Category Archives: Climate change

Rainfall decline over Eastern Africa linked to shorter wet seasons

By: Caroline Wainwright 2019 was a year of extremes for East Africa. The long rains (March-May) started late and low rainfall during the season exacerbated the drought conditions following the dry short rains (October-December) in 2018. Conversely, the short rains … Continue reading

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A Tipsy Earth?

By: Jonah Bloch-Johnson Hi. I’m Jonah, a scientist here at the UoR, and I study whether global warming will be more like drinking water, soda, or beer. What do I mean by that? Let me explain. Both thirst and the Earth’s … Continue reading

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Climate change increases the “perfect storm” coastal flood potential

By Emanuele Bevacqua Some of the European low-lying coastal areas and river estuaries may see a future increase in flooding caused not only by sea-level rise but also by more frequent concurrent storm surge and heavy precipitation, we show in … Continue reading

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High-resolution insights into future European winters

By: Alexander Baker Figure 1: Observed UK rainfall anomaly as a percentage of 1981-2010 monthly average for (a) December 2013, (b) January 2014, and (c) February 2014. Figure from Huntingford et al. (2014). Most – roughly 70% – of Europe’s winter … Continue reading

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The consequences of climate change: how bad could it get?

By: Nigel Arnell The United Nations Climate Action Summit held in New York on 23rd September was meant to be the occasion where countries and industry organisations made stronger commitments to reduce the emissions of the greenhouse gases that are … Continue reading

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Why was there decadal increase in summer heat waves over China across the mid-1990s?

By: Buwen Dong Heat waves (HWs), commonly defined as prolonged periods of excessive hot weather, are a distinctive type of high-temperature extreme (Perkins 2015). These high-temperature extremes can lead to severe damage to human society and ecosystems. In our studies, … Continue reading

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30 °C days in Reading

By: Roger Brugge The temperature in the Reading University Atmospheric Observatory peaked at 32.3°C on Saturday 29 June 2019. Press stories were full of pictures of people sunning themselves across parts of the United Kingdom in glorious sunshine – yet … Continue reading

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Science outreach in coastal Arctic communities

By: Lucia Hosekova Figure 1: NASA image by Robert Simmon based on Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) surface temperature analysis data including ship and buoy data from the Hadley Centre. Caption by Adam Voiland. Few people are more aware … Continue reading

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How climate modelling can help us better understand the historical temperature evolution

By: Andrea Dittus Figure 1: Annual global mean surface temperatures from NASA GISTemp, NOAA GlobalTemp, Hadley/UEA HadCRUT4, Berkeley Earth, Cowtan and Way, Copernicus/ECMWF and Carbon Brief’s raw temperature record. Anomalies plotted with respect to a 1981-2010 baseline. Figure and caption from Carbon Brief (https://www.carbonbrief.org/state-of-the-climate-how-world-warmed-2018). Earth’s climate has warmed … Continue reading

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Climate Action by Reducing Digital Waste

By: John Methven Climate action has never been higher on the global agenda. There is a pressing need to change our activities and habits, both at work and home, to steer towards a more sustainable future. National governments, public sector … Continue reading

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