Category Archives: Climate change

Rapid developing, severe droughts will become more common over the 21st Century

By: Emily Black At the height of the 2012 corn growing season, two thirds of the United States was hit by a sudden drought. The photographs below compare 2012 to a normal year:   Earlier this year, a similarly sudden drought … Continue reading

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More severe wet and dry extremes as rapid warming of climate continues

By: Professor Richard Allan The UK weather has recently been characterised by large swings between wet and dry periods and with record heat this June and September. Globally, this September was the warmest on record and 2023 is set to … Continue reading

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Flying Through Storms To Understand Their Interaction with Sea Ice: The Arctic Summer-time Cyclones Project and Field Campaign

By: Ambrogio Volonté Arctic cyclones are the leading type of severe weather system affecting the Arctic Ocean and surrounding land in the summer. They can have serious impacts on sea-ice movement, sometimes resulting in ‘Very Rapid Ice Loss Events’, which … Continue reading

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Two Flavours of Ocean Temperature Change and the Implication for Reconstructing the History of Ocean Warming

Introducing Excess and Redistributed Temperatures.  By: Quran Wu Monitoring and understanding ocean heat content change is an essential task of climate science because the ocean stores over 90% of extra heat that is trapped in the Earth system. Ocean warming … Continue reading

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Including Human Behaviour in Models to Understand the Impact of Climate Change on People

By Megan McGrory In 2020 56% of the global population lived in cities and towns, and they accounted for two-thirds of global energy consumption and over 70% of CO2 emissions. The share of the global population living in urban areas … Continue reading

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Tiny Particles, Big Impact?

By Laura Wilcox Aerosols are tiny particles or liquid droplets suspended in the atmosphere. They can be created by human activities, such as burning fossil fuels or clearing land, or have natural sources, such as volcanoes. Depending on their composition, … Continue reading

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Oceanic Influences On Arctic And Antarctic Sea Ice

By: Jake Aylmer The futures of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice are difficult to pin down in part due to climate model uncertainty. Recent work reveals different ocean behaviours that have a critical impact on sea ice, highlighting a potential … Continue reading

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Monitoring Climate Change From Space

Richard Allan It’s never been more crucial to undertake a full medical check-up for planet Earth, and satellite instruments provide an essential technological tool for monitoring the pace of climate change, the driving forces and the impacts on societies and … Continue reading

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How would climate-change science look if it was structured “as if people mattered”?

By Ted Shepherd The scientific understanding of climate change is represented by the Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), most recently its Sixth Assessment Report. IPCC Working Groups II and III deal respectively with adaptation and … Continue reading

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What Is The World Climate Research Programme And Why Do We Need It?

By: Rowan Sutton My schedule last week was rather awry.  Over four days I took part in a meeting of 50 or so climate scientists from around the world.  Because of the need to span multiple time zones, the session … Continue reading

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