Climate Science

General

* IPCC Third Assessment Report (2001) * Climate change on Wikipedia (especially good figures e.g. Climate Change attribution) * Global Climate Change Student Guide from ARIC (pdf) * Royal Society - A guide to facts and fictions about climate change. Prepared by a group led by Sir David Wallace FRS, Treasurer of the Royal Society, and Sir John Houghton FRS, former chair of Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and endorsed by the Council of the Royal Society. It addresses the popular skeptics' arguments and the value of the Kyoto Protocol as a first step.

"Dangerous" climate change

* Stabilising climate to avoid dangerous climate change (2005) from the Hadley Centre: "dangerous" climate change in terms of abrupt (i.e. tipping points: gulf stream, terrestrial carbon sink, greenland ice sheet and methane hydrates (good summaries)) and gradual change; relation between CO2 concentrations and temperature; emissions scenarios and CO2 levels. (NB the model-based projections for the greenland ice-sheet on time-scales of 1000s yr are disputed by Hansen (below), who claims that real-world data show much faster response times). * Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change (2005) from the Exeter conference of the same name (see this guardian story) * James Hansen's presentation Is There Still Time to Avoid "Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference" with Global Climate? (2005) given at the AGU on Dec 6th. (An interesting quote: "Humans now control climate, for better or for worse" (p.6)) * Can 2°C warming be avoided? (2006) article on Realclimate, based partly on the Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change report.

Atmospheric CO2

* Atmospheric CO2 Records from Online Trends by CDIAC (Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Centre): range of historical (ice core) and contemporary CO2 records. * CO2 record from Mauna Loa (1958-present) (data)

Change Change Impacts

* Climate Change on the Millenial Timescale from the Tyndall Research Centre: up to 10 degrees warming and 11 metres sea level rise by 3000.

Jim's links

The warming effects of our fossil fuel burning are already ‘irreversible’ in that they will last thousands of years. A worthy Realclimate article is http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=134 “How long will global warming last?” – great apart from the pseudo-economics in the final comment.

I favour speaking of the danger of ‘runaway’ global warming, to describe passing a threshold where positive feedbacks from biospheric gas releases and melting ice bring about ‘catastrophic’ warming of several Celsius. This is different usage from describing the situation on the planet Venus, but can anyone suggest better words?

The following is my updated list of URLs for key article references on the long term effects of climate change and the case for action. A letter enclosing a version of this list with some articles enclosed was delivered to most MPs on the occasion of our December 3 rally.

(a) Man-made runaway warming “would last 100,000 years” – Science on latest evidence on catastrophic global warming event 55 million years ago. See http://physorg.com/news4491.html; also www.newscientist.com > search “Ancient Bleak” > top result

(b) Man-made runaway warming can be averted at cost “only 0.3-0.5% of world GDP." See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3975325.stm N.B. Although Campaign against Climate Change does not endorse nuclear power, the findings of this study are indicative of the comparative affordability of making the greenhouse gas cuts required, although this will entail considerably more than changes to large-scale electricity generation.

(c) Time is actually very short”. See: http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=45249

(d) Cleaner exhausts could cause “greater surge in global warming than previously thought”. www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1672444,00.htm
Also www.newscientist.com > search “Greenhouse Aerosols Cleaner” > top 2 results

(e) Climate warning as Siberia melts. www.newscientist.com > search “Siberia melts”

(f) “1/4” of land species may be extinct by 2050 – Nature. news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3375447.stm

(g) Sea level rise of over 13 metres widely predicted in long-term from man-made runaway warming: e.g. see http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs2-00/

Effect on UK coast and population centres: see www.benfieldhrc.org/climate_change/sea_level_rise/sea_level_rise.htm

(h) 55% of Brits follow “fairly or very closely” media discussion of climate change, www.wwf.org.uk/filelibrary/pdf/yougov_survey.pdf

It is certainly worth also reminding many audiences of the effects in terms of storm disasters, droughts, water shortages, crop yields and disease this century alone.

Also many will need to be shown the extent of the scientific consensus, q.v. 2005's joint statement by national science academies, www.royalsoc.ac.uk/document.asp?id=3222 and New Scientist articles on climate sceptics and the Exxon payroll: www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg18524861.400, www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18524861.500, www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg18725134.400

Action against climate change in Africa

action against climate change in africa