatives attack climate in schools 26 Jan 2012
Netherlands life in tidal houses 12 Jan 2012
USA climate change gets less media coverage 4 Jan 2012
USA PBS links extreme weather to climate 1 Jan 2012
Arctic whales benefit from the new polar warmth 2011
Germany autobahn to be covered with giant park 2011

FINDINGS

2011 updates to model-data comparisons
G Schmidt, Real Climate 8 Feb 2012

conservativism thrives on low intelligence and poor info
G Monbiot, Guardian 12 Feb 2012

the Anglophone geography of denial (in German)
M Klingst, "Leugnen und verschleiern," Zeit 9 Feb 2012

scientists: arctic melting leading to Europe's freeze
CD 5 Feb 2012

global warming also to blame for Europe's cold spell (German)
N Reimer, "Erderwaermung mit schuld an Europas Eiseskaelte"
Zeit 3 Feb 2012

leaked data: some biofuels worse than fossil fuels
CD 27 Jan 2012

impact of sea ice cover changes on the NH atmo winter circulation 
R Jaiser et al, Tellus 64 (2012) 2 Jan 2012

THE MARKET AT WORK

Indonesia: concrete balls against train surfers (German)
Spiegel 25 Jan 2012

DATA

J Speth America Number One at the BOTTOM Orion 1 Mar 2012

DENIAL

Op-Ed no need to panic about global warming WSJ 26 Jan 2012

D Rose forget global warming Daily Mail 29 Jan 2012

NEOLOGISM

climate wars
Slate, 17 Feb 2012

REMINDER

we have fifty-seven months left.

climate scholarship

Sigurd Bergmann (Trondheim) and Dieter Gerten (PIK Potsdam) came out with a helpful scholarly anthology on climate, Religion in Environmental and Climate Change (London: Continuum, 2012).  The subtitle is Suffering, Values, Lifestyles.  This anthology is a proceedings; its chapters originate in a symposium held January 2010 at the PIK (Potsdam Institut fuer Klimafolgenforschung / Institute for Climate Impact Research) in Germany near Berlin.  This 2010 conference had been superb: it was interdisciplinary and focused, scholarly and cutting edge, rigorous and creative.  It gathered theologians, anthropologists, ecologists, sociologists, historians, and environmental policy analysts.  The point was to share perspectives from the humanities on the emerging reality of climate change, a reality that challenges human beliefs to the core, and this includes religious creeds.  The subtext of the conference, at least to this here participant, was to do the scholarly groundwork for reinventing western culture. 

When I organized the 2006 climate philosophy conference in Tampa, various American theologians contacted me, wishing to participate, but their submitted proposals were denialist without exception.  I rejected them all, but was regretful that the monotheistic faithful in America are part of the problem.  I would have welcomed theological-philosophical synergies in Tampa, but ultimately had to wait four years before I could enjoy such a heuristic convergence in Berlin.  In Europe, Christians are part of the solution.  How deeply divided the American religious culture is can be seen in the chapters by Laurel Kearns (Drew) and Michael Roberts (unaffiliated; vicar in Lancaster, UK).  Of the other presenters I listened to and chapters I read (an incomplete list), I was most impressed with the papers by Markus Vogt (LMU Munich), Timothy Leduc (York), Susan Crate (George Mason), Froemmig/Reichel (Free University Berlin), and Gulnara Aipaev (National State University Kyrgyzstan).  Here is the list of contributions:

facing the human faces of climate change
Dieter Gerten & Sigurd Bergmann
3-15

global change and the need for new cosmologies
Wolfgang Lucht
16-31

religion in the public sphere: the social function of religion in the context of climate and development policy
Michael Reder
32-45

contemplating climategate: religion and the future of climate research
Timothy Leduc
46-65

climate justice from a Christian point of view: challenges for a new definition of wealth
Markus Vogt
69-84

climate justice and the intrinsic value of Creation: the Christian understanding of Creation and its holistic implications
Friedrich Lohmann
85-106

evangelicals and climate change
Michael Roberts
107-131

religious climate activism in the United States
Laurel Kearns
132-151

the future of faith: climate change and the fate of religion
Martin Schonfeld
152-172

climate and cosmology: exploring Sakha belief and the local effects of unprecedented change in north-eastern Siberia, Russia
Susan Crate
175-199

religious perspectives on climate change among indigenous communities: questions and challenges for ethnological research
Lioba Rossbach de Olmos
200-214

vulnerable coastal regions: indigenous people under climate change in Indonesia
Urte Undine Froemmnig & Christian Reichel
215-235

jaichylyk: harmonizing the will of nature and human needs
Gulnara Aitpaev
236-260

environment, climate and religion in ancient European history
Holger Sonnabend
261-266

As an aside, and for the sake of topical organization, it should be noted that my "the future of faith" is not really scholarship.  Due to its futuristic-speculative subject-matter, it is devoid of empirical contents.  Everything in there is purely conceptual and creatively made up, so it should rather be filed under "climate philosophy".

climate findings

R. Jaiser, K. Dethloff, D. Handorf, A. Rinke, and J. Cohen have found out how global warming causes colder winters.

Their "Impact of  sea ice cover changes on the Northern Hemisphere atmospheric winter circulation" is now in Tellus A 64 (2012): 11595.  The abstract is here.  The full text is here.

Here are excerpts, with the gist in parentheses: 

"The observed decrease in Arctic summer sea ice cover over recent decades is likely due to a combination of decadalscale variability in the coupled ice-ocean-atmosphere-land system and radiative greenhouse gas forcing ... [others] analysed the Arctic sea ice cover changes in the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report model simulations and demonstrated that the observed sea ice retreat is much faster than in the model mean. Their results suggest that Arctic sea ice influences the formation of mid-latitude teleconnection patterns and especially the NAO mode." (p.1-2)

(... which means that the ice melts because of our emissions plus the usual climate wave over the arctic,which is in the warm phase, so it's double trouble; that the melt seen by 2011 is faster than the melt we thought in 2007 we would see; and that there's a link between polar ice melt and weather down south.)

 

"We study the connection between atmospheric planetary waves and baroclinic cyclonic systems in winter, both influenced by Arctic heat anomalies in autumn following low sea ice concentrations and their impact on large-scale circulation changes. [Colleagues] found a temperature amplification above the surface and concluded that changes in meridional atmospheric heat transport may be an important driver for the recent Arctic temperature amplification. By diagnosing the non-linear connections between the Arctic sea ice cover, planetary waves and synoptic storm tracks during winter, the influence of sea ice concentration changes on atmospheric circulation changes has been identified." (p.3)

(... others measured that arctic temps are getting more extreme and blamed heat arriving from down south.  We looked at the polar melt, the long-term seesaw, and storms, and saw that polar melt informs winter weather.)

"For our sensitivity studies, we selected two consecutive winter periods 1990-2000 and 2001-2010. The first 11-year period, 1990-2000, is chosen as a time slice with significantly larger sea ice concentration in the preceding late summer (with a mean value in the Siberian domain of 0.57), referred to as the high ice phase. The second 10-year period, 2001-2010, represents less sea ice concentration (mean value of 0.45), referred to as the low ice phase." (p.3)

(... we looked at the winter weather over the past two decades; the difference between the 1990s and the 2000s is that now there's far less ice up north than there used to be.) 

"A maximum covariance analysis (MCA; von Storch and Zwiers, 1999, see Appendix for details) is used to describe the relation between the fields of averaged August/September sea ice concentration and mean sea level pressure or 500 hPa geopotential heights in the consecutive autumn or winter over the whole time period 1989_2010. The results of this analysis method are pairs of patterns and associated time series for each climatic field, which are coupled through a maximised co-variance of their associated time series. The figures show the pairs of patterns that are expected to occur simultaneously." (p.3)

(... and we found a pattern.)

"The winter 500 hPa geopotential differences between low and high ice concentration ... exhibit pronounced changes over high and middle latitudes. The lower/higher values of geopotential heights over the Arctic Ocean are associated with higher/lower sea ice concentration during the analysed period. In contrast, positive/negative geopotential anomalies are observed over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans during the high/low ice phase. Similar changes in the mean sea level pressure fields between both periods are shown in Fig. 2b consistent with the more frequent occurrence of negative AO pattern in the later period." (p.3)

(... which is this: lows in the arctic happen when there's more ice, arctic highs happen when there's less ice.  So now there are more high pressure zones in the arctic air because of the melt.  When there's more ice, there are more highs down south, and when there's less ice, there are more lows down south.  BTW: "hPa" is hectopascal, which measures air pressure.  And "geopotential height" refers to how high in altitude some air pressure level is, as measured from mean sea level up.)

"Comparing both figures, a decrease in atmospheric stability during the low ice period is visible. The difference plot ... shows this reduction in the middle and lower troposphere in autumn continuing until December. Eady growth rates are larger in autumn compared to winter as seen ... Furthermore, they are increased in the low ice period ... This is partly due to decreased atmospheric stability and therefore baroclinicity rises in the later period. [Another figure] shows this increase beginning in late September continuing to November. Meridional baroclinic heat fluxes are enhanced around the beginning of October ... Additional oceanic heat uptake during summer is rapidly returned to the atmosphere during the following autumn. This heat release to the atmosphere in autumn is connected to an earlier onset of baroclinic instability because of static stability and Eady growth rate changes during the low ice phase. Low sea ice concentration is associated with higher temperatures in the lower troposphere in the polar region (658_808 N) peaking at 758 N (indicated by a negative correlation). The temperature increase … reduces the vertical static stability of the lower Arctic atmosphere. ... the Arctic atmosphere remembers the summer sea ice concentration reduction through a warming and de-stabilisation of the lower troposphere. The positive correlation between vertical static stability and sea ice concentration in the Siberian domain ... demonstrates that reduced vertical stability is connected with less sea ice concentration. Because the onset of baroclinic instability is proportional to the strength of the vertical static stability of the atmosphere, reduced stability leads to an earlier onset of unstable baroclinic systems in the Arctic troposphere. To examine the impact on baroclinic systems in more detail, we plot ... the correlation between winter Eady growth rate and late summer sea ice concentration in the Siberian domain. The effect of the changed meridional temperature gradient dominates. The correlation indicates an enhanced baroclinicity north of 758 N in winter for less sea ice in summer, whereas the Eady growth rate between 608 and 708 N is decreased. This may indicate a shift in the occurrence of storms and cyclones to the north. [Colleagues] analysed the JRA-25 atmospheric dataset and detected a shift towards stronger and more frequently occurring cyclones in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic." (p.5-6)

(... as the polar melt goes on, the atmosphere up there gets unruly, which is worst in fall.  In the summer the ice-less arctic ocean soaks up heat, and as soon as it gets cold in fall, the ocean radiates this heat back into the atmosphere.  The less summer ice there is to reflect heat back during summer, the more heat is being soaked up, and the more of this soaked-up heat radiates when fall temps drop, the sooner the fall atmosphere gets unruly.  When winter comes, there are then more storms.)

"[The concluding para of the penultimate section:] We showed that the initial response of the atmosphere to reduced sea ice concentration in late summer is baroclinic in autumn, which changes to barotropic in winter and triggers changes in the large-scale planetary wave trains over the Pacific. These findings are supported by Honda et al. (2009) who demonstrated in an atmosphere-only model that zonally propagating cold atmospheric anomalies from Europe to the Far East in late winter are correlated with the Arctic sea ice cover decrease in the preceding summer-to-autumn seasons." (p.9)

(The winter storms up north bring cold weather down south.)

And the conclusion:

"We showed that Arctic heating anomalies due to low sea ice concentrations in late summer (August/September) trigger changes in baroclinic systems in autumn because of an earlier onset of baroclinic instability that influences the structure of large-scale planetary waves in the following

winter. The baroclinic structure of the direct response in autumn is linked to different patterns of pressure anomalies at the surface and in the mid-troposphere, which are related to the decrease in sea ice concentration. Decreased static stability and changed meridional temperature gradients

induce an earlier onset of baroclinicity north of 758 N with greater amplitude. Winter heat fluxes on baroclinic scales are increased in the whole Arctic troposphere, whereas a non-linear adjustment leads to decreased heat fluxes associated with planetary waves. Arctic EP fluxes due to planetary waves during winter are enhanced between 700 and 200 hPa in the latitudinal belt north of 658 N during the low sea ice phase. The barotropic structure of the atmospheric response in winter is connected to similar patterns of pressure anomalies at the surface and the mid-troposphere. The pattern over the North Atlantic relates the sea ice decline in late summer to a negative NAO phase in winter. The barotropic pattern over the Pacific due to changes in Arctic sea ice concentration is connected to a distinguished planetary wave train over the region. These results deliver a dynamical background for understanding the role of Arctic sea ice decline on the Arctic temperature amplification and its impact on mid-latitudes contributing to the recent shift to the negative NAO phase. The reduced sea ice concentration at the end of the Arctic summer has the potential to change the largescale circulation in the following winter that could feed back on the sea ice concentration. This sea ice_atmosphere relationship suggests a potential for use in operational Northern Hemisphere seasonal forecasts. Sea ice cover loss has the potential to preferentially shift the probability density function of the AO/NAO to the negative phase, in agreement with the investigations by Overland and Wang (2010). The results of the present study showed the large influence of enhanced baroclinicity on planetary waves similar to the connection between snow cover anomalies and the large-scale atmospheric circulation as shown by Cohen et al. (2007). Further investigation is needed to examine the impact of enhanced baroclinic systems on snow anomalies in the Siberian region. It is plausible that both processes are closely related." (p.9-10)

Jaiser et al refer to Honda (2009); the research is Honda, M., Inoue, J. and Yamane, S. 2009. Influence of low Arctic sea-ice minima on anomalously cold Eurasian winters. Geophys.

Res. Lett. 36, L08707. 

They also refer to Francis (2009); the research is Francis, J. A., Chan, W., Leathers, D. J., Miller, J. R. and Veron, D. E. 2009. Winter Northern Hemisphere weather patterns remember summer Arctic sea-ice extent. Geophys. Res. Lett. 36, L07503.

I didn't see Jaiser et al. talking much about Petoukov/Semenov (2010)'s awesome paper, but the bibliography includes it: Petoukhov, V. and Semenov, V. A. 2010. A link between reduced Barents-Kara sea ice and cold winter extremes over northern continents. J. Geophys. Res. 115, D21111.  An earlier blistered orb post on that particular paper is here.

climate scholarship

As mentioned in the Jan 15 blistered orb post, the research annual Osiris published an issue with the title klima.  This journal deals with the history of science, and its most recent 2011 issue, volume 27, concerns scholarly aspects of the investigation of climate.  The front flap of Osiris says that the volumes in this series 'are designed to dissolve boundaries between history and the history of science' and that they 'cast science in the framework of larger issues prominent in the historical discipline but infrequently treated in the history of science, such as the development of civil society, urbanization, and the evolution of international affairs.'  In the introduction, the issue editors write, 'we have named this volume klima.  This terse but dynamic moniker fits the tone of the contributions, which revive a multivocal and inclusive understanding of a venerable but elusive term.  We seek to decouple klima from its current exclusive association with atmospheric sciences and revisit the implications of an ancient vocabulary for medical, geographical, agricultural, economic, racial, and other 'endemic' concerns.  If climate is not just about the weather, what is it? What does it seek to explain? When is climate invoked? By whom? For what purposes? How are other 'key words' linked with it, such as culture, society, civilization, time and change? In what ways is climate a proxy for other concerns such as regulation, industry, and identity?  When is it not an explanation at all?  Where is climate incarnated?  And how does it matter?'

introduction: revisiting klima
James R Fleming & Vladimir Jankovic
27 (2011): 1-15

(section: natural laboratories)

Humboldtian science, Creole meteorology, and the discovery of human-caused climate change in South America
Gregory T Cushman
27 (2011): 19-44

imperial climatographies from Tyrol to Turkestan
Deborah R Coen
27 (2011): 45-65

the anxieties of a science diplomat: field coproduction of climate knowledge and the rise of fall of Hans Ahlmann's 'Polar Warming'
Sverker Soerlin
27 (2011): 66-88

diagnosing the dry: historical case notes from Southwest Western Australia, 1945-2007
Ruth A Morgan
7 (2011): 89-108

(section: social contexts)

the letter from Dublin: climate change, colonialism, and the Royal Society in the seventeenth century
Brant Vogel
7 (2011): 111-128

inventing Caribbean climates: how science, medicine, and tourism changed tropical weather from deadly to healthy
Mark Carey
7 (2011): 129-141

reculturing and particularizing climate discourses: weather, identity, and the work of Gordon Manley
Georgina Endfield
7 (2011): 142-162

(section: international to global)

concentrating on the CO2: the Scandinavian and Arctic measurements
Maria Bohn
7 (2011): 165-179

melting empires? climate change and politics in Antarctica since the International Geophysical Year
Adrian Howkins
7 (2011): 180-197

the politics of atmospheric sciences: 'nuclear winter' and global climate change
Matthias Doerris
7 (2011): 198-223

optimal climate change: economics and climate science policy histories (from heuristic to normative)
Samuel Randalls
7 (2011): 224-242

(section: climate redux)

reducing the future to climate: a story of climate determinism and reductionism
Mike Hulme
7 (2011): 245-266

climate philosophy

These are the articles that appeared in Journal of Global Ethics 7 (2011), special issue "Climate Ethics." An expanded edition, as a book, is in the works, with essays on African wisdom and Arctic perspectives.  I have no legit hyperlinks (sorry).  The intro is excerpted below.  An oddity about this issue is that 'climate ethics' seemed alright as a title when I put the collection together, but it strikes me now as a misnomer.  If climate ethics is what critics say--a technical application of analytic approaches meaningful in an Anglo-American domain--then what we are doing is not climate ethics!
Call it 'climate philosophy'.

Plan B: global ethics on climate change

Martin Schönfeld

7 (2011): 129-136

climate, imagination, Kant, and situational awareness

Michael Thompson

7 (2011): 137-148

moral progress and Canada's climate failure

Byron Williston

7 (2011): 149-160

climate change and philosophy in Latin America

Ernesto O. Hernandez

7 (2011): 161-172

Watsuji Tetsuro, Fudo, and climate change

Bruce B. Janz

7 (2011): 173-184

climate change and the ecological intelligence of Confucius

Shih-yu Kuo

7 (2011): 185-194

a Daoist response to climate change

Chen Xia, Martin Schönfeld

7 (2011): 195-204

justice, negative GHIs, and the consumption of farmed animal products

Jan Deckers

7 (2011): 205-216

Excerpt from my introduction (pp. 129-136)

"(p. 129) If we are not careful, climate change may trigger the greatest catastrophe in the history of civilization. Climate change is not a future danger anymore. The processes are well underway, and a destabilization of the Earth system has begun. This lends vital urgency to the question that is at the heart of ethics: what should we do? Philosophy is the rational investigation of existence in the world, but the world is different now from the one our ancestors inhabited. The difference concerns not so much the obvious phenomena one associates with modernity, such as urbanization, industry, and technology, because all of them, in various ways, have shaped the world already for centuries. The real and radical difference, between our generation and all the ones in the past, is the collective arrival at the limit of existing in the world. The world is our oikos or house; we have filled this ecological house over time, and now the house is full. Reaching such limits is an experience bygone cultures knew as well, but only in localized form. This is the first time in all of history that global civilization without exception – the sum-total of humankind – arrives at this juncture.
"... (p. 133) The new reality of climate change informs virtually all phenomena on the list of environmental problems, plus spawning entire new orders of hitherto unknown troubles of its own. From the traditional vantage point of environmental ethics, it also affects whoever has moral standing in some form, whether these are people, future generations, apes, animals, plants, biotic systems, or Aldo Leopold’s integrity of the land. Climate change, through its diverse facets, manifold risks, and multiple dimensions, is an integrative reality. It puts all the traditional problems in a new place. It arises as the salient context for all of them. Thus, it is not an entry on the list; it is the new paper the old items are written on. To put it baldly, it is the list. Because being-in-the-world has arrived at the fork, everything is now different. As an academic aside, it is perhaps worth noting that environmental ethics is now obsolete. The sum-total of its subject-matter currently integrates in the existential context of climate change. Thus, climate ethics is its rightful heir. From a philosophical look at the fork, all empirical trends point to the same conceptual conclusion: taking the right path – the path of sustainability, mitigation, and resilience – requires civilization to put as much distance as possible between itself and the paradigm whose implementation unleashed the climate crisis. The question of where we stand at the fork is also a question about location relative to the paradigm.
"... (p. 134) This topic issue of Journal of Global Ethics is based on the assumption that conventional modes of thought are bankrupt. It is difficult to believe that the normative perspectives and conceptual tools that contributed to the climate crisis in the first place, such as discounting against the future, cost-benefit analysis, and other utilitarian market devices, will be capable of providing us with a solution. Put differently, I doubt that ‘Plan A’ is going to work. A continued deliberation of market tools and utilitarian devices may not lead very far. What is worse, it appears that the prevailing mentalities of philosophical convention are not going to be of great use either. Philosophy, in the past century, split into postmodern thought and analytic philosophy. These two camps, despite their obvious differences, share the common ground of skepticism. Skepticism is inappropriate and irresponsible in the face of absolute limits. Postmodernity emphasizes culture over nature, (p. 135) deconstruction over structure, and interpretation over lawfulness. Such emphasis, it appears, makes things worse, as postmodern approaches are easily appropriated by climate deniers for corporate gain. Analyticity stresses the breakdown of information, the isolation of data, and the separation of events from context. This appears wrong-headed and obsolete, because climate change asks philosophers to do the precise opposite: the reconciliation of information, the  understanding of data, and the integration of events in context.
Analysis is not needed now; synthesis is."

climate ethics

These are the articles that appeared in The Monist 94 (2011), special issue "Morality and Climate Change," edited by Simon Caney (Oxford) and Derek Bell (Newcastle), pp. 305-452.  The links are to pdfs at the USF library; apologies if they may be iffy off-campus. The intro is excerpted below.

morality and climate change
Simon Caney, Derek Bell
94 (2011): 305-309

climate change refugees, compensation, and rectification
Avner de Shalit
94 (2011): 310-328

can the maximin principle serve as a basis for climate change policy?
Greg Bognar
94 (2011): 329-348

climate change and individual responsibility
Avram Hiller
94 (2011): 349-368

nonrenewable resources and the inevitability of outcomes
Benjamin Hale
94 (2011): 369-390

global climate justice, historic emissions, and excusable ignorance
Derek Bell
94 (2011): 391-411

climatic justice and the fair distribution of atmospheric burdens: a conjunctive account
Edward Page
94 (2011): 412-432

a right to sustainable development
Darrel Moellendorf
94 (2011): 433-452

Excerpt from Caney's introduction (p 305-309):

"Climate change poses many ethical issues.  One important normative question concerns how we evaluate the impacts of climate change. Should we be concerned only with its impact on human beings? What about its effects on nonhuman animals and on the world itself? Do these have independent moral value? Furthermore, when we are considering its impacts on human beings there are a number of different ethical criteria one might appeal to. One might, for example, focus on its effects on utility or well-being considered more broadly, or its effects on the realization of human rights (Caney 2009), or on some other criterion. ... Any normative appraisal of how to respond to the prospect of climate change requires more than an account of what criteria should be employed to evaluate climatic impacts. Another highly important question arises from the fact that there is considerable uncertainty about the magnitude of the likely changes to the earth’s climate and their corresponding effects on people’s lives. ... This raises the question: how should humanity respond to the risks and uncertainties involved?...  (p.306) In addition to the two questions considered so far, a third important question (or rather set of questions) concerns the resulting moral responsibilities to act. One can distinguish between (at least) two questions here. First, what kinds of entities have moral responsibilities to act? It is commonly assumed that states have a responsibility to act but what about individuals? Or corporations? What role, if any, should international institutions (such as theWTO or IMF orWorld Bank or EU) play? A second question is: how should the burden of combating climate change be distributed? What distributive principle should be adopted? ... (p. 307) As noted above, any adequate account of the responsibilities to address climate change must address not simply what kinds of entities are the relevant duty bearers but also how duties should be distributed among duty bearers. ... As noted above, one principle invoked by Page and others is that those responsible for bringing about climate change should pay. One issue that arises here concerns what responsibilities we should ascribe in cases where people emitted greenhouse gases but were excusably ignorant of their role in bringing about dangerous climate change. ... (p. 308) The issue of how to distribute burdens connects to another fundamental issue—namely, what is the relationship between burden sharing and enabling the least developed countries to develop? ... (p. 309) These, then, are the questions explored by the papers in this issue. There are, of course, many other questions—including, for example, What principle of intergenerational equity should be applied? Is it appropriate, as many economists have argued, to adopt a positive social discount rate? How should the right to emit greenhouse gases be distributed? What moral issues, if any, are raised by the measures suggested to deal with climate change—measures such as emissions trading, geo-engineering, population control, and nuclear energy? There is increasing interest in climate ethics (Gardiner, Caney, Jamieson, and Shue 2010). Our hope is that the essays included here help stimulate further reflection on the moral challenges raised by climate change."