The Paris COP21 continues. The atmosphere today was far more relaxed after the excitement of the speeches from world leaders yesterday. Negotiations have started more seriously with discussions over decarbonisation – perhaps this should be called carbon austerity! Continue reading Reflections from Paris COP – day 2
All posts by Ed Hawkins
Reflections from Paris COP – day 1
Today, the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) began in Paris. The aim of the conference is to finalise an international 195-nation agreement to reduce global emissions of carbon dioxide, and to address issues such as deforestation & climate finance. I am attending for three days as part of the University of Reading ‘observer’ delegation. Continue reading Reflections from Paris COP – day 1
Near-term global temperature forecasts
How will global temperatures evolve over the next 20 years? The IPCC AR5 made an assessment that average global temperatures in the 2016-2035 period would likely be 0.3 – 0.7°C above the 1986-2005 average. Some climate scientists disagree with that assessment. Continue reading Near-term global temperature forecasts
Website gremlins
As you may have noticed, there have been some recent problems with the Climate Lab Book blog. These have now largely been resolved. The site is hosted on one of our University servers which suffered a disk failure. Also, some of the backup systems had not been working properly. The site has now been restored to a backup from 11th November. Comments since that time have been lost – many apologies. I will happily reinstate any that are reposted.
Connecting climate model projections with the real world
Often when analysing and comparing climate data we have to choose a reference period (or baseline) to calculate anomalies. But it is not often discussed why a particular baseline is chosen. Our new paper (open access in BAMS) considers this issue and asks: does the choice of reference period matter?
Continue reading Connecting climate model projections with the real world
Information Tribunal decides on the IPCC Zero-Order Drafts
On 1 May 2015, the UK’s First-Tier Tribunal unanimously dismissed David Holland’s appeal for copies of the Zero-Order Draft (ZOD) of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) made under Freedom of Information legislation. Their decision is available here. They considered Holland’s appeal to be “entirely without merit”.
Guest post by Tim Osborn, University of East Anglia (UEA)
Note that this post is slightly outside the usual topics discussed on this blog, but it is relevant to the climate science community. The Comments will be moderated. – Ed
Continue reading Information Tribunal decides on the IPCC Zero-Order Drafts
Comment on Clark (2015)
In Weather this month, a paper by Colin Clark discusses temperature data from two rural stations in Somerset (UK). These two stations show a cooling trend over the last two decades which Clark suggests is opposite to that expected. The associated editorial suggests that this is a controversial finding.
What have global temperatures ever done for us?
Much attention is rightly given to changes in global mean surface temperature – it is the key metric for assessing how our climate is changing and evaluating mitigation strategies. However, no-one directly experiences changes in global mean temperature – it is only through local variations that changes in climate are felt.
So, what have global temperatures ever done for us? Continue reading What have global temperatures ever done for us?