Bits of Climate

Graph shows countries urgently need to strengthen 2030 emission targets before Paris climate summit – emissions gap >19Gt CO2

Today’s Graph of the Day has a really sobering message. Within four months of the crucial UNFCCC climate conference in Paris (‘COP21’) countries have submitted grossly insufficient emission reduction targets for the year 2030 – the target year for the … Continue reading →

Global 2015-2016 winter forecast: comparing NCEP model runs to NOAA’s ‘typical El Niño patterns’ – Brazil in for shock, little relief for California

Normally we think of droughts over South East Asia (i.e. Borneo) and north-eastern Australia (Queensland) associated with strong El Niño events. This for instance led to dramatic fires through the tropical rainforests of Borneo, during the last ‘Super El Niño’ … Continue reading →

2015 El Niño produces new climate record: 3 simultaneous Pacific category 4 hurricanes

Small Island States don’t (yet*) make global headlines, but this NASA picture shows a new Pacific climate record, which has a story for us all.

NASA climate model forecast shows 2015 El Niño to go off the charts during Paris climate summit

According to the world’s best-established dynamical climate models (e.g. NOAA NCEP, NASA GMAO) the 2015 El Niño is set to peak to dramatic proportions just before and possibly also during the all-important Paris climate summit – the UNFCCC’s ‘COP21’ – … Continue reading →

Halfway through and 2014 Hottest Year Prediction coming very close to Truth

Okay, disclaimer first: there may be a bit of a climate ego involved in this post. So therefore it is probably best to start with where we were wrong(ish). Based on some rather extensive monitoring of climate models over several … Continue reading →

IPCC graph of the day: bridging a gap of >600 ppm – immediate clamp down on fossil fuels required

Yesterday we took a look at what we have been doing over the past 40 years. Now we take a look at what we will be doing over the rest of the 21st century. It’s a real shocker to look … Continue reading →

The world temperature ‘plateau graph’ that the 2014-2015 El Niño will break

This is the graph of the world’s best-established temperature dataset, of NASA GISS. It shows another good representation of the 1997-1998 El Niño world average temperature peak. Recent years have been net influenced by La Niña state, as shown in … Continue reading →

A new ‘super El Niño’ would peak ~0.2 Celsius above the one in this graph

Shown below is a graph of the satellite-derived University of Alabama global temperature dataset (those fellows that each year in early January beat NOAA/NASA/MetOffice/WMO etc by being the first to say ‘how warm it was’). Clearly visible is the peak … Continue reading →