The WMO released its (now) annual state of the climate report this week. As well as the (now) standard set of graphs related to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, rising temperatures, reducing glacier mass, etc., Zeke Hausfather and I wrote up a short synthesis on the contributions to recent temperature anomalies.
[Read more…] about WMO: Update on 2023/4 AnomaliesClimate modelling
Climate change in Africa
While there have been some recent set-backs within science and climate research and disturbing news about NOAA, there is also continuing efforts on responding to climate change. During my travels to Mozambique and Ghana, I could sense a real appreciation for knowledge, and an eagerness to learn how to calculate risks connected to climate change.
[Read more…] about Climate change in AfricaComparison Update 2024
One more dot on the graphs for our annual model-observations comparisons updates. Given how extraordinary the last two years have been, there are a few highlights to note.
[Read more…] about Comparison Update 2024¡AI Caramba!
Rapid progress in the use of machine learning for weather and climate models is evident almost everywhere, but can we distinguish between real advances and vaporware?
[Read more…] about ¡AI Caramba!Operationalizing Climate Science
There is a need to make climate science more agile and more responsive, and that means moving (some of it) from research to operations.
[Read more…] about Operationalizing Climate ScienceCold extremes do in fact decrease under global warming
The title of this post might seem like a truism, but for about a decade some people have claimed the opposite, and many people have spent much time and effort trying to understand why. Much of that effort was wasted.
[Read more…] about Cold extremes do in fact decrease under global warmingPhantastic Job!
A truly impressive paper was published this week with a new reconstruction of global temperatures over the last ~500 million years.
[Read more…] about Phantastic Job!Oh My, Oh Miocene!
A recent paper suggested that ‘climate sensitivity’ derived from a new paleo-CO2 record is around 7.2ºC (for equilibrium climate sensitivity ECS) and ~13.9ºC (Earth System Sensitivity – ESS) for a doubling of CO2. Some press has suggested that this means that “Earth’s Temperature Could Increase by 25 Degrees” (F). Huge if true! Fortunately these numbers should not be taken at face value, but we need to dig into the subtleties to see why.
[Read more…] about Oh My, Oh Miocene!The need for pluralism in climate modelling
How should we allocate resources for climate modelling if the goal is to improve climate-related decisions? Higher resolution, machine learning and/or storylines? A call for a deeper discussion on how we should develop the climate modelling toolbox.
Guest post by Marina Baldissera Pacchetti, Julie Jebeile and Erica Thompson
[Read more…] about The need for pluralism in climate modellingNew journal: Nature 2023?
[Last update Dec 6, 2024] There were a number of media reports today [May 11, 2024] related to Yuan et al. (2024), for instance, New Scientist, The Guardian etc. However, this is really just the beginning of what is likely to be a bit of a cottage industry in the next few months relating to possible causes/influences on the extreme temperatures seen in 2023. So to help people keep track, we’ll maintain a list here to focus discussions. Additionally, we’ll extract out the key results (such as the reported radiative forcing) as a guide to how this will all eventually get reconciled.
[Read more…] about New journal: Nature 2023?References
- T. Yuan, H. Song, L. Oreopoulos, R. Wood, H. Bian, K. Breen, M. Chin, H. Yu, D. Barahona, K. Meyer, and S. Platnick, "Abrupt reduction in shipping emission as an inadvertent geoengineering termination shock produces substantial radiative warming", Communications Earth & Environment, vol. 5, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01442-3