In a recently published paper called "The Truth about Climate Change", a group of climate scientists tell us that, "By 2015, the global temperature had risen by 1°C above pre-industrial levels, that it is certain to rise another half a degree by 2030 and will continue to rise to 2°C by 2050 unless drastic action is taken to reduce emissions" ...
According to the UNFCCC as of today (23rd September 2016) 62 countries representing 49.3% of global CO2 emissions have now ratified the Paris Agreement. To enter into force the agreement needs 50 countries representing 55% of global emissions to sign. So milestone one has been passed and milestone 2 is close to being achieved. At a single eve...
The Montreal Protocol is expected in October 2016 to agree an amendment to phase down HFC emissions. Ahead of that decision the US Government has this week hosted a meeting with over 100 delegates who called for securing an ambitious amendment with an "early freeze date". The freeze date is the year when countries stop increasing the producti...
At the G20 meeting in Japan China and the USA have both announced their intention to ratify the Paris Agreement. This means that he two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases have committed themselves to the principle of moving to a temperature target of below 2 degrees centigrade. Both countries have now formally lodged their instruments of ra...
New research led by Australian scientists, and recently published in the journal Nature suggests human impacts had begun to change the climate as back as the 1830's, earlier than previously expected. Their conclusions were based on natural records of climate variation in the world's oceans and continents, including those found in corals, ice ...
The 2015 State of the Climate report has recently been published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The report confirmed that 2015 surpassed 2014 as the warmest year since at least the mid-to-late 19th century. The record heat resulted from the combined influence of long-term global warming and one of the strongest El Niñ...
Whilst we have been familiar with articles telling us that global surface temperatures are increasing month on month, water resources are increasingly stressed and that glaciers and ice sheets around the world are melting quickly at least there is some good news out there. A new study published in the Journal Science tells us that the Antarctic ozo...
According to a new study recently reported in the journal Nature, atmospheric concentrations of CO2 will stay permanently above 400 parts per million (ppm) this year due to El Nino. The follow on bad news is that the researchers do not expect that it will likely drop below 400ppm "within our lifetimes," Commenting on the research presented in...
The US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provides up to date data on the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere. The NOAA data set shows a steadily increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. In June 2016 NOAA reported that in May 2016 they recorded the biggest year-over-year jump in atmospheric ...
I have read a fascinating article in Nature about the ability of trees to seed clouds. All the research I have seen to date suggests that if we act to reduce air pollution by scrubbing sulphur dioxide from power plants then we reduce the albedo effect of clouds and the earth heats up. This has in part been blamed for increasing temperatures i...
As we all know plastics are a man-made creation which like steel and cement are the building blocks of our current society. However plastics particularly packing is used only once then discarded causing significant environmental problems. The adverse impacts of discarded plastic in the oceans is well documented. Plastic manufacture uses 6% of globa...
It seems to be well documented scientific fact that the Artic is warming much more rapidly than the global average. See: http://www.carbonbrief.org/cuts-in-europes-air-pollution-have-boosted-arctic-warming.This is a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification. The main cause of the warming is considered to be the loss of sea ice in the region. A...
Coming on the back of NOAA news recently of 2015 being the hottest year on record and January and February 2016 being consecutively the hottest months on record so far it is not surprising to see that scientists from the International Arctic Research Centre have reported sea ice levels are at an all-time low. Apparently sea ice cover on 24 March 20...
The World Bank recently published its latest report in the series; Turn Down the Heat: Confronting the New Climate Normal which makes for grim reading. This latest report focuses on the risks of climate change to development in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and parts of Europe and Central Asia. It lo...
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA have shown us that the Earth's 2015 surface temperatures were the warmest since modern record keeping began in 1880. Not only that, but the record-breaking year continues a long-term warming trend, 15 of the 16 warmest years on record have now occurred since 2001. This visual...
The ink has now dried on the Paris Accord and plans embodied in the INDC's need to begin to be implemented. However, the road ahead for implementation may not be that straight forward, as recent developments with three of the largest global emitters suggest. In the USA one of the key components of their plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in t...
Norway is focusing on CCS applications in industry, with three pre-feasibility studies underway on CCS projects at a fertiliser plant, a waste to energy plant and at an ammonia fertiliser plant. Whilst it may be that Norway only chooses one project to proceed to demonstration, all three represent unique opportunities that will add to the portfolio ...
