The aptly-named Camille Seaman’s photographs of icebergs.

New York Times environmental reporter Justin Gillis on how often he feels it’s necessary to quote climate change skeptics in his articles:

I quote the climate skeptics or deniers — whatever term you prefer — when they’re relevant. So when I’m doing a piece about the science itself and what the latest scientific findings are, especially if that’s a short piece, I don’t necessarily feel obliged to quote the climate skeptics the same way that if you were doing a story about evolution, a New York Times reporter wouldn’t feel obliged to call up a creationist and ask them what they think. On the other hand, the climate skeptics are politically relevant at this point in American history [in a way] the creationists are not, for example, so we have a fair chunk of the Congress … that sees political traction right now in questioning climate science or purporting not to believe it and so, in a political story or in a longer story, I usually do give some amount of space to the climate skeptics.

Image by Jonathan Stead/Flickr

We’ve got approximately half as much sea ice in the Arctic in the fall now as we did say, 30 years or so ago — there’s been this dramatic decrease. There is emerging research — my colleagues and I published a paper last February on this — suggesting that as that sea ice melts it’s changing the jet stream, a current that steers weather in the mid-latitudes, places like New York. As sea ice melts, our research suggests that the jet stream is going to tend to get weaker. As the jet stream gets weaker, it’s easier for storms to stagnate or in some cases, maybe even move to the west, which is what this storm did.

Most hurricanes, as they get as far north as a place like New York, especially late in the season — September, October — [the] standard pattern is for that strong jet stream to push those storms to the east. What we saw with this storm was that it moved to the west. It’s a very unusual track and I would say it’s a big research question whether we might see in general more stormy weather and storms taking a track like that as sea ice melts.

— Dr. Radley Horton on melting sea ice and how it can steer hurricanes like Sandy in unusual directions

Climate scientist Dr. Radley Horton on storms in the future:

Given the higher sea levels in the future, even if storms remain exactly the same, we’re going to get more frequent flooding events, maybe three times as many coastal flood events by the end of the century, just by virtue of having average sea levels be higher.

(Image: Reuters)

Also up for today: we talk about Hurricane Sandy with Dr. Radley Horton, the climate science lead for the science policy team of the NYC Panel on Climate Change.

buzzfeedandrew:

A parking lot full of yellow cabs is flooded as a result of Hurricane Sandy in Hoboken. (AP)

This not only borrowed from some of the tactics that the tobacco industry had used to delay public understanding of the dangers of smoking, in some cases there were even overlaps of individuals and groups that were engaged in this communications campaign. A lot of corporate America opposed the Kyoto Accords. But only a small set of companies did what Exxon did which was to really go after the science as aggressively as they did.

— On today’s Fresh Air, investigative journalist Steve Coll explains how ExxonMobil has used its money and power to wield significant influence in Washington, D.C. concerning issues like climate change.