Monday What's on the Web: Jeff Masters

Every Monday I highlight other bloggers or web contributors who are making important or interesting contributions to climate, sustainability, transportation or market transformation. Check back each week for another installment.
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There is no better source for the latest on weather developments worldwide than Jeff Master's Wunderblog on the Weather Underground site.  He provides tremendous detail regarding tropical storms, heat waves, droughts and extreme weather of all kinds.

Last week on August 27 he reported the opening of both the Northwest and Northeast passages while also comprehensively covering all the hurricane, tropical storm and tropical storm precursor weather everywhere in the world.  It's from his blog that I learned 17 countries broke all time temperature records so far in 2010 (the 17 countries is a record)

His understanding of both weather and climate is impressive, and he is good at debunking poorly constructed climate skeptic arguments.  Here's a great quote from the same August 27 posting:

"Diminishing the importance of Arctic sea ice loss by calling attention to Antarctic sea ice gain is like telling someone to ignore the fire smoldering in their attic, and instead go appreciate the coolness of the basement, because there is no fire there. Planet Earth's attic is on fire. This fire is almost certain to grow much worse. When the summertime Arctic sea ice starts melting completely a few years or decades hence, the Arctic will warm rapidly, potentially leading to large releases of methane gas stored in permafrost and in undersea "methane ice" deposits. Methane is 20 - 25 times more potent than CO2 at warming the climate, meaning that the fire in Earth's attic will inexorably spread to the rest of the globe. To deny that the fire exists, or that the fire is natural, or that the fire is too expensive to fight are all falsehoods. This fire requires our immediate and urgent attention. Volunteer efforts to fight the fire by burning less coal, oil, and gas are laudable, but insufficient. It's like trying to fight a 3-alarm blaze with a garden hose."

His readership is enormous.  His posts receives thousands of comments every day.

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