Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 43: Expert explains biodiversity graph Royal Society report

It’s the end of the year so a good time to evaluate where we’re standing. Our climate-biodiversity series has progressed to episode 43. If you’ve missed it, we highly recommend you start at part 1, preferably under a Christmas tree … Continue reading

Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 35: 9 megatrend graphs show little base for optimism

Over 15,000 scientists have endorsed a newly published paper titled ‘World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice’ that’s set to quickly become a landmark publication. Essentially it’s an overview update (and very digestible, just a thousand words) on the … Continue reading

Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 34: ‘Sahel greening’ unlikely to benefit African biodiversity

The below graph comes from a new global temperature trend study that compares different established datasets for land and ocean temperature. The results emphasize an often-overlooked phenomenon: geographically ‘skewed warming’ – leading to planet-wide precipitation shifts. Possible effects not only … Continue reading

Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 32: COP23 emission targets still lead beyond +3 degrees

Climate change is just one driver of the Holocene-Anthropocene Mass Extinction. But it will be a powerful one, as global emission reduction commitments – that will be discussed in the following two weeks in the German city of Bonn during … Continue reading

Understanding Sea Level Rise, p3: it’s about timescales, speed of change & carbon budget – world aims for 29-55m sea level rise

In our previous article of the series we’ve looked at an overview of global sea level rise forecasts for the year 2100 – and seen that these forecasts have a very large spread, and also seem to increase with time … Continue reading

Observed vs ‘Real’ Global Temperature. What thermometers do & don’t yet show!

After a perceived ‘temperature plateau‘ of about a decade, global temperatures seem to be rising faster than ever before. First 2014 broke the global record for hottest year (then held by 2010). Then 2015 broke that record. And 2016 in … Continue reading

Real Global Temperature Trend, p22 – World still on course for dramatic 3 degrees warming, need to more than double reduction speed

Let’s keep this one short, because in essence there’s nothing new. Before the start of the Paris climate summit we saw that if you combine all the world’s nations’ 2025 & 2030 emission reduction targets you get to a pathway … Continue reading

Real Global Temperature Trend, p19 – There is hot, hotter, hottest – and 2016: dangerously close to pre-industrial +1.5 degrees…

The 19th edition of our global temperature trend series is ‘just a graph’. That is because we are still overwhelmed by Break Free 2016. And because some graphs simply speak for themselves. The progression of the 2016 hottest year global … Continue reading

Real Global Temperature Trend, p14 – Just one more to go and world has 12 monthly records in a row – temperature jump +0.2 degrees

Yes, if you would extrapolate the global temperature “trend” line from early 2015 to early 2016, you would look at a 20 degrees Celsius warming over the century. March broke the record of all Marches. February broke the record of … Continue reading

Real Global Temperature Trend, p13 – First 3 months 2016 are top 3 hottest months on record, 2016 now certain new hottest year

2014 was the hottest year on record. 2015 is the hottest year on record. January, February & March were the three hottest months on record (with December 2015 now number 4). 2016 will be the hottest year on record. Yes, … Continue reading