ATMS 211 Climate and Climate Change Links

CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the scientific body set up by the United Nations to assess all the scientific evidence for global warming. Its 2001 Third Assessment Report represents the consensus view of the world’s climate scientists.

Climate of 2003: An Annual Review (the National Climatic Data Center, part of NOAA). 2003 was the second warmest year on record, tied with 2002. The year 1998 was the warmest on record.

Global Trend in 2002 – Surface Temperature Trends from NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies.

Reports by the National Academy of Sciences

• Reconciling Observations of Global Temperature Change (2000) – discusses why there is not a disparity between the satellite record of tropospheric temperature and the weather station surface record. Press release summary here. Research by  Wentz and Schabel (1998) Nature 394, 661 - 664, and Vinnikov and Grody (2003), Science, 302, 269-272 shows how satellite temperatures show  a clear increase in tropospheric temperature since1979, consistent with the surface temperature trend measured by weather stations. View satellite, weather balloon, and surface station trends diagram.
  

• Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions (2001)
• Understanding Climate Change Feedbacks (2003)

US Global Change Research program

The Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research – the UK’s main institution for climate change research.

Help climate change research: download a screensaver that runs climate change prediction models on your idle computer at climateprediction.net

CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY AND IMPACTS

POLICIES

George W. Bush Administration Policy on Climate Change

1) Whitehouse sources:

• The Bush Administrations Actions on Global Climate Change (a fact sheet from the White House, Sept 2003)
• President Bush’s Statement on Climate Change (July 13, 2001)
• Letter from President Bush explaining why he opposes Kyoto

2) Independent sources and critiques:

• Report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (February, 2004)

Scientific Integrity in Policymaking: An investigation into the Bush Administration’s Misuse of Science. This report details examples of Whitehouse censorship of climate science research when it disagreed with the Administration’s ideological position.

• Pew Center on Global Climate Change – contains a variety of reports on policy issues
• The Heat Is Online –contains links to the latest climate news. Under “disinformation” it details the misinformation and shenanigans of the so-called “skeptics” of global warming.

Latest international deliberations:

• Info on the December 2003 Milan meeting: The Ninth Conference of The Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
• Another site on COP9 by the Earth Negotiations Bulletin

The American Geophysical Union is the world’s largest professional organization of Earth scientists. Here is the AGU position on global warming.

ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS

An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security , a worst-case report commissioned by the Pentagon (October 2003).

Abrupt Climate Change from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Abrupt Climate Changes: Inevitable Surprises by the National Academy of Sciences (2002).

OTHER CLIMATE IMPACTS

Impacts of Climate Variability and Change in the Pacific Northwest – by the University of Washington

Confronting Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region: Impacts on Our Communities and Ecosystems " a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Ecological Society of America, and written by leading university and government scientists in the Great Lakes region. (Apr. 2003)

Computer Model Suggests Future Crop Loss Due to Potential Increase in Extreme Rain Events over Next Century by researchers at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University, New York. (Oct. 2002)

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Online magazines and reports

CONSEQUENCES an online magazine about the environment.

• Remembrance of Things Past: Greenhouse Lessons from the Geologic Record, by Thomas J. Crowley
• The Sun And Climate, by Judith Lean and David Rind
• Articles about El Nino
• The Extreme Weather Events of 1997 and 1998, By Kevin E.Trenberth
• Beyond Kyoto: Toward A Technology Greenhouse Strategy, by James A. Edmonds
• The Carbon Cycle, Climate, And The Long-Term Effects Of Fossil Fuel Burning , by James F. Kasting
• From A Carbon Economy To A Mixed Economy: A Global Opportunity, by Richard C. Rockwell
• Climate, Ecology, and Human Health, by Paul R. Epstein
• Impacts of a Projected Depletion of the Ozone Layer, by Frank R. de Gruijl
• Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture and Food Supply, by Cynthia Rosenzweig and Daniel Hillel
• Trends in U.S. Climate during the Twentieth Century, by Thomas R. Karl, Richard W. Knight, David R. Easterling, Robert G. Quayle

Reports to the Nation on Our Changing Planet by University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) at National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). A series of reports on the climate system; the ozone shield; El Niño and climate prediction; and on the changing climate.

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