Temperature Record of the Week
This issue's Temperature Record of the week is from Syracuse, New York. Visit our U.S. Climate Data section to plot and view these data for yourself.
Current Editorial
Reducing Chilling Injuries in Plants: The Role of Elevated CO2: There are several reported instances of atmospheric CO2 enrichment enabling plants to better withstand the deleterious consequences of exposure to low temperatures. We discuss two closely related mechanisms by which this phenomenon might be explained, together with some of its potential ramifications.
Subject Index Summaries
Alpine Ecosystems: As atmospheric CO2 concentrations continue to rise and as air temperatures do whatever they do in response to, or independently of, this phenomenon, what is happening, or what can be expected to happen, to earth's alpine ecosystems?
Sea Ice (Arctic): Is it melting away before our very eyes?
Carbon Sequestration Commentary
Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment: Its Impact on the Abundance of Soil Organic Matter: There are two ways to increase the size of any dynamic reservoir: increase the rate of inflow to the reservoir or reduce its outflow rate. So it is with the organic carbon that is deposited in the world's soil bank: if the store of carbon is to grow (and thereby temper the rate of global warming), carbon must either be deposited faster or withdrawn slower. How fortunate we are that the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content promotes both of these processes.
Current Journal Reviews
The Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age in Tropical South China: Once again, far from the region of the North Atlantic, multiple evidences of both the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age testify to the global reality of the recurring millennial-scale climatic oscillation that is likely responsible for the current Modern Warm Period.
The "Good Old Days" of Little Ice Age Climate Instability: Climate alarmists seem to want to turn back the clock to earlier cooler times in earth's history, fearful of what a little extra warmth could do to the planet. Paleoclimatic data derived from a lake in southern Greenland, however, clearly demonstrate that warmer times are not only natural but much to be preferred.
Dying from Heat and Cold in Germany: Not only does cold kill more, heat kills not at all.
To the Big Bleaching and Back Again: The authors recount how reef-flat corals of Japan's Ishigake Island suffered, and then recovered, from the massive 1997-98 El Niņo-induced bleaching episode, which they describe as the most extensive and severe ever recorded.
Effects of Elevated CO2 on the Dark Respiration of Leaves: Will plants expend more or less energy than they do now keeping themselves alive at night in a CO2-enriched world?