2014 warmest year on record, say US researchers

2014 was the warmest year on record, with global temperatures 0.68C (1.24F) above the long-term average, US government scientists have said.

The results mean that 14 of the 15 warmest years on record have occurred since the turn of the century.

Giant underwater waves could hold secrets of climate forecasting and improved fisheries

The Tasman Sea's giant tides are to be studied as part of a project to improve climate forecasts and locate more productive fisheries.

Scientists from the US and Canada have joined forces with Australian researchers to study giant underwater waves at the tidal hotspot.

Associate Professor Pete Strutton, from the University of Tasmania, said underwater waves played a significant role in the global climate system by transporting heat around the ocean and helping it absorb carbon dioxide.

"As well as mixing cold water up and warm water down, internal waves mix nutrients or fertiliser into the surface layers of the ocean where the plankton can take advantage of them and also take advantage of the sunlight to be productive," he said.

Dr Matthew Alford, from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the US, said Hobart was chosen as the final port to prepare for the ground breaking 10-week Tasman Tides voyage.

"This is kind of one of the graveyards of waves... where they are actually going to break and leave a lot of their energy right here in Tasmania,' he said.

Severe La Nina weather events in Pacific may double due to warming

Extreme "La Nina" weather events that cool the Pacific Ocean and can disrupt weather worldwide will paradoxically happen almost twice as often in a warming world, an international team of scientists said on Monday.

Australia temperatures rising faster than rest of the world: official report

Australia faced a rise in temperature of potentially more than 5 degrees celsius (41 degrees fahrenheit) by the end of the century, an increase that would outpace global warming worldwide, the country's national science agency said on Tuesday.

NB: A rise of 5 degrees C is 9 degrees F. It is not an absolute temperature. Some journalist needs to go back to school.

Australia temperatures rising faster than rest of the world: official report

Australia faced a rise in temperature of potentially more than 5 degrees celsius (41 degrees fahrenheit) by the end of the century, an increase that would outpace global warming worldwide, the country's national science agency said on Tuesday.

NB: A rise of 5 degrees C is 9 degrees F. It is not an absolute temperature. Some journalist needs to go back to school.

Scary stuff if proven true. Things do seem to be a bit warmer than when I was younger, but then here on the east coast of Australia that is subjective, we had 35 degrees C on Sunday (2 days ago) and yesterday (Monday) we had 19 degrees C. This is in the middle of an Aussie summer, very weird.

The journalist was sort of close, as going from a starting point of Zero degrees C you get 32 degrees F and 9 degrees F plus the 32 gives 41 degrees F. That person has just twisted around how the 9 degrees F was applied, probably to sensationalise the article, truth has never gotten in the way of a good story, it is usually just pushed to the side.

Conan

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Don�t complain to much about 19C. Right now we on the East Coast of the U.S. are in the middle of a blizzard that is predicted to dump between 2 and 3 feet of snow by late tomorrow. Yikes.

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Rocket blasts off with NASA satellite to help track climate change

The satellite measures the tiny amount of soil moisture that links the planet's overall environmental systems - its water, energy and carbon cycles - as well as determines whether particular regions are afflicted with drought or flooding.
....
....
Currently, scientists rely largely on computer models to account for soil moisture.

But from its orbital perch 685 kilometres above Earth, SMAP has two microwave instruments to collect actual soil moisture measurements everywhere on Earth and update the measurements every two to three days.

It's not mentioned directly, but this report looks as though it relates to the ANZ regional climate models.

2013 record heatwave 'virtually impossible' without climate change, Climate Council of Australia report says

The independently-funded group used new modelling to look at the odds of extreme heat events occurring, with and without man-made emissions.

A computer simulation of the atmosphere showed that climate change tripled the odds that the heatwaves of 2012/2013 would occur as frequently as they did and doubled the odds that they would be as intense as they were.

More than 123 temperature records were broken over that summer.

"If we don't get on top of this, what you consider an extreme heat event now would be a normal summer by the middle of the century," he said.

"By 2090 when my grandkids are around, that's going to be a cool summer.

"You don't want to live in that world."

The Southwest, including California, along with the Great Plains states, will endure long-lasting �megadroughts� in the second half of this century, worse by far than anything seen in the past 1,000 years, a team of climate experts said Thursday. The driving force behind the devastating droughts? Human-induced global warming, the team reported.
http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Megadroughts-predicted-to-ravage-the-Southwest-6078504.php

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/16/climate-change-aggravating-cyclone-damage-scientists-say

Climate change aggravating cyclone damage, scientists say

Rising sea levels making island nations such as Vanuatu more vulnerable to storms and amplifies the impact of tropical cyclones

Prof Myles Allen is quoted in this article:

Professor Myles Allen a climate scientist from the University of Oxford said while there is a suggestion cyclones may become more intense, the president�s assertion that climate change was causing more storms was not supported by science.

�It is a perfectly reasonable question for the president to be raising. Basic thermodynamics means that a warmer atmosphere, all other things being equal, makes more intense cyclones possible,� said Allen.

�But this does not mean cyclones have necessarily become more likely: indeed, the latest assessment of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated explicitly that there is no clear evidence at present for any human-induced increase in tropic-wide cyclone frequency.

�On a personal level, I sympathise with the president�s evident frustration: he and the people of Vanuatu deserve an authoritative answer to the question of the role of past greenhouse gas emissions in cyclone Pam. The science isn�t there yet, but we are getting there.�

And when he says "...we are getting there", that's thanks to your help running weather@home regional attribution climate models for us, so thank you!

Cheers,
Hannah

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Hannah Rowlands
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No longer Communications Officer for climateprediction.net, as of October 2015

So can we expect to see a pile of model runs addressing the Cyclone Pam question?

The people of Vanuatu came out top on an index of environmental impact and wellbeing http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jul/12/healthandwellbeing.lifeandhealth (the UK didn't make the top hundred), and I agree with Professor Allen that they deserve an answer.

This will only happen if climate physicists somewhere get interested in it, and want data for some research.

Climate change: US agency says March hottest globally on record as Barack Obama urges action

Rising temperatures across the planet have set more records as the US government announced the globe experienced its hottest month of March since record keeping began in 1880.

The period of January to March was also the warmest on record, according to the monthly report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The latest data, which takes into account global averages across land and sea surfaces, follows announcements from the same US government scientists that 2014 was the hottest year in modern history.

Climate Change Authority recommends Australia makes aggressive cuts to emissions beyond 2020

The Climate Change Authority (CCA) has recommended aggressive cuts in emissions beyond 2020 to ensure Australia does its fair share to combat climate change.

A CCA report recommends cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent by 2025 based on Australia's emissions from the year 2000.

This would require significant emissions cuts beyond the current 2020 target of 5 per cent.

Australia's emissions are less than 1.5 per cent of global emissions, but per capita Australia is the biggest emitter of all developed nations.

Kelp beds transplanted to Tasmania to help reveal effects of climate change

In a world-first study, scientists have transplanted kelp off the coast of Tasmania to better understand the impact of climate change.

The kelp, which grows from northern New South Wales around to Western Australia, provides an ecosystem for hundreds of marine species.

Now it is thinning and becoming patchy because of warming waters.

Divers in Tasmania have spent months on the island's eastern sea floor transplanting 500 kelp plants.

Sea level rising faster in past 20 years than in entire 20th century, study finds

A new study has found sea level rise accelerated faster in the past two decades than it did for the majority of the 20th century.

The report, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, corrected an anomaly that had puzzled the scientific community for years.

World Weather Attribution

World Weather Attribution (WWA) is a new international effort designed to sharpen and accelerate the scientific community�s ability to analyze and communicate the possible influence of climate change on extreme-weather events such as storms, floods, heat waves and droughts.

Note the mention of distributed computing in the section on the University of Oxford Environmental Change Institute.

Some very good information and News about Climate Change from NASA

http://climate.nasa.gov/

http://climate.nasa.gov/news/

James Hansen�s controversial sea level rise paper has now been published online

James Hansen Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interesting to hear the governer of the bank of England warning about climate change. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34396961 I guess many people will only pay attention when it hits their pockets.