Climate Change Working Group

sciencemag.org - Sukyoung Lee¹,Steven B. Feldstein¹ - February 1, 2013

Abstract

Modeling studies suggest that Antarctic ozone depletion and, to a lesser degree, greenhouse gas (GHG) increase have caused the observed poleward shift in the westerly jet during the austral summer. Similar studies have not been performed previously with observational data because of difficulties in separating the two contributions. By applying a cluster analysis to daily ERA-Interim data, we found two 7- to 11-day wind clusters, one resembling the models' responses to GHG forcing and the other resembling ozone depletion. The trends in the clusters' frequency of occurrence indicate that the ozone contributed about 50% more than GHG toward the jet shift, supporting the modeling results. Moreover, tropical convection apparently plays an important role for the GHG-driven trend.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6119/563.abstract

Image: 2010 Drought in Russia. (c) New York Times.

foreignpolicyblogs.com - November 10th, 2012 - Mia Bennett

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and National Research Council (NRC) have released a report commissioned by the CIA and various other American intelligence agencies on the security threats posed by climate change. The report’s goal is to inform intelligence agencies as to how to best carry out monitoring to anticipate climate-related disasters, help prevent them from occurring, and, when they do, respond to emergencies. The report investigates how climate change could potentially induce social and political stresses that will affect U.S. security over the next decade.

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Image: Currie Wagner looks over the debris from his grandmother Betty Wagner's house, destroyed by Sandy, in New Jersey. Photograph: Julio Cortez/AP

guardian.co.uk - October 31st, 2012 - Bill McKibben

Here's a sentence I wish I hadn't written – it rolled out of my Macbook in May, part of an article for Rolling Stone that quickly went viral:

    "Say something so big finally happens (a giant hurricane swamps Manhattan, a megadrought wipes out Midwest agriculture) that even the political power of the industry is inadequate to restrain legislators, who manage to regulate carbon."

I wish I hadn't written it because the first half gives me entirely undeserved credit for prescience: I had no idea both would, in fact, happen in the next six months.

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