Tag: Climate Change
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The IPCC Summary Simplified, Part 2: Long-Term Climate and Development Futures
The second part of the IPCC synthesis report ‘Long-term climate and development futures’ is mainly concerned with where we go from here. What will our future look like if we persist along the same path we are on? What is the best-case scenario, if we act now, and what is the worst case, if we…
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The IPCC Summary Simplified, Part 1: Current Status and Trends
On March 20th 2023 the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) published the summary report for their sixth assessment of climate change (AR6). This is a summary of the last decade of climate research and the action we as humans have taken on climate change. It is a vitally important document. This article is part…
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The question of climate model accuracy is as much about language as it is science
The rallying cry of climate scientists the world over, quoted again and again in articles, is that global warming must be kept below 1.5˚C. However, while scientists point to climate models, in the real world there are places breaking low temperature records. Does this mean that climate models are wrong? It’s an important question and…
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Brunt Ice Shelf isn’t collapsing, but the formation of the A81 iceberg is still important
In late 2015 a huge crack was observed in the Brunt Ice Shelf of western Antarctica. The crack gained fame when it drove the British Antarctic Survey to move their entire research base 23 kilometres inland. On 22nd January 2023 this crack broke through the last few kilometres of ice to snap off a huge…
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Why the disappearance of ice from West Antarctica is a big problem for our future.
If you have read an article or listened to someone talk about West Antarctica recently, it was probably about how the ice is all going to vanish overnight. Names such as the ‘doomsday glacier’ are mixed with words like ‘imminent collapse’ and others meant to inspire a fear of catastrophe. Yet, even in a warming…
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How carbon dioxide affects natural climate and what it tells us about our future
You don’t need to be a climate expert with a PhD in atmospheric science or thermodynamics to understand the role of CO2. The story of CO2 and climate has been written into Earth’s history. For a non-scientist, looking at this history can teach so much without the complicated equations.
Rivers of Ice 