Climate Links

WEBSITES | BLOGS | NEWS | OBSERVATIONS | IMAGES/ANIMATIONS | RESOURCES | SLIDES | Richard Allan's links |

Websites

  • Met Office Climate Data Portal
  • Climate Change Tracker: tracking IPCC climate change indicators
  • The Science of Climate Change (Government Office for Science)
  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change | IPCC 2013 WG1 video
  • climateprediction.net
  • UNFCCC - the big picture
  • Met Office guide to Climate Change | What is a climate model?
  • NASA's Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet | Key Indicators
  • CMSAF EUMETSAT climate datasets
  • Royal Society: Climate Change - Evidence and Causes
  • National Centre for Atmospheric Sciences (NCAS) Climate
  • Royal Meteorological Society
  • Walker Institute
  • National Centre for Atmospheric (NCAS) Climate
  • University of Koeln
  • Gov. W. Australia: Dept. Agriculture and Food | Climate and Weather
  • Gulf Stream: Myths regarding European Climate (LDEO)
  • Additional Links (Steve Dorling, UEA)
  • Carbon Brief
  • IPCC business briefing
  • Extreme Events (UK Health Protection Agency)
  • Science Media Centre UK | UKCP climate change projections for the UK

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    Blogs

  • Climate Lab Book [Ed Hawkins, University of Reading]
  • Weather and Climate Discussions (University of Reading, Meteorology Department)
  • www.skepticalscience.com | article on deep ocean changes
  • www.realclimate.org | Greenland Melt [2013/01]
  • www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk (Ed Hawkins, University of Reading) | Climate change in Berkshire
  • NCAS Climate Blog | warm past climate (Nathaelle Bouttes)
  • www.carbonvisuals.com (Adam Nieman: visualisation of carbon emissions)
  • All Models Are Wrong (Tamsin Edwards, Open University)
  • www.sharesci.net (coming soon)
  • Climate and Risk (Justin Bowles)
  • More science wont cure climate skepticism (David Roberts)
  • Arctic Ice Blog (Neven) | Arctic ice more extensive in 1930s melt events | Yale Media Forum video on Arctic Ice Melt
  • Greenland Melting
  • My climate and me (inc Q+A)
  • Jeff Master's Wunderblog | Comment on Europe flooding of 2013 | Atmospheric humidity monitoring
  • Bad Astronomy | Slow-speed collapse of *six* huge Antarctic glaciers is past the point of no return

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    News

  • GENERAL:
    BBC Science & Environment: | Weather Online (includes Climate stories) | Dino-thropogenic warming [BBC 07/05/12] | Climate 'causes leaves to narrow' | Environmental Research Web (Institute of Physics) | Animal migration rates (PNAS study) | Urban heat island effect has not contaminated global temperature record [Parker 2009 Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change] Meteorology of Jupiter Mathematical theory underpinning the physics of climate (Ghil & Lucarini, 2019)
  • POLICY:
    Climate talks - Bonn [14/05/2012] | Guardian: 2nd Rio Earth summit 20 years on | Extremes linked to climate change? | | Geoengineering experiment postponed [BBC 16/05/2012] | Water scarcity may force vegetarianism [Guardian, 2012/08/26] On Global warming and winter cold air outbreaks [Wallace et al., letter to Science, 2014] | Make climate-change assessments more relevant [Hallegatte and March, 2016, Nature comment]
  • GREENHOUSE GASES:
    Fossil 14C diluting natural C14 by about 1%/year [Levin et al. 2010 Tellus, see Graven 2015 PNAS for future projections] CO2 hits 400 ppmv over Arctic for first time in at least 2 Million Years | New holey material to soak up CO2 | Inexorable rise in greenhouse gases continues (WMO report) [CNN, 20/11/2012] | Amazon die-back less likely based on modelling constrained with observed sensitivity of current climate [Nature, Feb 2013, Cox et al.] | Latest carbon dioxide emissions suggest we're still following upper emissions scenarios [Peters et al. 2013 Nature Climate Change] | Cutting Methane and soot alone is no quick fix for climate [Smith and Mizrahi 2013 PNAS] | Warming causing increasing annual cycle of CO2 [Graven et al. 2013 Science] | Greening of planet in recent decades linked with increased CO2 uptake [Donohue et al. 2013, GRL] | Increased atmospheric CO2 explains 70% of the observed greening trend over 25-50% of the globe. [Zhu et al. 2016, Nature Geosci.] | Uncertainties around reductions in China’s coal use and CO2 emissions [Korsbakken et al. 2016, Nature Climate] | "Greening" from more CO2 declines when climate gets wetter, drier or hotter [Obermeier et al. 2017 Nature Climate] | RCP8.5 high emissions scenario relevant for the near-term and mid-term time horizons [Schwalm et al. (2020) PNAS]
  • OCEAN:
    Riddle of rising seas [21/05/2012] | New maps of sea level rise [24/09/2012] | Decline in Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation since 2004? [Smeed et al. (2013) Ocean Science] | Tropical rainfall linked to cross-equatorial ocean heat transport to N Atlantic [Frierson et al. 2013 Nature Geosciences] | Pacific Ocean Heat Content During the Past 10,000 Years [Rosenthal et al. 2013, Science] | Slowing in Atlantic overturning circulation in the 1970s unprecedented in last 1000 years with likely contribution from previously unrecognised influence of Greenland melting and freshening of the N Atlantic [Rahmstorf et al. 2015, Nature Clim. Ch.] | Recent changes in global ocean overturning strength are likely to be be mainly explained by natural variability... so far. [Nature Geoscience Editorial, July 2016] | Acceleration of sea level rise [Dangendorf et al. (2017) PNAS]
  • CRYOSPHERE:
    Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt Rate [June 2012] | Record Arctic Sea Ice Minimum 2012 [Guardian] | BBC: Big melt at roof of world [21/09/2012] | Winds have driven increased Antacrctic sea ice | Accellerating melt of ice sheets [Science, 30/11/2012] | 10o winter warming in W Greenland [IOP, 07/01/2013] | Cryosat data confirms dramatic loss in ice volume since 2010 | Lubrication of Greenland ice sheet by meltwater not as important as thought [PNAS, 12/08/2013] Unusual ocean conditions in Pacific explain 50% of recent rapid Arctic warming [Nature, 8/5/2014] | Ice plug prevents irreversible discharge from East Antarctica and 3-4m sea level rise [Nature Climate, 4/8/2014] | Slow-speed collapse of *six* huge Antarctic glaciers is past the point of no return (potential commitment for 3-4m sea level over 200-1000 years) [ Joghin et al., Science; Rignot et al., GRL, May 2014] | Arctic sea-ice decline linked to recent Eurasian cold winters [Mori et al. 2014, Nature Geosci.] | Warming ocean melts Antarctic Ice Sheets leading to sea level rise over many 1000s in all but highly mitigating projection scenario (RCP2.6) [Golledge et al. 2015, Nature] | New studies on ice sheet melt faster but less than thought [Edwards et al. and Golledge et al, 2019, Nature]
  • PALEOCLIMATE:
    Determining the natural length of the current interglacial [Tzedakis et al. 2012 Nature Geosci.; see also discussion in 2006 by Crucifix & Berger | Younger Dryas overestimated? | Clouds and snowball Earth: Warming from clouds as well as Volcanic CO2 may explain escape from snowball Earth 635 million years ago.(see also Science article on snowball Earth) | Ocean circulation response to Northern Hemisphere ice retreat in response to Milankovic forcing explains Southern Hemisphere deglacial warming with CO2 providing strong ensuing amplifying feedback [Nature, Feb 2013, He et al.] | Proxy climate data confirms thermometer record since 1901 [GRL, Feb 2013, Anderson et al.] | Climate change over last 11,000 years [Marcott et al. 2013, Science but see article/comments in RealClimate and complimentary paper by Anderson et al. (2013) in GRL] | Hysteresis in N American ice sheet explains prominent 100,000yr glacial cycle response to Milankovitch orbital forcing [Abe-Ouchi et al. 2013, Nature] | Arctic summers warmest in 44,000 years | Moisture increases with slow warming smaller than today as tropics (where most moisture is) warms less than high latitudes [Back et al. J Clim 2013] | Rapid transition to aridity in north Africa 5000 years ago [Bard perspectve on Tierney and deMenocal (2013) Science] | Did Antarctica initiate glacial cycles? [McKay perspective, Science, 2014] | Current interglacial to last many tens of millennia due to Earth's current less elliptical orbit and high CO2 levels [Berger et al. 2015 Rev. Geophys] | Multiple causes of Younger Dryas event [Renssen et al. 2015 Nature Geosci.] | Anthropogenic CO2 may prevent next likely glacial inception in 50,000 years [Ganopolski et al. 2016 Nature; see also N&V] | How Antarctica got its ice [Lear and Lunt, 2016, Science] | Declining CO2 explains cooling from hot-house Earth 51 million years ago [Anagnostou et al. 2016 Nature] | Asian monsoon over past 640,000: termination linked to multiples of precesion cycles [Cheng et al. 2016 Nature] | In hospitable ice-free corridor unlikely to have been route of N. American colonization after last glacial maximum [Pedersen et al. 2016 Nature] | Simple model for interglacial timing based on 65osummer insolation & length of glacial [Tzedakis et al. (2017) Nature] | Deepening Drake passage 35M yrs ago caused increased weathering, CO2 drawdown & inception of Antarctic ice sheet [Elsworth et al. 2017 Nature Geosci] | Jones et al. (2018) Nature: S Hemisphere high latitude climate variability in last glacial maximum modulated by shifts in location of tropical convection linked to N Heisphere icesheet size | Rehfeld et al. (2018) Nature: global temperature variability decreased by factor of four between since Last Glacial Maximum, mostly in higher latitudes, due to changes in the meridional temperature gradient | Basak et al. (2018) Science: emergence from last glacial reinforced by large CO2 outgassing from breakdown in Southern Ocean stratification | Ferreira et al. (2018) GRL: Glacial-Interglacial states may relate to multiple equilibria of the climate system rather than external forcing | Zhao et al. (2022) Sci. Adv.: Prolonged drying trend coincident with the demise of Norse settlement in southern Greenland | Hörhold et al. (2023) Nature: Central and northern Greenland temperatures highest in past millennium and 1.5oC warmer than twentieth century leading to increased meltwater runoff

    | Kaufman & Broadman (2023) Nature: Examination of available evidence on whether anthropogenic global warming was preceded by a long-term warming trend or by global cooling provides support for a relatively mild millennial-scale global thermal maximum during the mid-Holocene.

  • WATER CYCLE:
    Indian Ocean dominates East Africa multidecadal rainfall variability | Subtropical precipitation change caused by circulation response to ozone depletion [Science 2011, Kang et al.] | See also detection of ozone and GHG signals on circulation [Science 2013, Lee and Feldstein] | Ice sheet hysteresis explains strong link between orbital forcing and 100,000 year Croll/Milankovitch glacial cycles [Abe-Ouchi et al. 2013 Nature] | A drier future? [Sherwood & Fu, 2014, Science] | Drought in the Congo basin [Chambers and Roberts (2014) on Zhou et al. paper in Nature, 1 May 2014] | Upper tropospheric moisture amplifies anthropogenic warming [Chung et al. (2014), PNAS] | Aerosol induced surface solar dimming may have increased river flow [Gedney et al. 2014, Nature Geosci]. | Weather modified due to irrigation scheme in E Africa [Alter et al. 2015 Nature] | Interannual changes in CO2 linked to temperature as water-cycle changes have compensating effects on Gross Primary Productivity and Terrestrial Ecosystem Respiration [Jung et al. 2017 Nature]
  • CLOUDS:
    Mineral dust dominent ice nuclei for cirrus clouds [Cziczo et al. 2013 Science] | Observations suggest in short-term clouds amplify temperature changes but little relationship with cloud responses at longer time scales [Dessler 2010 Science] | Climate models with inaccurate subtropical dryness may underestimate climate sensitivity [Fasullo and Trenberth (2012) Science] | Climate models with unrealistic mixing underestimate warming response to rising greenhouse gases [Sherwood et al. 2014 Nature] | Aircraft contrails reduce daily temperature range [Science, 2002] | Interannual low cloud feedback smaller than but linked to climate change feedback [Zhou et al. 2015 GRL] | Cirrus cloud thinning could potentially offset CO2 heating effect without problematic precipitation decline found for other geoengineering methods [Kristjansson et al. 2015 GRL] | Cloud greenhouse effect amplifies El Nino [Radel et al. (2016) Nature Geosci.]
  • AEROSOL:
    Negative aerosol feedback discovered (but small effect, -0.01 Wm-2 globally) [Paasonen et al. (2013) Nature Geosciences] | Large contribution of natural aerosols to uncertainty in indirect forcing [Carslaw et al. 2013 Nature] | What if Icelandic volcanic eruption like 1783? [BBC 1 May 2014 ]
  • LAND:
    Models with convective parametrization cannot capture observed negative feedback between soil moisture and precipitation [Taylor et al. (2014) GRL] | Mega-heatwaves of 2003 and 2010 explained by weather patterns and reinforcing feedbacks [Nature Geosciences 2014]
  • RADIATION BUDGET:
    Unmeasured Far Infra-red wavelengths may be crucial in Arctic climate change [PNAS, 2014] | Spectral Signatude of Climate Change [Slingo and Webb, QJRMS 1997] | Better radiative calculations/diagnostics needed in climate models [Chung and Soden, ERL, 2015] | Energy budget diagrams of the planets! [Read et al. 2015 QJRMetS]
  • NON-CLIMATE:
    Cheaper way to synthesise Ammonia with implications for agriculture? [Anderson et al. (2013) Nature] | Time to leave GDP behind [Constanza et al. (2014) Nature] | Viking migration [Margaryan et al. (2020) Nature]

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    Observations

  • www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/climate.html (Met Office)
  • < a href="https://eip.ceh.ac.uk/hydrology/water-resources/">UK Water Resources Data Portals
  • www.met.reading.ac.uk/weatherdata/ (University of Reading)
  • Climate Monitoring (NCDC/NOAA) | NASA's Global Climate Change Key Indicators
  • NOAA PSD map room
  • ECMWF data (including ERA Interim
  • Climate Reanalyzer
  • NOAA water vapour animations
  • Southern Africa station data
  • CHESS UK daily Met data 1962-present
  • TAO ocean array data
  • Remote Sensing Algorithms List
  • NASA world view satellite images
  • Copernicus Climate Data Store
  • Eumetrain explorer
  • COMPOSITION: Act on CO2 Now (recent CO2 stats, etc) | Emissions time series (e.g. Fossil Fuels ) | Annual Carbon Budget | Volcanic index | CO2 | Trace Gases | Radiative Forcings (Hansen et al. 2011 ACP) | Ozone hole | Global Carbon Project
  • SURFACE TEMPERATURES: HadCRUT (global HadCRUT3 anomalies | HadCRUT4: annual and monthly anomalies | HadCRUT4 ranked to 2011) | Japan Met Agency plots | GISSTEMP | NOAA sea surface temperature | Current global temperature anomaly maps | Met Office Decadal Forecast
  • El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO): ENSO index | MEI ENSO index | NOAA ENSO advisory | IRI ENSO products |
  • Arctic Oscillation index
  • OCEANS: ARGO floats | RAPID ocean array | Florida Current | Sea level rise | Mixed layer depth climatology |
  • TAO ocean array data
  • ICE AND SNOW: nsidc.org/news/ (Arctic ice) | PIOMAS ice volume | Cryosphere Today | | AMSRE data | Decline of snow cover | Polar portal (Danish Met Institute): Arctic and Greenland | NSIDC Interactive Arctic Ice graph
  • CLOUDS AND RADIATIVE ENERGY: Solar Irradiance | NASA solar cycles | Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) | Cloud Appreciation Society | Overpass times of satellites measureing cloud and radiative energy | NASA Satellite Imagary and Cloud Products Page | Real time MODIS and AIRS data | RMIB solar irradiance composite (from 1984)
  • ATMOSPHERIC REANALYSES: ECMWF ERA Interim | NCEP/NCAR | 20th Century Reanalysis

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    Images/Animations

  • Greenhouse Effect: Dancing Molecules (water vapour)
  • Clouds: Infra-red (38 MB, 1992) (or YouTube version)
  • Water vapour: integrated water vapour (ERA Interim, 6 hourly, 2011) | Near surface (kg/kg, ERA Interim, 6 hourly, Nov 2009)
  • Radiation and Climate: daily cycle (MPG/3MB) | Mystery Shadow! | Evaluating Met Office simulation (GIF/9MB) | Suns effect on meteorology (WMV/5MB)
  • Black Cloud
  • Earth's Orbit: Seasons | Milankovic Cycles (splot the mistake...) [These have stopped working but here is another one]
  • Scratch version of an energy balance model for understanding climate.

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    Resources

  • RMetS/NCAS IPCC climate change updates for GCSE Geography and Science teachers
  • A year of Weather (EUMTSAT geostationary satellite data)
  • Walker Institute Modelling Climate Change booklet
  • Department of Meteorology Outreach resources
  • Public Information Resource Centre Climate Change Factsheet
  • Monash Simple Climate Model
  • CliMT: An object-oriented Climate Modeling and diagnostics Toolkit (python)
  • KNMI Climate Explorer (plot out latest climate model and observation data)
  • National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) Climate
  • Richard Allan (University of Reading)
  • MIT PAOC Spotlights
  • UN CC:Learn - Introductory e-Course on Climate Change (more on policy/adaptation)
  • World Population Animation

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    CONTINUING EDUCATION COURSE NOTES: (to follow)

    Climate Change: Past Present and Future


    Session 1     Introduction
    Session 2 The Greenhouse Effect | See also IPCC (2007) FAQ 1.1 and FAQ 1.3
    Session 3 Past Climate 1 - Glacial Cycles | See also IPCC (2007) FAQ 6.1 and Box 6.1
    Session 4 Past Climate 2 - Paleoclimate and Proxy Measurements | see also Box TS.5 of the 2013 IPCC report
    Session 5/6 Current climate change | Group worksheet | See also IPCC (2013) WG1 Summary for Policy Makers (Section B)
    Session 7 Simulating Climate | See also IPCC (2013) FAQ 11.1
    Session 8 Future Climate Projections | See also IPCC (2013) WG1 Summary for Policy Makers (Section E)
    Session 9 Clouds and Climate See also IPCC (2013) FAQ 7.1: How do clouds affect climate?
    Session 10 Further Issues and Conclusions | See also IPCC (2013) FAQ 7.2: How do aerosols affect climate?

    Worksheet: PDF | Online

    IPCC (2013) Frequently Asked Questions

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