November 12, 2013

Extreme Weather: What is the Amount of Risk We Can Tolerate?

Is the frequency of extreme weather events a sign that global warming is gaining pace and exceeding predictions?

Every time there is an extreme weather event, such as the super-typhoon Haiyan that recently ravaged the Philippines, this question comes up:

Is the frequency of extreme weather events a sign that global warming is gaining pace and exceeding predictions?

Not so much, says NASA climate scientist Bill Patzert, who describes the scientific consensus as being that climate change has has a small fingerprint, as opposed to a large footprint, on extreme weather events. However, looking into the future, Patzert says that climate change will have a greater impact.

Watch here:

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

▸

7 min

—

with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

The Way We Debate the Existence of God is Different Today

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: Religious belief is now something that scientists are looking at and trying to explain and I don’t think it’s an accident that the most prominent atheist writers come from the domain of evolutionary psychology.