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Information pages on climate science

These web pages listed each contain information about some topic involving the current state of the science of the climate and of climate change.  They are listed in no particular order for the most part.  All are pages that I find interesting and/or helpful in understanding climate change.  Some of the pages are fairly much from the direct scientific source.  But most are summaries of the science that have links to the sources.  The pages that discuss governmental policies involving global warming likely come from news sources.
  1. 2007 Summary for Policymakers., An Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  This summary, approved in detail at IPCC Plenary XXVII (Valencia, Spain, 12-17 November 2007), represents the formally agreed statement of the IPCC concerning key findings and uncertainties contained in the Working Group contributions to the Fourth Assessment Report.  Al's Note: The 2007 IPCC reports are the most authoritive documents of climate change in existence as of 2007.  At least this is according to all major science organizations whose work relates to climate change.  The following gives a summary of the four IPCC reports as well as other major assessments.  Al's second note:  The Copenhagen Diagnosis gives an excellent summary of the state of the scientific knowledge of the earth's climate as of November 2009.  It was prepared for use in the December 2009 UN Climate Change Conference.
    1. IPCC  Overview
    2. IPCC First Assessment Report (1990)
    3. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (June 1 to June 14, 1992)
    4. IPCC Supplementary Report (1992)
    5. IPCC Second Assessment Report (1995)
    6. IPCC Third Assessment Report (2001)
    7. IPCC  Fourth Assessment Report (2007)
    8. Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States (June 16, 2009)
    9. Copenhagen Climate Report (June 18, 2009)
    10. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, August 2009)
    11. The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Climate Science Report (November 2009)
    12. United Nations Climate Change Conference (Dec 7 - Dec 18, 2009)
    13. also see here (due 2013-2014)

  2. Climate Change Timeline -- This article was originally published by the American Institute of Physics and Spencer Weart as Timeline of Milestones. The original version contains detailed references and links to additional information on the history of climate change science.  In addition at Manicore.com there is a "chronology of climate change" that contains additional information.  And at CO2Now.org is found another timeline, the Global Warming Chronology .  Some important individuals in these timelines are listed here:
    1. Horace Bénédict de Saussure (1740-1799) -- in 1767 Saussure, a Swiss physicist, geologist, and early Alpine explorer, invented the heliothermometer, an instrument for measuring solar radiation. This instrument was an early forerunner to modern solar radiation measurement devices. De Saussure also built numerous “hot boxes”, miniature greenhouses made of wood with glass covers that trapped the sun’s energy. Studies based on the hot box led de Saussure to hypothesize that it was cooler in the mountains than in lower-lying regions because, although the same amount of sunlight strikes the mountains as the flat lands, because the air in the mountains is more transparent it cannot trap as much solar heat.  For more information on Saussure see here.
    2. Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768-1830)  Fourier is also credited with the discovery in 1824 that gases in the atmosphere might increase the surface temperature of the Earth.[4] This was the effect that would later be called the greenhouse effect. He described the phenomenon in 1824[5] and then again in a very similar paper in 1827[6] whereby an atmosphere serves to warm a planet.[7] This established the concept of planetary energy balance — that planets obtain energy from a number of sources that cause temperature increase. Planets also lose energy by infrared radiation (that Fourier called "chaleur obscure" or "dark heat") with the rate increasing with temperature. A balance is reached between heat gain and heat loss; the atmosphere shifts the balance toward the higher temperatures by slowing the heat loss. Although Fourier understood that the rate of infrared radiation increased with temperature, the Stefan–Boltzmann law which gives the exact form of this dependency (a fourth-power law) was discovered fifty years later..  For more information on Fourier see here, here, and here.
    3. Claude Pouillet (1791 - 1868) -- 1838 Pouillet, a french physicist, attributes the natural greenhouse effect to water vapour and carbon dioxide. He concludes that any variation in the quantity of water vapour or of carbon dioxide in the atmopshere should result in a climate change.  For more information on Pouillet see here, and here.
    4. John Tyndall (1820–1893) -- in 1859 Tyndall, an Irish physicist, discovered that some gases block infrared radiation. Tyndall explained the heat in the Earth's atmosphere in terms of the capacities of the various gases in the air to absorb radiant heat, a.k.a. infrared radiation. His measuring device, which used thermopile technology, is an early landmark in the history of absorption spectroscopy of gases. He was the first to correctly measure the relative infrared absorptive powers of the gases nitrogen, oxygen, water vapour, carbon dioxide, ozone, methane, etc. He concluded that water vapour is the strongest absorber of radiant heat in the atmosphere and is the principal gas controlling air temperature. Absorption by the other gases is not negligible but relatively small. Prior to Tyndall it was widely surmised that the Earth's atmosphere has a Greenhouse Effect, but he was the first to prove it. The proof was that water vapor strongly absorbed infrared radiation  For more information on Tyndall see here, here, and here.
    5. Joseph Stefan (1835 - 1893) is best known for originating a physical power law in 1879 stating that the total radiation from a black body j* is proportional to the fourth power of its thermodynamic temperature T.  Stefan deduced the law from experimental measurements made by the Irish physicist John Tyndall. In 1884 the law was derived theoretically in the framework of thermodynamics by Stefan's student Ludwig Boltzmann and hence is known as the Stefan-Boltzmann law. Boltzmann treated a heat engine with light as a working matter. This law is the only physical law of nature named after a Slovene physicist.
    6. James Croll (1821-1890) was a Scottish physical scientist who was the leading proponent of an astronomical theory of climate change in the nineteenth century.  In 1864, Croll published an article in the Philosophical Magazine “On the Physical Cause of the Change of Climate During Geological Epochs.” In this paper Croll introduced changes in the earth's orbital elements as likely periodic and extraterrestrial mechanisms for initiating multiple glacial epochs.  For more on Croll see here.
    7. Svante August Arrhenius (1859–1927) -- in 1896 publishes first calculation of global warming from human emissions of CO2.  He comes by calculation to the conclusion that a doubling of CO2 in the air will lead to a global increase of 4°C of the ground temperature, and predicts as a consequence that the industrial age will generate a global warming.  For more information on Arrhenius see here, here, and here.
    8. Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin (1843-1928) -- in 1897 Chamberlin produces a model for global carbon exchange including feedbacks.  Chamberlin developed a theory of climate change and was one of the first to emphasize carbon dioxide as a major regulator of Earth's temperature, thus anticipating modern global warming. Chamberlin was the first to demonstrate that the only way to understand climate was to understand almost everything about the planet together — not just the air but the oceans, the volcanoes bringing gases from the deep interior, the chemistry of weathered minerals, and more.  For more information on Chamberlin see here, here, and here.
    9. Milutin Milankovitch (1879-1958) -- in the 1930s Milutin Milankovitch, a Serbian astrophysicist and geophysicist best known for his theory of ice ages, relating variations of the Earth's orbit and long-term climate change, now known as Milankovitch cycles. These ideas were derived from improved methods of calculating variations in Earth's eccentricity, precession, and tilt through time and determining their combined effects on long term climate change  Note:  James Croll did earlier work, 1864, on orbital changes as the cause of ice ages.  For more information on Milankovitch see here, here, here, and here.
    10. Guy Stewart Callendar (1897-1964) a British steam engineer, was the first scientist to study climate change in a rigorous and systematic way and the first to empirically connect rising carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere with the increase in the Earth’s temperature. In 1938, Callendar published a paper titled The Artificial Production of Carbon Dioxide and its Influence on Temperature, the first of many articles on the subject. He noted a significant upward trend in temperatures for the first four decades of the 20th century and a continuously rising concentration of atmospheric CO2 since post-industrial times. He linked these trends to the combustion of fossil fuels, describing it as an enhanced "greenhouse effect" where infrared radiation is both absorbed and emitted by the extra CO2, causing warming at the Earth's surface.  For more on Callendar see here, here, and here.
    11. Cesare Emiliani (1922-1995), an Italian paleoceanographer who used Urey's oxygen isotope to discover that the temperature of the ocean and the ice masses on Earth changed through time in cycles and showed that these cycles could be recognized and correlated throughout the Atlantic. He is widely regarded as the father of paleoceanography.  For more on Emiliani see here.
    12. Gilbert N. Plass (1921-2004) was a Canadian-born physicist who made important early contributions to the carbon dioxidetheory of climate change. He graduated from Harvard University in 1941, received a Ph.D in physics from Princeton University in 1947, and eventually became a professor at Texas A&M University. Between 1953 and 1959, Plass developed an early computer model of infrared radiative transfer and published a number of articles on carbon dioxide and climate. Plass used new detailed measurements of the infrared absorption bands and newly available digital computers to replace the older graphical methods. In a seminal article in 1956, Plass calculated a 3.6 °C surface temperature increase for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 and thus adding CO2 to the atmosphere will have a significant effect on the radiation balance.  For more information on Plass see here and here.
    13. Roger Randall Dougan Revelle (1909-1991) an American oceanographer best known for his pioneering studies of carbon dioxide balance in the oceans and its effect on climate change. In a seminal paper published in 1957, Revelle and Hans Suess argued that humankind was performing "a great geophysical experiment" and called on the scientific community to monitor changes in the carbon dioxide content of waters and the atmosphere as well as production rates of plants and animals. Revelle finds that CO2 produced by humans will not be readily absorbed by the oceans.  For more information on Revelle see here, here, here, and here.
    14. Edward N. Lorenz(1917-2008) an American meteorologist noted for his pathbreaking descriptions of the transfer of energy in the general circulation of the atmosphere.  In 1965 Lorenz with others point out the chaotic nature of climate system and the possibility of sudden shifts.  He formally introduced the notion of uncertainty and chaos into weather forecasting. In that regard, Lorenz is famous for his statement of the butterfly effect. Lorenz's theory was that an event as small as a butterfly flapping its wings in China could change the weather in the United States a few days later. This effect was possible because the butterfly moved a little bit of air, that moved more air, and so on, until the moving air reached the other side of the world. The butterfly effect, or the "sensitive dependence on initial conditions", is the essence of chaos.  For more information on Lorenz see here, here, and here.
    15. Charles D. Keeling (1928-2005), an American pioneer in the monitoring of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. Widely recognized as the "Keeling curve", the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration measurements, taken since 1958 at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, constitute the longest, continuous record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration recordings available in the world. These measurements are recognized as a reliable indicator of the regional trend in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the middle layers of the troposphere. In 1960 Keeling accurately measures CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere and detects an annual rise. The level is 315 ppm. Mean global temperature (five-year average) is 13.9°C.  For more information on Keeling see here, here, and here.
    16. Wallace Smith Broecker (1931 - )In 1975, Broecker inadvertently coined the phrase global warming when he published a paper titled: “Climate Change: Are we on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?”   He is perhaps best known for his discovery of the role played by the ocean in triggering the abrupt climate changes which punctuated glacial time- in particular, the development and popularization of the idea of a global "conveyor belt" linking the circulation of the global ocean.  For more information on Broecker see "Happy 35th birthday, global warming"
    17. Reid Bryson (1920-2008) -- Aerosols from human activity are shown to be increasing swiftly. Bryson claims they counteract global warming and may bring serious cooling.
    18. Hans E. Suess (1909-1993), an American chemist who developed an improved method of carbon-14 dating, which he used to document the profound effect that the combustion of fossil fuels had had on the Earth’s stocks and flows of carbon (1955). Fossil fuels are so ancient that they contain no carbon-14, so when combusted, the carbon dioxide (CO2) they release dilutes the carbon-14 content of both atmosphere and plants. This dilution is now known as the "Suess effect", and it unequivocally proved that the increase in atmospheric CO2 was due to the combustion of fossil fuels.
    19. Tom M. L. Wigley (1940-) is an Australian mathematical physicist and climatologist who made many important contributions to climate and carbon-cycle modeling and to climate data analysis. He made important contributions to a diverse collection of topics in climatology including data analysis; climate impacts on agriculture and water resources; paleoclimatology; and modeling of climate, sea level, and the carbon cycle.
    20. James E. Hansen (1941- ) is an American physicist known for his research in the field of climatology and his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in the 1980s that helped raise broad awareness of the climate change issue. Hansen heads the NASA Institute for Space Studies in New York City, which is a division of Goddard Space Flight Center's (Greenbelt, MD), Earth Sciences Directorate. He is currently an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, and also serves as Al Gore's science advisor. In 1981 Hansen and others show that sulfate aerosols can significantly cool the climate, raising confidence in models showing future greenhouse warming.  For more information on Hansen see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
    21. Cesare Marchetti (1927-), an Italian physicist and systems analyst noted for his pathbreaking work in modeling long run patterns of energy substitution, carbon dioxide sequestration, and the production of energy from hydrogen. As a senior scientist at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Marchetti developed the first mathematical models of the long run pattern of energy substitution in industrial economies,  For more information about Marchetti see here and here.
    22. Stephen H. Schneider (1945-), an American climatologist who pioneered three-dimensional climate modeling. Schneider is known for his ability to integrate and interpret the results of global climate research through public lectures, seminars, classroom teaching, environmental assessment committees, media appearances, and Congressional testimony. He is the founding editor of Climatic Change, among the first journals to foster interdisciplinary inquiry into the totality of the problem of climatic variability and change, as well as its descriptions, causes, implications and interactions.  For more on Schneider see here, here, and here.


  3. Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast is a comprehensive introduction to all aspects of global warming. Written in an accessible way, and assuming no specialist prior knowledge, this book examines the processes that control climate change and climate stability, from the distant past to the distant future. On-line interactive computer models allow you to play with the physics and chemistry behind the global warming forecast.  We are now posting video lectures by David Archer from a core class for non-science majors, Fall Quarter, 2009, University of Chicago. 

  4. CRU Emails - Searchable.  On 20 November 2009, emails and other documents, apparently originating from with the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia.  If real, these emails contain some quite surprising and even disappointing insights into what has been happening within the climate change scientific establishment. Worryingly this same group of scientists are very influential in terms of economic and social policy formation around the subject of climate change.  As these emails are already in the public domain, I think it is important that people are able to look through them and judge for themselves.  As of today, Saturday 21 November, there have been no statements that I have seen doubting the authenticity of these texts. It is here just as a curiosity!

  5. California Climate Change Portal (Publications).  This website contains information on the impacts of climate change on California and the state's policies relating to global warming. It is also the home of the California Climate Change Center, a "virtual" research and information website operated by the California Energy Commission through its Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) Program. 

  6. The greenhouse effect refers to the change in the steady state temperature of a planet or moon by the presence of an atmosphere containing gas that absorbs and emits infrared radiation.[1] Greenhouse gases, which include water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane, warm the atmosphere by efficiently absorbing thermal infrared radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface, by the atmosphere itself, and by clouds. As a result of its warmth, the atmosphere also radiates thermal infrared in all directions, including downward to the Earth’s surface. Thus, greenhouse gases trap heat within the surface-troposphere system.[2][3][4][5] This mechanism is fundamentally different from the mechanism of an actual greenhouse, which instead isolates air inside the structure so that the heat is not lost by convection and conduction, as discussed below. The greenhouse effect was discovered by Joseph Fourier in 1824, first reliably experimented on by John Tyndall in the year 1858 and first reported quantitatively by Svante Arrhenius in his 1896 paper.[6]

  7. Hydrogen sulfide (or hydrogen sulphide) is the chemical compound with the formula H2S. This colorless, toxic and flammable gas is partially responsible for the foul odor of rotten eggs and flatulence.  It often results from the bacterial break down of sulfates in organic matter in the absence of oxygen, such as in swamps and sewers (anaerobic digestion). It also occurs in volcanic gases, natural gas and some well waters. The odor of H2S is commonly misattributed to elemental sulfur, which is in fact odorless. Hydrogen sulfide has numerous names, some of which are archaic (see table).  Hydrogen sulfide has been implicated in some of the several mass extinctions that have occurred in the Earth's past. The Permian mass extinction (sometimes known as the "Great Dying") may have been caused by hydrogen sulfide. Organic residues from these extinction boundaries indicate that the oceans were anoxic (oxygen depleted) and had species of shallow plankton that metabolized H2S.

  8. The Permian–Triassic (P–Tr) extinction event, informally known as the Great Dying, was an extinction event that occurred 251.4 million years ago,[1][2] forming the boundary between the Permian and Triassic geologic periods. It was the Earth's most severe extinction event, with up to 96 percent of all marine species[3] and 70 percent of terrestrial vertebrate species becoming extinct; it is the only known mass extinction of insects.[4][5] 57% of all families and 83% of all genera were killed off. Because so much biodiversity was lost, the recovery of life on earth took significantly longer than after other extinction events.[3] This event has been described as the "mother of all mass extinctions".[6] The pattern of extinction is still disputed,[7] as different studies suggest one[1] to three[8] different pulses. There are several proposed mechanisms for the extinctions; the earlier peak was likely due to gradualistic environmental change, while the latter was probably due to a catastrophic event. Possible mechanisms for the latter include large or multiple bolide impact events, increased volcanism, or sudden release of methane hydrates from the sea floor; gradual changes include sea-level change, anoxia, increasing aridity,[9] and a shift in ocean circulation driven by climate change.

  9. The Cryosphere Today -- From the University of Illinois.  View images and charts about the current (and past) state of the cryosphere.  To compare images of daily artic sea ice for any two dates from 1980 to the present click here.

  10. Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois -- This website is a portal to recent research related to Arctic climate and climate change at the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois.  Global climate models (GCMs) are being used more and more to diagnose and project future climate changes in the Arctic. We are currently producing a set of animations illustrating the use of GCMs in addressing some of the most pressing questions related to Arctic climate change.

  11. Climate4You -- The objective of the present web site is to provide information on meteorological and climatologically issues of general and specific interest. The purpose is not to provide a forum for discussions. Many fine web sites take care of this. Some recent debates, books and other initiatives relating to global climatic changes, however, apparently are frustrated by a certain lack of knowledge on updated meteorological conditions and their variations in time and space. Also when it comes to the likely effects of climate change, the lessons of history often appear to be unknown or forgotten.

  12. An Arctic Regional Ocean Observing System (Arctic ROOS) has been established by a group of 14 member institutions from nine European countries working actively with ocean observation and modelling systems for the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas.  Arctic ROOS will promote, develop and maintain operational monitoring and forecasting of ocean circulation, water masses, ocean surface conditions, sea ice and biological/chemical constituents.  One of the goals of Arctic ROOS is to contribute to the legacy of IPY, maintaining cost-effective and useful observing systems after the end of IPY.  Arctic ROOS intends to include more members from countries outside of Europe and become a GOOS Regional Alliance for the Arctic. Arctic ROOS has established a secretariat at the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center in Norway.   Daily sea ice area and extent can be found here.

  13. The IARC-JAXA Information System (IJIS) is a geoinformatics facility for satellite image analysis and computational modeling/visualization in support of international collaboration in Arctic and global change research at the International Arctic Research Center in corporation with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).  The use of the IJIS is limited to the researchers authorized by JAXA (IJIS Users). If you are interested in using IJIS, please read "Qualification for IJIS Users."  A daily chart of  sea ice extent with all years plotted from 2002 may be found here.

  14. Archive of sea ice concentrations and extents --at the University of Illinois Department of Atmospheric Sciences.

  15. Climate Change Glossary -- A glossary of climate change terms from the 2001 IPCC Working Group I report.

  16. The uncertainty in climate modeling -- Simulating the global ecosystem is complex, potentially involving infinite variables that describe and relate nature's chemical, physical, and biological processes. The resulting range of possible climate scenarios has led to public confusion about the validity of climate prediction--and, more urgently, to delays in appropriate action. To better understand how climate scientists make their global weather forecasts (and why their predictions don't always agree), below, our four discussants explain the theory and practice of climate modeling and discuss how climate predictions should be interpreted and used.

  17. The Physics of Climate Modeling -- Climate is a large-scale phenomenon that emerges from complicated interactions among small-scale physical systems. Yet despite the phenomenon's complexity, climate models have demonstrated some impressive successes.  The task climate modelers have set for themselves is to take their knowledge of the local interactions of air masses, water, energy, and momentum and from that knowledge explain the climate system's large-scale features, variability, and response to external pressures, or "forcings."

  18. The carbon cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged between the biosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of the Earth.  For the Met Office Hadley Centre discussion of the carbon cycle click here.  For the Wikipedia Encyclopedia version click here.

  19. Climate Change and the Greenhouse Effect.  A briefing from the Hadley Centre, December 2005.  A very detailed briefing (71 pages) of the greenhouse effect, its causes, and its consequences for the future.

  20. Royal Meteorological Society "background on climate change".  A fairly large number of  Society members present video clips giving their answers about questions concerning the climate and what we can do about it.  

  21. The Consensus on Global Warming -- A paper from LogicalScience that demonstrates the fact that there is indeed a consensus on Global Warming.

  22. Common Arguments from Global Warming Skeptics -- a list of arguments that skeptics use then links to reasons their arguments are incorrect.  Also one might be interested in  "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic," a series by Coby Beck containing responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming.  Another website that takes on the skeptic arguments is SkepticalScience.  

  23. Fraudulent Global Warming Petition Project -- the organizers of this project have worked very hard to obtain signatures on a petition rejecting global warming from a large number of people who have degrees in some area of science of at least a bachelors degree.  While they have collected over 30,000 signatures almost none of these have a background in climate science, only a few have PhD's, almost none are scientists at all, and even fewer have published in the area of climate science.  Furthermore, a letter from Professor Frederick Seitz is circulated with the petition. Physicist Frederick Seitz was President of the US National Academy of Sciences and of Rockefeller University.  But what they did not say is that Prof. Seitz spent years working for the tobacco industry "debunking" the fact that smoking is harmful for your health.  They also "forget" to mention that Prof. Seitz was declared mentally incapable several years prior to his involvement with this project.  And they also forget to say that he has absolutely no expertise in the area of climate science.   For a video debunking this project click here.

  24. El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO; commonly referred to as simply El Niño) is a global coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon. The Pacific ocean signatures, El Niño and La Niña are important temperature fluctuations in surface waters of the tropical Eastern Pacific Ocean.

  25. Frequently asked questions about El Niño and La Niña -- Form NOAA.  El Niño happens when tropical Pacific Ocean trade winds die out and ocean temperatures become unusually warm. There is a flip side to El Nino called La Nina, which occurs when the trade winds blow unusually hard and the sea temperature become colder than normal. El Nino and La Nina are the warm and cold phases of an oscillation we refer to as El Nino/Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, which has a period of roughly 3-7 years.  NOAA also has a page of Occasionally Asked Questions about El Nino.

  26. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is a pattern of Pacific climate variability that shifts phases on at least inter-decadal time scale, usually about 20 to 30 years. The PDO is detected as warm or cool surface waters in the Pacific Ocean, north of 20° N. During a "warm", or "positive", phase, the west Pacific becomes cool and part of the eastern ocean warms; during a "cool" or "negative" phase, the opposite pattern occurs.  For more from JISAO check this link.

  27. The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) is an equatorial traveling pattern of anomalous rainfall that is planetary in scale. The mechanism and cause of the MJO is as yet not well-understood and is a subject of ongoing study.  The MJO is characterized by an eastward progression of large regions of both enhanced and suppressed tropical rainfall, observed mainly over the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. The anomalous rainfall is usually first evident over the western Indian Ocean, and remains evident as it propagates over the very warm ocean waters of the western and central tropical Pacific.  The MJO is also known as the 30-60 day oscillation, 30-60 day wave, or intraseasonal oscillation.

  28. The Western Hemisphere Warm Pool (WHWP) is a region of sea surface temperatures (SST) warmer than 28.5°C that develops west of Central America in the spring, then expands to the tropical waters to the east.  The WHWP includes the tropical Atlantic Ocean (TNA) east of the Lesser Antilles, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and eastern north Pacific Ocean (ENP).

  29. North Atlantic oscillation (NAO) is a climatic phenomenon in the North Atlantic Ocean of fluctuations in the difference of sea-level pressure between the Icelandic Low and the Azores high. Through east-west rocking motions of the Icelandic Low and the Azores high, it controls the strength and direction of westerly winds and storm tracks across the North Atlantic. It is highly correlated with the Arctic oscillation, (also see here for more on Artic oscilation) as it is a part of it.   Also check out AccuWeather.com's version of the NAO at this link.

  30. The Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO) is a hypothesised mode of natural variability occurring in the North Atlantic Ocean and which has its principle expression in the sea surface temperature (SST) field.  See also this link for more on AMO.  And even more from NOAA on AMO at this link and for graphs this link.  

  31. Solar variations are changes in the amount of radiant energy emitted by the Sun. There are periodic components to these variations, the principal one being the 11-year solar cycle (or sunspot cycle), as well as aperiodic fluctuations.  See also Sunspot and Sunspot Cycle.  Also Google "sunspot cycle and climate change".  For a different take check out LogicalScience's page on the sun and global warming.

  32. The Maunder Minimum is the name given to the period roughly from 1645 to 1715, when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time. It is named after the solar astronomer Edward W. Maunder (1851–1928) who studied changes of sunspots latitudes in different times and also during second part of 17th Century. Edward Maunder published two papers in 1890 and 1894 and he mentioned about earlier papers written by G. Sporer. The time of Minimum duration was taken from Sporer article.  The Maunder Minimum coincided with the middle — and coldest part — of the Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America, and perhaps much of the rest of the world, were subjected to bitterly cold winters. Whether there is a causal connection between low sunspot activity and cold winters is the subject of ongoing debate (e.g., see Global Warming).   A paper on simulating the Maunder Minimum is found at this link.

  33. Milankovitch cycles are the collective effect of changes in the Earth's movements upon its climate, named after Serbian civil engineer and mathematician Milutin Milanković. The eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of the Earth's orbit vary in several patterns, resulting in 100,000-year ice age cycles of the Quaternary glaciation over the last few million years.   During one 30-year period within the Maunder Minimum, astronomers observed only about 50 sunspots, as opposed to a more typical 40,000–50,000 spots in modern times.  

  34. An ice age is a period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in an expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Glaciologically, ice age is often used to mean a period of ice sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres; by this definition we are still in an ice age (because the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets still exist). More colloquially, when speaking of the last few million years, ice age is used to refer to colder periods with extensive ice sheets over the North American and Eurasian continents: in this sense, the most recent ice age ended about 11,000 years ago. This article will use the term ice age in the former, glaciological, sense: glacials for colder periods during ice ages and interglacials for the warmer periods.  For images see  Image:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png

  35. What can climate scientists tell us about the future?  Climate change is perhaps the most pressing problem facing the world today and it will remain a challenge for decades, if not centuries, to come.   Like any 'expert' trying to project into the future, scientists cannot give precise predictions of what will happen in 100 years, or even in the next 10 years. If we could, we would all have made our fortunes! However, we are able to give a range of possible outcomes of the world's actions and to assign probabilities to these.   The methodology is discussed here.

  36. An Inconvenient Truth: The legal ruling.  Earlier this year judicial review proceedings were issued in the High Court challenging the decision by the Government’s education department (DFES) to distribute copies of An Inconvenient Truth to secondary schools.  This guidance has been prepared following the High Court ruling and the subsequent announcement by campaigners behind the court case that they intend to send copies of the Great Global Warming Swindle to schools to ‘counter’ the distribution of An Inconvenient Truth by the DFES.

  37. Climate Change In Our World for Google Earth.  Explore and learn about the impacts of climate change and find out how you can make a difference with Climate Change in our World. The Met Office Hadley Centre, British Antarctic Survey and UK Government have harnessed Google Earth technology to present you with an interactive animation showing the retreat of Antarctic ice shelves over time.  Note:  To view these you must install Google Earth on your system.  Also check out Google Earth Outreach to customize your website.

  38. All About the Cryosphere.  Some places on Earth are so cold that water is a solid—ice or snow. Scientists call these frozen places of our planet the "cryosphere." The word "cryosphere" comes from the Greek word for cold, "kryos."  The cold regions of our planet influence our entire world’s climate. Plus, the cryosphere is central to the daily lives of the people, plants, and animals that have made it their home.  When scientists talk about the cryosphere, they mean the places where water is in its solid form, where low temperatures freeze water and turn it into ice.

  39. NSIDC's State of the Cryosphere provides an overview of the status of snow, ice, and permafrost as indicators of climate change.   This site provides time-series data for Northern Hemisphere snow cover, mountain glacier fluctuations, sea ice extent and concentration, changes in ice shelves, and global sea level. It also provides a snapshot of current permafrost conditions.

  40. NOAA's Arctic Theme Page.  The Arctic is a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by tree-less, frozen ground, that teems with life, including organisms living in the ice, fish and marine mammals, birds, land animals and human societies. NOAA provides Arctic infomation and a set of reputable indicators that describe the present state of the Arctic ecosystem and climate.

  41. Live from the North Pole!  Web Cam 3 is a fish eye view showing sky and cloud cover. Each reading by the radiometer triggers Web Cam 3 to take a photograph. Images are taken every 2 hours, allowing visual verification and comparison between sky conditions and radiometer measurements.  Provided by NOAA.

  42. Introduction: Are Global Temperatures Rising?  In 2007, in its Fourth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that 11 of the 12 warmest years on in the instrumental record since 1850 fell between 1995 and 2006 (IPCC 2007). The updated 100-year trend, from 1996 to 2005 of 0.74°C ± 0.18°C, was greater than the 100-year warming trend at the time of the IPCC's Third Assessment Report.

  43. Climate Change and Tropical Cyclones (Yet Again)  This is a discussion of hurricanes and the effect of global warming on them in RealClimate.  It is in response to a paper titled  "Simulated reduction in Atlantic hurricane frequency under twenty-first-century warming conditions" by Thomas R. Knutson, et al, in the journal Nature Geosciences which indicates that global warming might decrease the frequency of tropical cyclones (hurricanes.)  For a list of all RealClimate postings on hurricanes check here.

  44. The lag between temperature and CO2. (Gore’s got it right.)  “Doesn’t the relationship between CO2 and temperature in the ice core record show that temperature drives CO2, not the other way round?"  This has been a common argument by climate deniers.  This if from Eric Steig of RealClimate "Of course, those who've been paying attention will recognize that Gore is not wrong at all. This subject has been very well addressed in numerous places. Indeed, guest contributor Jeff Severinghaus addressed this in one of our very first RealClimate posts, way back in 2004. Still, the question does keep coming up, and Jeff recently received a letter asking about this. His exchange with the letter writer is reproduced in full at the end of this post. Below is my own take on the subject."

  45. Positive feedbacks from the carbon cycle.  Two papers appeared in Geophysical Research Letters today (May 27, 2006) claiming that the warming forecast for the coming century may be underestimated, because of positive feedbacks in the carbon cycle. One comes from Torn and Harte, and the other from Scheffer, Brovkin, and Cox. Both papers conclude that warming in the coming century could be increased by carbon cycle feedbacks, by 25-75% or so. Do we think it's time to push the big red Stop the Press button down at IPCC?

  46. Is the ocean carbon sink sinking?  The past few weeks and years have seen a bushel of papers finding that the natural world, in particular perhaps the ocean, is getting fed up with absorbing our CO2. There are uncertainties and caveats associated with each study, but taken as a whole, they provide convincing evidence that the hypothesized carbon cycle positive feedback has begun.  This was posted on RealClimate on November 1, 2007, and is closely related to the previous article.

  47. Consequences of Global Warming The latest scientific data confirm that the earth's climate is rapidly changing. Global temperatures increased by about 1 degree Fahrenheit over the course of the last century, and will likely rise even more rapidly in coming decades. The cause? A thickening layer of carbon dioxide pollution and other greenhouse gases, mostly from power plants and automobiles, which traps heat in the atmosphere. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of the world's leading climate researchers, sees a greater than 90 percent likelihood that most warming over the last 50 years has occurred because of human-caused emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.  Scientists say that the earth could warm by an additional 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit during the 21st century if we fail to reduce emissions from burning fossil fuels.

  48. U.N. climate chief: Global warming battle slowing.  From USA Today.  May 24, 2008.  KOBE, Japan (AP) — The world is losing momentum in the battle against global warming, the U.N. climate chief warned on Saturday, urging environmental ministers from wealthy nations to revive the effort by setting clear targets for reducing greenhouse gases. The ministers gathered in the western Japanese city of Kobe for a three-day meeting as evidence mounted that rising world temperatures have been taking a toll on the earth at a faster rate than previously forecast ....

  49. The Economics of Climate Change Revisited:  Why the Hurry?  by Michael Hanemann, University of California, Berkeley.  This is notes from a talk given at the 9th Swiss Global Change Day, April 1, 2008, in Bern.  *"I do believe there is a sound economic argument for strong action now to reduced GHG emissions.", *" But this is not the mainstream view of economists in the United States.", *"In this talk, I will explain the reasons for the difference in perceptions about the economic case for climate action."

  50. Biochar is a fine-grained charcoal high in organic carbon and largely resistant to decomposition.  It is produced from pyrolysis of plant and waste feedstocks.  As a soil amendment, biochar creates a recalcitrant soil carbon pool that is carbon-negative, serving as a net withdrawal of atmospheric carbon dioxide stored in highly recalcitrant soil carbon stocks.  The enhanced nutrient retention capacity of biochar-amended soil not only reduces the total fertilizer requirements but also the climate and environmental impact of croplands.  Also check out Biochar Offers Answer for Healthy Soil and Carbon Sequestration.  Wikipedia has an explaination of pyrolysis here.  And a special report of Scientific American on Biochar is found here.  

  51. "Fate of fossil fuel CO2 in geologic time" by David Archer,  Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.  The idea that anthropogenic CO2 release may affect the climate of the earth for hundreds of thousands of years has not reached general public awareness. Goodstein [2004] reports that fossil fuel CO2 will disappear after a millennium. This misconception is widespread in scientific and public discussion. It certainly makes sense to focus our attention on the century timescale within which we live out our lives, and within which most of the CO2 will be absorbed by the natural carbon cycle.  See also "Long term fate of anthropogenic carbon"

  52. The Economist Has No Clothes  From Scientific American.  The 19th-century creators of neoclassical economics—the theory that now serves as the basis for coordinating activities in the global market system—are credited with transforming their field into a scientific discipline. But what is not widely known is that these now legendary economists—William Stanley Jevons, Léon Walras, Maria Edgeworth and Vilfredo Pareto—developed their theories by adapting equations from 19th-century physics that eventually became obsolete. Unfortunately, it is clear that neoclassical economics has also become outdated. The theory is based on unscientific assumptions that are hindering the implementation of viable economic solutions for global warming and other menacing environmental problems.`

  53. South Eastern Australian Climate Initiative (SEACI), launched in 2006, is a three year $7m research program involving government and industry investigating the causes and impacts of climate change and climate variability across south eastern Australia, home of the Murray-Darling Basin. The initiative is a collaboration of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission (MDBC), the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment, The Australian Greenhouse Office within the Department of the Environment and Water Resources, and Australia's Managing Climate Variability program, CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM). MDBC is the managing agency, with the research being carried out by initiative partners CSIRO and BoM.  SEACI fact sheet-overview

  54. Future Scenarios -- The simultaneous onset of climate change and the peaking of global oil supply represent unprecedented challenges for human civilisation.   Global oil peak has the potential to shake if not destroy the foundations of global industrial economy and culture. Climate change has the potential to rearrange the biosphere more radically than the last ice age. Each limits the effective options for responses to the other.   The strategies for mitigating the adverse effects and/or adapting to the consequences of Climate Change have mostly been considered and discussed in isolation from those relevant to Peak Oil. While awareness of Peak Oil, or at least energy crisis, is increasing, understanding of how these two problems might interact to generate quite different futures, is still at an early state.  FutureScenarios.org presents an integrated approach to understanding the potential interaction between Climate Change and Peak Oil using a scenario planning model. In the process I introduce permaculture as a design system specifically evolved over the last 30 years to creatively respond to futures that involve progressively less and less available energy.   -- David Holmgren, co-originator of the permaculture concept. May 2008 

  55. Changing Sun, Changing Climate?  Since it is the Sun's energy that drives the weather system, scientists naturally wondered whether they might connect climate changes with solar variations. Yet the Sun seemed to be stable over the timescale of human lifetimes. Attempts to discover cyclic variations in weather and connect them with the 11-year sunspot cycle, or other possible solar cycles ranging up to a few centuries long, gave results that were ambiguous at best. These attempts got a well-deserved bad reputation. Jack Eddy overcame this with a 1976 study that demonstrated that irregular variations in solar surface activity, a few centuries long, were connected with major climate shifts. The mechanism remained uncertain, but plausible candidates emerged. The next crucial question was whether a rise in the Sun's activity could explain the global warming seen in the 20th century? By the 1990s, there was a tentative answer: minor solar variations could indeed have been partly responsible for some past fluctuations... but future warming from the rise in greenhouse gases would far outweigh any solar effects.
    For a related article see Stalking the Elusive Solar-cycle/Temperature Connection .

  56. Rapid ice retreat threatens Arctic interior -- The rapid decline of sea ice could accelerate inland warming over the Arctic region, radically transforming the landscape. Hannah Hoag reports.

  57. Marine Organisms Threatened By Increasingly Acidic Ocean  -- Corals and Plankton May Have Difficulty Making Shells .  Every day, the average person on the planet burns enough fossil fuel to emit 24 pounds of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, out of which about nine pounds is then taken up by the ocean.  As this CO2 combines with seawater, it forms an acid in a process known as ocean acidification. 

  58. What do we know about organisms that thrive in Arctic sea ice?  The flourishing life within the briny habitat of sea ice. The ice-specific ecosystem includes bacteria, viruses, unicellular algae, diatom chains, worms and crustaceans. Click on the image to see a magnified view of the brine channels containing these organisms.

  59. Fire under the ice, the Gakkel Ridge  International expedition discovers gigantic volcanic eruption in the Arctic Ocean   An international team of researchers was able to provide evidence of explosive volcanism in the deeps of the ice-covered Arctic Ocean for the first time. Researchers from an expedition to the Gakkel Ridge, led by the American Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), report in the current issue of the journal Nature that they discovered, with a specially developed camera, extensive layers of volcanic ash on the seafloor, which indicates a gigantic volcanic eruption.

  60. Evidence of Recent Volcanic Activity Found along the Slow Spreading Gakkel Ridge.  Researchers working under the ice canopy in the Arctic Basin, the last of Earth's oceanic frontiers, have confirmed that volcanoes and other tectonic processes often accompany seafloor spreading along the global mid-ocean ridge (MOR) system. A team of researchers from Columbia, the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Tulane collected data along the Gakkel Ridge, the Earth's slowest spreading MOR, which was thought to be non-volcanic.

  61. What drove the dramatic retreat of arctic sea ice during summer 2007?  A model study has been conducted of the unprecedented retreat of arctic sea ice in the summer of 2007. It is found that preconditioning, anomalous winds, and ice-albedo feedback are mainly responsible for the retreat. Arctic sea ice in 2007 was preconditioned to radical changes after years of shrinking and thinning in a warm climate. During summer 2007 atmospheric changes strengthened the transpolar drift of sea ice, causing more ice to move out of the Pacific sector and the central Arctic Ocean where the reduction in ice thickness due to ice advection is up to 1.5 m more than usual. Some of the ice exited Fram Strait and some piled up in part of the Canada Basin and along the coast of northern Greenland, leaving behind an unusually large area of thin ice and open water. Thin ice and open water allow more surface solar heating because of a much reduced surface albedo, leading to amplified ice melting. The Arctic Ocean lost additional 10% of its total ice mass in which 70% is due directly to the amplified melting and 30% to the unusual ice advection, causing the unprecedented ice retreat. Arctic sea ice has entered a state of being particularly vulnerable to anomalous atmospheric forcing.

  62. The Big Thaw.  The blogosphere is buzzing with discussion of new research soon to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, Accelerated Arctic land warming and permafrost degradation during rapid sea ice loss (Lawrence et al. 2008, GRL, in press, scheduled for publication tomorrow), a collaboration between researchers from NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) and NSIDC (National Snow and Ice Data Center). Their research indicates that, in large part due to the rapid reduction of summer sea ice in the arctic, land areas in the far north will warm much faster than the rest of the globe. This would lead to rapid melting of permafrost, which in turn could release massive stores of CO2 trapped in the permafrost.

  63. Under-Ice Volcano Eruption Spewed Ash Over Antarctica, 21 January 2008, for National Geographic News   A rare volcanic eruption punched through Antarctica's ice sheet more than 2,000 years ago, scattering ash across the frozen landscape, a radar survey has revealed.   The eruption was the biggest in Antarctica in the past 10,000 years, researchers estimate.  The volcano's continuous output of heat may still be melting the base of the ice sheet, and could be partially responsible for the fast flow of a nearby glacier.

  64. Powered by China and developing nations, world energy demand seen growing 50 percent by 2030.  WASHINGTON - World energy demand will grow 50 percent over the next two decades, oil prices could rise to $186 a barrel and coal will remain the biggest source of electricity despite its effect on global warming, government experts predict.   The Energy Information Administration's long-range forecast to 2030 said the world is not close to abandoning fossil fuels. They will continue to be at the core of energy production in transportation and electricity generation, according to the report released Wednesday.  See also Fossil Fuel Use, Price To Only Increase By 2030.

  65. Understanding and Responding to Climate Change (pdf format).  There is a growing concern about global warming and the impact it will have on people and the ecosystems on which they depend. Temperatures have already risen 1.4°F since the start of the 20th century—with much of this warming occurring in just the last 30 years—and temperatures will likely rise at least another 2°F, and possibly more than 11°F, over the next 100 years. This warming will cause significant changes in sea level, ecosystems, and ice cover, among other impacts. In the Arctic, where temperatures have increased almost twice as much as the global average, the landscape and ecosystems are already changing rapidly. Most scientists agree that the warming in recent decades has been caused primarily by human activities that have increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, have increased significantly since the Industrial Revolution, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels for energy, industrial processes, and transportation. Carbon dioxide levels are at their highest in at least
    650,000 years and continue to rise.

  66. iCue - Environment -- Immerse, Connect, Understand, Excel.  iCue is a set of courses produced by NBC News.  This link is to the Environmental Science course.  For other courses go directly to iCue.com.

  67. Arctic Submarine Laboratory is the "center of excellence" for arctic matters for the U.S. Submarine Force and is responsible for developing and maintaining expertise in arctic specific skills, knowledge, equipment, and procedures to enable its force to safely and effectively operate in the unique Arctic Ocean environment. 

  68. Images of submarines at the North Pole:  The North Pole has a chance of being "ice free" for the first time in the past hundreds of thousands of years.  Climate deniers point to photos of U.S. submarines that surfaced at the north pole as evidence that it has been ice free before.  This, however, is not true.  First -- "ice free" in scientific terms means the area cannot have more than 15% ice.  As the photos show, this was not true.  Second -- the subsmarines in the photos all surfaced by breaking through ice.  That is not exactly "ice free".  Other photos of submarines in the artic are found here.

  69. The Top of the World: Is the North Pole Turning to Water?  by John L. Daly.   The `Arctic' is a general term applied to all the lands, ocean, and ice north of the Arctic Circle at 67°N. It includes the northern Canadian Archipelago, most of Greenland, the Norwegian Sea, the Arctic Ocean, and the northern coastlines of Russia, Scandinavia, Canada and Alaska.  The ebb and flow of Arctic ice extent and mass is nothing new, as can be expected from such a dynamic and changing ocean/ice environment.  This is also the region which climate models indicate will receive a much larger warming from an enhanced greenhouse effect than would occur in lower latitudes. `Global Warming' is therefore not expected by greenhouse models to be evenly distributed around the globe as the term would suggest. Rather it is heavily biased toward the high latitude and polar regions.

  70. The Discovery of Global Warming -- A hypertext history of how scientists came to (partly) understand what people are doing to cause climate change.    This Website created by Spencer Weart supplements his much shorter book, which tells the history of climate change research as a single story. On this Website you will find a more complete history in dozens of essays on separate topics, updated annually.

  71. Simple Models of Climate -- An introduction to the concept of climate modeling.

  72. In June, 2009, there were three major reports released that indicate that if nothing is done to stop GHG emissions then things will be much worse than had been previously been reported.  And each gave hope in that all three indicated that if major actions were taken very quickly then the worst of the effects of global warming can be averted.
    1. Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States --  U.S. Global Change Research Program presented on June 16, 2009 to the President and the Congress a state of knowledge report: “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States.” This report summarizes the science of climate change and the impacts of climate change on the United States, both now and in the future.  The key findings of the report can be viewed here.  The full report can be viewed here or the 196 pdf version can be downloaded here.
    2. Climate change odds much worse than thought -- The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago - and could be even worse than that.  The study uses the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model, a detailed computer simulation of global economic activity and climate processes that has been developed and refined by the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change since the early 1990s.  Another view of this paper can be found at Science Daily here.
    3. Copenhagen Climate Report -- 18 June 2009 - Key climate indicators such as global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise and extreme climatic events are already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which contemporary society and economy have developed. This is one of the key messages of a report presented by leading scientists in Brussels in preparation for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December, 2009. The up-to-date overview of research relevant to climate change was handed over to the Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the host of the conference.  The Synthesis Report summarizes new knowledge that was presented at the congress “Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges & Decisions” at the University of Copenhagen in March this year.  It may be downloaded here.

  73. "Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet" by Mark Lynas -- Possibly the most graphic treatment of global warming that has yet been published.  This highly relevant and compelling book uses accessible journalistic prose to distill what environmental scientists portend about the consequences of human pollution for the next hundred years.  In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a landmark report projecting average global surface temperatures to rise between 1.4 degrees and 5.8 degrees Celsius (roughly 2 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of this century. Based on this forecast, author Mark Lynas outlines what to expect from a warming world, degree by degree.  Based on authoritative scientific articles, the latest computer models, and information about past warm events in Earth history, Six Degrees promises to be an eye-opening warning that humanity will ignore at its peril.

  74. CO2Now -- What the world neets to Watch.  Global warming is mainly the result of CO2 levels rising in the Earth’s atmosphere. Both atmospheric CO2 and climate change are accelerating. Climate scientists say we have years, not decades, to stabilize CO2 and other greenhouse gases.  To help the world succeed, CO2Now.org makes it easy to see the most current CO2 level and what it means. So, use this site and keep an eye on CO2.  Invite others to do the same. Then we can do more to send CO2 in the right direction.

  75. The Encyclopedia of Earth -- For this website the section on Climate Change is most important.  Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Earth, a new electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society. The Encyclopedia is a free, fully searchable collection of articles written by scholars, professionals, educators, and experts who collaborate and review each other's work. The articles are written in non-technical language and will be useful to students, educators, scholars, professionals, as well as to the general public.

  76. Climate Data Information -- A lot of data on climate and climate change are available on the internet but they are not presented in a way which makes them easy to understand. Where climate data are available in a digestible form they are often being used to support one side or the other of highly polarised positions. We are trying to prove only one thing: rational debate is possible when participants have access to the facts.  On this site you will find graphs, explanation and data related to essential aspects of climate change. Everything can be downloaded for free and the data files can be input directly to spreadsheets on Windows, Macintosh and UNIX operating systems.

  77. Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide -- 1981 paper by J. Hansen, eta, about the impact to the climate of carbon dioxide .  Includes predictions of global tempretures through 2100.

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