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Climate change is coming to a place near you

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What are the local consequences of a continued global warming? And what kind of future climate can you expect for you children? Do we expect more extreme events, and will a global warming affect the statistics of storms? Another question is how the local changes matters for local communities and the ecosystem.

It may be contrary to most people’s impression. We have a clearer picture of future climate changes on a global scale than of the local consequences associated with a global warming. And we know why.

[Read more…] about Climate change is coming to a place near you

Bjørn Lomborg, just a scientist with a different opinion?

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Bjørn Lomborg is a well-known media personality who argues that there are more important priorities than reducing emissions to limit global warming. In a recent controversy centering on him, the Australian government (known for its contradictory position on climate change) offered the University of Western Australia (UWA) $4 million to make Lomborg professor – which UWA first accepted, but then after massive protest from its staff and students refused. The Australian government was quick to label it a “freedom of speech” issue that Lomborg should get a university position, and vowed to find another university that would host him. However, free speech doesn’t guarantee everyone a university position; there are also academic qualifications required.

A translation of this post in Spanish is available here.
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Debate in the noise

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Last week there was an international media debate on climate data which appeared to be rather surreal to me. It was claimed that the global temperature data had so far shown a “hiatus” of global warming from 1998-2012, which was now suddenly gone after a data correction. So what happened?

One of the data centers that compile the data on global surface temperatures – NOAA – reported in the journal Science on an update of their data. Some artifacts due to changed measurement methods (especially for sea surface temperatures) were corrected and additional data of previously not included weather stations were added. All data centers are continually working to improve their database and they therefore occasionally present version updates of their global series (NASA data are currently at version 3, the British Hadley Centre data at version 4). There is nothing unusual about this, and the corrections are in the range of a few hundredths of a degree – see Figure 1. This really is just about fine details. [Read more…] about Debate in the noise

Thoughts on 2014 and ongoing temperature trends

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Last Friday, NASA GISS and NOAA NCDC had a press conference and jointly announced the end-of-year analysis for the 2014 global surface temperature anomaly which, in both analyses, came out top. As you may have noticed, this got much more press attention than their joint announcement in 2013 (which wasn’t a record year).

In press briefings and interviews I contributed to, I mostly focused on two issues – that 2014 was indeed the warmest year in those records (though by a small amount), and the continuing long-term trends in temperature which, since they are predominantly driven by increases in greenhouse gases, are going to continue and hence produce (on a fairly regular basis) continuing record years. Response to these points has been mainly straightforward, which is good (if sometimes a little surprising), but there have been some interesting issues raised as well…
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Ten Years of RealClimate: Where now?

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rc10The landscape for science blogging, the public discourse on climate and our own roles in the scientific community have all changed radically over the last 10 years. Blogging is no longer something that stands apart from professional communications, the mainstream media or new online start-ups. The diversity of voices online has also increased widely: scientists blogging and interacting directly with the public via Twitter and Facebook are much more prevalent than in 2004. The conversations have also changed, and (for the most part) have become more nuanced. And a bunch of early career researchers with enthusiasm, time to spare and things to say, have morphed into institute directors and administrators with lots of new pressures. Obviously, blogging frequency has decreased in the last year or so in response to these pressures and this raises the question: where does RealClimate go now?

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Ten Years of RealClimate

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rc10In the spring of 2004, when we (individually) first started talking to people about starting a blog on climate science, almost everyone thought it was a great idea, but very few thought it was something they should get involved in. Today, scientists communicating on social media is far more commonplace. On the occasion of our 10 year anniversary today it is worth reflecting on the impact of those changes, what we’ve learned and where we go next.

[Read more…] about Ten Years of RealClimate

Ten years of Realclimate: By the numbers

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rc10Start date: 10 December 2004

Number of posts: 914

Number of comments: ~172,000

Number of comments with inline responses: 14,277

Minimum number of total unique page visits, and unique views, respectively: 19 Million, 35 Million

Number of guest posts: 100+

Number of mentions in newspaper sources indexed by LexisNexis: 225

Minimum number of contributors and guest authors: 105

Minimum number of times RealClimate was hacked: 2

Busiest month: December 2009

Busiest day of the week: Monday

Number of times the IPCC and the NIPCC are mentioned, respectively: 357, 5

Minimum number of Science papers arising from a blog post here: 1

Minimum number of RealClimate mentions in Web Of Science references: 14

Minimum number of RealClimate mentions in theses indexed by ProQuest: 33

Posts highest ranked by Google by year:

2004 CO2 in ice cores
2005 Water vapour: feedback or forcing?
2006 Al Gore’s Movie
2007 Swindled!
2008 FAQ on climate models
2009 The CRU Hack
2010 Feedback on cloud feedback
2011 Misdiagnosis of surface temperature feedback
2012 Extremely Hot
2013 The new IPCC climate report
2014 Climate response estimates from Lewis and Curry

All numbers are estimates from latest available data, but no warranty is implied or provided so all use of these numbers is at your own risk.