'Arctic Oscillation' Spilling Cold into North America and Europe | SolveClimate News

According to Serreze, a negative Arctic Oscillation can help in two different ways. First, prevailing winds when the Arctic Oscillation is negative tend to keep older, thicker sea ice cover — which is more resistant to melting — in the Arctic instead of being transported through Fram Strait and into the North Atlantic. "The real important thing is it tends to basically sequester old ice in the Arctic Ocean,” he says.

Second, it tends to cause ice to diverge over the central Arctic Ocean, which "would leave areas [of open water] where new ice could grow.”

The problem, he says, is the overall warming of the ocean and atmosphere in the Arctic may be changing some of the relationships between sea ice and seasonal weather patterns. "What we’re starting to see is indications that those old rules don’t really apply that well anymore.”

Ocean acidification: one less thing to worry about | Washington Examiner

“There is solid evidence that elevated atmospheric CO2 levels have actually caused carbonate deposition to increase over the last 220 years,” Middleton writes.

In fact, CO2 may actually be good for coral reefs. “It appears that in addition to being plant food… CO2 is also reef food,” he points out:

“Over the last 400+ years the Earth’s climate has warmed ~0.6°, mean sea level has risen by about 9 inches and the atmosphere has become about 100 ppmv more enriched with CO2; and the Great Barrier Reef has responded by steadily growing faster…. Once again, we have an environmental catastrophe that is entirely supported by predictive computer models and totally unsupported by correlative and empirical scientific data,” he concludes.

“We can safely pitch ocean acidification into the dustbin of junk science.”