Climate news

NASA has just launched a great new climate change website for kids. It contains clear explanations, useful graphics and a variety of games. The 'climate time machine' allows one to track projected changes in temperature, carbon emissions, sea level and sea ice over time.  There is also a fascinating feature where you can explore the planet in 3D using NASA satellite images.

Find the website here

The Copenhagen Diagnosis is a climate science report that aims to supplement the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).  Major findings include:

• CO₂ emisisons from fossil fuels up by 40% from 1990 to 2008
• Global temperature is warming by 0.19 degrees C per decade
• Ice melt is accelerating
• Sea level rise is 3.4 mm/yr and accelerating

The report concludes that to limit the global temperature rise to below 2 degrees C will require global CO₂ emissions to peak before 2020.

Download full report

According to a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme, the pace and scale of climate change may now be outstripping even the most sobering predictions of the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC).

There is increasing concern over a wide range of issues including acidification of the oceans, sea level rise and changes in the hydrological cycle.  Tipping points may now be reached in a matter of years or a few decades including dramatic changes to the Indian sub-continent's monsoon, the Sahara and West Africa monsoons, and climate systems affecting critical ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest, and the planet is now committed to some damaging and irreversible impacts as a result of the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere.

In a foreword to the document, the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, "The time for hesitation is over. We need the world to realize, once and for all, that the time to act is now and we must work together to address this monumental challenge. This is the moral challenge of our generation."

Download the UNEP report

NASA's 'Eyes on the Earth' web page summarises the latest key global climate change indicators.  These include:

• Sea level rise: 3.4 mm per year
• Arctic sea ice: losing 11.7% per decade
• Atmospheric CO₂ - now approximately 388 parts per million
• Global average temperature: 2008 was the 10th warmest year on record

See NASA's graphs

Tuvalu is a tiny island state in the Pacific.  It is very vulnerable to the effects of climate change because most of the land there is within 1 metre of sea level. Electricity is currently generated mainly using diesel-powered generators but the government plans to change to 100% wind and solar power by 2020.

Other nations planning to become carbon-neutral include Costa Rica, Iceland, New Zealand and Norway.

See article from BBC

Forest ecologists in California's Yosemite National Park have analysed data from the last 60 years and concluded that the oldest and largest trees are disappearing. Reduced water availability due to climate change appears to be a major cause of the loss.  The decline in large-diameter trees could accelerate as climate in California becomes warmer by mid-century, and the situation may be worse elsewhere because Yosemite is one of the most protected forests within the US.

More detail from the BBC

The Indigenous Peoples’ Global Summit on Climate Change was held from 20-24 April 2009, in Anchorage, Alaska.   Representatives expressed their solidarity as Indigenous Peoples living in areas that are the most vulnerable to the impacts and root causes of climate change. Indigenous Peoples are experiencing profound and disproportionate adverse impacts on their cultures, human and environmental health, traditional livelihoods, food systems and food sovereignty, and their very survival as Indigenous Peoples. Summit representatives agreed a Declaration reaffirming the unbreakable and sacred connection between land, air, water, oceans, forests, sea ice, plants, animals and human communities.

The Declaration makes 14 calls for action, including for binding emissions reduction targets, a just transition to decentralised renewable energy economies, reduced fossil fuel use and provision of risk insurance to allow Indigenous Peoples to recover from extreme weather events.

Read the Declaration

Scientists had taken some comfort from the thought that most of Antarctica was not warming. But a new study by NASA, which combined information from ground weather stations with satellite data, has revealed a warming trend over the last 50 years. The average temperature is now thought to have risen by over 0.5 degrees C over this period.

Read more from NASA

The year 2008 is likely to rank as the 10th warmest year on record since the beginning of the instrumental climate records in 1850, according to data sources compiled by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The global combined sea-surface and land-surface air temperature for 2008 is currently estimated at 0.31°C/0.56°F above the 1961-1990 annual average of 14.00°C/57.2°F. The global average temperature in 2008 was slightly lower than that for the last few years, due to the moderate to strong La Niña that developed in the latter half of 2007.

The Arctic Sea ice extent dropped to its second-lowest level during the melt season since satellite measurements began in 1979. Climate extremes, including devastating floods, severe and persistent droughts, snow storms, heatwaves and cold waves, were recorded in many parts of the world.

Read more from World Meteorological Organization

The thickness of Arctic sea ice plummeted last winter, thinning by as much as 20% in some regions, satellite data has revealed.

Sea ice in the Arctic shrank to its smallest size on record in September 2007, beating the previous record low measured in 2005. Although the 2008 minimum ice extent was not so low as 2007, a team from University College London has now shown that last winter the ice had thinned by an average of 10% (26cm) below the 2002-2008 winter average.

There is still considerasble uncertainty about predictions, but the results suggest that summer sea ice will disappear within about 30 years.

Read more detail from the BBC