What have we learnt at COP21 so far? The 147 world leaders who turned up spoke passionately. The negotiators seem determined to get a strong agreement, already working past midnight each evening. The process of the negotiations seems to be much improved from previous COPs, with small groups doing much of the hard work.
Category Archives: communication
Reflections from Paris COP – day 2
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
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.
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.
Climate Communiqué
Today, twenty-four UK learned and professional societies express their joint views on the risks of climate change and the opportunities for innovation to address those risks.
The signatories include societies of physical scientists, engineers, medical scientists, social scientists & artists, amongst others. This is the first time such a broad range of professional bodies have issued such a unanimous text.
Climate communiqué
The scientific evidence is now overwhelming that the climate is warming and that human activity is largely responsible for this change through emissions of greenhouse gases. Continue reading Climate Communiqué
Extreme UK heatwaves
The largest impacts of increases in temperature will not be experienced due to changes in the mean, but by changes in the extremes. This is illustrated using UK heatwaves to show that the number of days which will require preventative action will increase by roughly a factor of 6 for a 2ºC increase in summer temperatures. Continue reading Extreme UK heatwaves