The Elephant
The climate change and environmental emergency: a comprehensive resource for journalists, politicians, policy makers, activists and citizens
The ElephantThe climate change and environmental emergency: a comprehensive resource for journalists, politicians, policy makers, activists and citizens
Visit: realclimate.org
New study suggests the Atlantic overturning circulation AMOC “is on tipping course”
2024-02-09 in RealClimateA new paper was published in Science Advances today. Its title says what it is about: Physics-based early warning signal shows that AMOC is on tipping course. The study follows one by Danish colleagues which made headlines last July, likewise looking for early warning signals for approaching an AMOC tipping point (we discussed it here), but using rather different data and methods. The new study by van Westen et al. is a major ...
Tagged under: Tipping Points
The AMOC: tipping this century, or not?
2023-08-25 in RealClimateA few weeks ago, a study by Copenhagen University researchers Peter and Susanne Ditlevsen concluded that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is likely to pass a tipping point already this century, most probably around mid-century. Given the catastrophic consequences of an AMOC breakdown, the study made quite a few headlines but also met some skepticism. Now that the dust has settled, here some thoughts on the criticisms that have been raised about this study. ...
Tagged under: Tipping Points
What is happening in the Atlantic Ocean to the AMOC?
2023-07-24 in RealClimateFor various reasons I'm motivated to provide an update on my current thinking regarding the slowdown and tipping point of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). I attended a two-day AMOC session at the IUGG Conference the week before last, there's been interesting new papers, and in the light of that I have been changing my views somewhat. Here's ten points, starting from the very basics, so you can easily jump to the aspects that ...
Tagged under: Oceans | Tipping Points
2022 updates to model-observation comparisons
2023-02-03 in RealClimateOur annual post related to the comparisons between long standing records and climate models.
We are not reaching 1.5ºC earlier than previously thought
2021-08-09 in RealClimateWhat does the new IPCC report say about the likelihood of meeting the Paris goal of 1.5ºC?
Tagged under: IPCC
New studies confirm weakening of the Gulf Stream circulation (AMOC)
2020-09-17 in RealClimateMany of the earlier predictions of climate research have now become reality. The world is getting warmer, sea levels are rising faster and faster, and more frequent heat waves, extreme rainfall, devastating wildfires and more severe tropical storms are affecting many millions of people. Now there is growing evidence that another climate forecast is already coming true: the Gulf Stream system in the Atlantic is apparently weakening, with consequences for Europe too. ...
Tagged under: Extreme Rainfall | Wildfires | Predictions | Sea Level
New studies confirm weakening of the Gulf Stream circulation (AMOC)
2020-09-17 in RealClimateMany of the earlier predictions of climate research have now become reality. The world is getting warmer, sea levels are rising faster and faster, and more frequent heat waves, extreme rainfall, devastating wildfires and more severe tropical storms are affecting many millions of people. Now there is growing evidence that another climate forecast is already coming true: the Gulf Stream system in the Atlantic is apparently weakening, with consequences for Europe too. ...
Tagged under: Extreme Weather | Extreme Rainfall | Wildfires | Predictions | Gulf Stream (AMOC) | Sea Level
Sensitive But Unclassified
2019-11-06 in RealClimateThe US federal government goes to quite a lot of effort to (mostly successfully) keep sensitive but unclassified (SBU) information (like personal data) out of the hands of people who would abuse it. But when it comes to the latest climate models, quite a few are SBU as well. The results from climate models that are being run for CMIP6 have been talked about for a few months as ...
The Antarctic ice sheet is melting and, yeah, it’s probably our fault.
2019-08-14 in RealClimateGlaciers in West Antarctica have thinned and accelerated in the last few decades. A new paper provides some of the first evidence that this is due to human activities. by Eric Steig It’s been some time since I wrote anything for RealClimate. In the interim there’s been a lot of important new work in the area of my primary research interest – Antarctica. Much of it is aimed at addressing the central ...
Tagged under: Antarctic | Ice Melting
What the 2018 climate assessments say about the Gulf Stream System slowdown
2019-01-28 in RealClimateLast year, twenty thousand peer reviewed studies on ‘climate change’ were published. No single person can keep track of all those – you’d have to read 55 papers every single day. (And, by the way, that huge mass of publications is why climate deniers will always find something to cherry-pick that suits their agenda.) That is why climate assessments are so important, where a lot of scientists pool their expertise and discuss and assess and ...
Tagged under: Gulf Stream (AMOC) | Science | Climate Change
Stronger evidence for a weaker Atlantic overturning circulation
2018-04-11 in RealClimateThrough two new studies in Nature, the weakening of the Gulf Stream System is back in the scientific headlines. But even before that, interesting new papers have been published - high time for an update on this topic. Let's start with tomorrow’s issue of Nature, which besides the two new studies (one of which I was involved in) also includes a News&Views commentary. Everything revolves around the question of whether the Gulf Stream System has ...
IPCC attribution statements redux: A response to Judith Curry
2014-08-27 in RealClimateI have written a number of times about the procedure used to attribute recent climate change (here in 2010, in 2012 (about the AR4 statement), and again in 2013 after AR5 was released). For people who want a summary of what the attribution problem is, how we think about the human contributions and why the IPCC reaches the conclusions it does, read those posts instead of this one. The bottom line is that multiple ...
Tagged under: IPCC | Climate Change
The most common fallacy in discussing extreme weather events + Update
2014-03-25 in RealClimateDoes global warming make extreme weather events worse? Here is the #1 flawed reasoning you will have seen about this question: it is the classic confusion between absence of evidence and evidence for absence of an effect of global warming on extreme weather events. Sounds complicated? It isn’t. I’ll first explain it in simple terms and then give some real-life examples. The two most fundamental properties of extreme events are that they are rare (by ...
Tagged under: Extreme Weather
Start here
2007-05-22 in RealClimate[Note this is page is updated regularly. Please notify us of any dead links. Last update: 26 Jan 2020.] We're often asked to provide a one stop link for resources that people can use to get up to speed on the issue of climate change, and so here is a selection. Unlike our other postings, we'll amend this as we discover or are pointed to new resources. Different people have different needs and so we ...
Tagged under: Climate Change
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