Climate Change: Three days in the news

Apr 2: Economist warns of ‘radical’ climate change, millions at risk
The author of an influential 2006 study on climate change warned Tuesday that the world could be headed toward warming even more catastrophic than expected but he voiced hope for political action.
Nicholas Stern, the British former chief economist for the World Bank, said that both emissions of greenhouse gas and the effects of climate change were taking place faster than he forecast seven years ago.
Without changes to emission trends, the planet has roughly a 50 percent chance that temperatures will soar to five degrees Celsius (nine degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial averages in a century, he said.
“We haven’t been above five degrees Centigrade on this planet for about 30 million years. So you can see that this is radical change way outside human experience,” Stern said in an address at the International Monetary Fund. …

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From Australia:
April 3: Top scientists agree climate has changed for good
The nation’s top climate scientists and science bodies have for the first time endorsed a major report that says Australia’s climate has shifted permanently in some cases.
The peer-reviewed assessment notes that there is “strong consensus” around this central finding, and in some cases the weather has changed for good.
Last summer was by all means a record breaker, with 123 weather records broken in 90 days.
As well as heat waves and unprecedented temperatures, there was heavy rainfall and major flooding.
But according to the Climate Commission, this was not a one-off.
In its most comprehensive assessment analysis, the commission says Australia has a future of records yet to be broken and “in some cases day-to-day weather has shifted for good”.

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From Canada’s Arctic:

The ice in Canada’s western Arctic ripped open in a massive “fracturing  event” this spring that spread like a wave across 1,000 kilometres of the  Beaufort Sea.

Huge leads of water – some more than 500 kilometres long and as much as 70  kilometres across – opened up from Alaska to Canada’s Arctic islands as the  massive ice sheet cracked as it was pushed around by strong winds and  currents.
“It took just seven days for the fractures to progress across the entire area  from west to east,” said Trudy Wohlleben, senior ice forecaster at the Canadian  Ice Service. …

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Scientists suggests the extensive fracturing this year may be linked to the  way the Beaufort was covered almost completely by first-year ice that formed  after the record summer Arctic ice melts in 2012.
“This ice is thinner and weaker than the older, multiyear ice, so it responds  more readily to winds and is more easily broken up,” said Walt Meier, of the  U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.

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Oh sorry, no mention of climate change in that article.  I was thinking of this piece:

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From Canada’s Capital:

Apr 2: Probe launched into ‘muzzling’ of scientists

The report, Muzzling Civil Servants: A Threat to Democracy, says the  government has implemented policies that “routinely require political approval  before scientists can speak to the media about their scientific findings.” …
Natural Resources Canada has adopted “particularly strict rules restricting  the ability of scientists to talk to the media about ‘climate change’ and  ‘oil-sands,'” the report says.
And Environment Canada “specifically forbids scientists from speaking to the  public on identified issues such as climate change or protection of polar bear  and caribou until the Privy Council Office gives approval,” it says.