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Climate Change

New greenhouse gases record set, WMO reiterates need for international action to avoid devastating climate change

GENEVA (WMO) | According to the World Meteorological Organization’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a new record high in 2013, propelled by a surge in levels of carbon dioxide. This injected even greater urgency into the need for concerted international action against accelerating and potentially devastating climate […]

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WMO’s annual Executive Council meeting discusses weather services, climate change

June 18, 2014 | The World Meteorological Organization’s annual Executive Council meeting took place yesterday, following a year of extreme weather events and climate change developments. The Executive Council of 37 members meets each year to “discuss progress in WMO priority programmes and service delivery.” This year’s agenda included 13 major items which ranged from […]

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Part 15: What should we expect? Future climate projections

By Luisa Cristini, PhD, University of Hawaii at Manoa Note from the editor: This is the fifteenth and last in a series of blog entries that focused on introductory topics in climate dynamics and modeling, and served to provide insight into the current understanding of the science.] Given the increasing evidence of climate change, what […]

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Ocean acidification and the “short term“ marine carbon cycle

By Franziska Kersten, PhD Candidate in Marine Geology and Paleontology – Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven (Germany). The 2007 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Synthesis Report discusses ocean acidification and its potential to harm marine calcifiers (e.g. corals) in the future. Yet a recent report in Science unequivocally states that parts of the […]

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Part 14: How to project climate into the future: Emission scenarios

By Luisa Cristini, PhD, University of Hawaii at Manoa. [Note from the editor: This is the fourteenth in a series of blog entries that will focus on introductory topics in climate dynamics and modeling, and will serve to provide insight into the current understanding of the science.] Changes in external forcing (e.g., solar forcings, astronomical […]

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Carbon Balance in the Arctic under Study

By Penny Paugh Over half of the Arctic is covered by forest. Snow blanketing over a forest actually keeps the soil at a fairly high temperature. Most climate models do not account for the size of forestry in that area, but some are models are now beginning to account for this variable. Climate modeler Isabelle […]

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Part 13: Holocene and Anthropocene

By Luisa Cristini,  PhD, University of Hawaii at Manoa [Note from the editor: This is the thirteenth in a series of blog entries that will focus on introductory topics in climate dynamics and modeling, and will serve to provide insight into the current understanding of the science.] In addition to the low frequency variability of […]

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Part 11: The Timescales of Climate Change: Internal Climate Variability

by Luisa Cristini, PhD, University of Hawaii at Manoa [Note from the editor: This is the eleventh in a series of blog entries that will focus on introductory topics in climate dynamics and modeling, and will be a great insight into the current understanding of the science.] Since the beginning of Earth’s history, climate has […]

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Abrupt Climate Change: The Danger of the Unforeseen

By Jason Klein “Nothing like this has ever happened before.” – Professor Terry Rapson, from the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” The study of climate change is by no means an exact science. It is subject to a large number of variables. Forecast models can employ the most sophisticated machines we have ever built, and […]

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On the way to Rio+20: Adaptation Futures

By Luisa Cristini, PhD, University of Hawaii at Manoa. In a couple of weeks, on June 20-22, 2012, the countries of the United Nations (UN) will gather in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the Conference on Sustainable Development: Rio+20. The conference is an historic opportunity to define a safer, cleaner, greener and more prosperous future […]

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