"World's most powerful leaders pose under a dark, ominous storm cloud."

At the G8 meeting, a perfect shot.

At the Fluffy Cloud Café...

... it's a serene place, but you can stir things up.

What are mystery clouds?

In the tradition of "What’s a crash blossom?," I present this clipping from the Christian Science Monitor's front page:



The photograph with ominous clouds directs the mind to see "clouds" as a noun, but the story has nothing at all to do with clouds.

At the Blue Sky Café...

... it's the first day of Spring!

At the Winter Sunset Café...

... it's not that bleak.

A Late Night Café...

... where you can talk until dawn.

At that Horizontal Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

"By far the most important debate about climate change is taking place among scientists, on the issue of climate sensitivity..."

"How much warming will a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide actually produce?"

The conclusion... is this: A doubling of CO2 will lead to a warming of 1.6°-1.7°C (2.9°-3.1°F).

This is much lower than the IPCC's current best estimate, 3°C (5.4°F)....

A cumulative change of less than 2°C by the end of this century will do no net harm. It will actually do net good... Rainfall will increase slightly, growing seasons will lengthen, Greenland's ice cap will melt only very slowly, and so on.

The difficulty has to do with water evaporating from the warmed up seas, and the way water vapor counts greenhouse gas. But how does it count? We're talking about clouds, and clouds also have cooling effects.