One thing you might have missed is the BAMS special climate supplement "2015 State of the Climate" has been released. You can get it here.
The report confirmed that 2015 surpassed 2014 as the warmest year since at least the mid-to-late 19th century. The record heat resulted from the combined influence of long-term global warming and one of the strongest El Niño events the globe has experienced since at least 1950. Most indicators of climate change continued to reflect trends consistent with a warming planet. Several markers, such as land and ocean temperatures, sea levels, and greenhouse gases, broke records set just one year prior.
Another thing is there's a new report from the Climate Council focusing on rural Australia, which you can read here.
Our new report reveals that climate change is likely to worsen the systemic disadvantages suffered by rural and regional communities, and further widen the gap between rural and urban areas.
The 'On the Frontline: Climate Change & Rural Communities' report finds the increase in extreme weather events is disproportionately affecting those in rural areas, with serious social, health and economic impacts.
Unlike IPCC reports, the annual SOTC issues make for relatively easy, entertaining reading on a wide range of climate-related topics. I have them all going back to the first 1981-1990 decadal compilation.
ReplyDeleteThis year's is no exception, with the usual collection of well-designed graphs and plots and a strikingly beautiful front and back cover. (I'm considering buying work from the artist.)
My only peeve is that the NOAA's flawed metric accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) is still used as a measure of regional or global hurricane strength. ACE (the sum of peak sustained wind speed squared over six hour intervals) does not take storm size into account, and significantly downplays large, slow-moving storms like Sandy.
It wouldn't seem that difficult to add a diameter-squared term to the calculation to obtain a measure that more accurately reflects total storm energy.
I should, up front, acknowledge my bias in favor of the annual SOTC as I've been involved a bit in years gone by.
ReplyDeleteEach issue monitors the current state of the climate, putting it into accurate historical context. But when one looks at how the reports change over time, one can see the progress of science: The improved observing system. The improved data processing and analyses. New independent groups assessing a variable. Etc.
It is a delight to see the march of science.
I am puzzled, though, how science can march on yet some people's views are unaffected by this progress. Indeed, recent comments on WUWT indicate that some people still hold grudges for perceived slights associated with documents produced in 2001 and 2006, documents whose basic results were both supported and superseded by more recent science, some of which is right there in the current SOTC.
1) They have not read either?
ReplyDelete2) As the science improves it is harder to criticize so stick with the tried and irrelevant.
Since this is an open thread, it seems the proper place to put this.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), operated by the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), July 2016 was the hottest month ever as far as absolute global temperature.
https://weather.com/news/climate/news/july-2016-warmest-global-temperature-record