The Working Group I (WGI) component of the IPCC 6th Assessment Report (AR6) has been released. One key development since AR5 was the involvement of professional graphic designers in creating the figures for the Summary for Policymakers (SPM). As a result, the graphics are clear and usable, having been user-tested through several design iterations. The data underlying the figures are also openly available.
Continue reading IPCC SPM Figures
Category Archives: communication
Glimpsing the future
In December 2019, the average temperature across Australia was about 2°C above what would be expected for the present-day, which is another 1.5°C above temperatures that were normal for December before humans started warming the climate. These extreme temperatures have contributed to the catastrophic bushfires which have devastated large areas.
But what may be considered ‘normal’ is constantly changing.
In a world which has warmed by 3°C – roughly the current global trajectory – what was extreme will be entirely normal.
Hay Festival
Recently, I was lucky enough to speak at an event at the Hay Festival – one of the most famous literary festivals in the world. The Festival had paired up three environmental scientists with three artists and authors to produce a series of hour-long live events, and provided us with an opportunity to talk about science with a very different audience. Continue reading Hay Festival
Uncertainty in warming since pre-industrial times
The consequences of the Paris Agreement’s choice of the pre-industrial as its baseline have been discussed previously on this blog. This choice makes sense from a climate forcing perspective (as radiative forcings are measured with respect to a quasi-equilibrated state, and the well-observed recent past is not close to have finished responding to anthropogenic drivers). Looking back into the pre-industrial period, there are fewer instrumental observations of the temperature across the globe. So naturally our knowledge of the pre-industrial baseline temperature is uncertain.
Recent work, such as Hawkins et al. (2017) and Schurer et al. (2017), have looked to assess and quantify this uncertainty in light of future targets. The magnitude of this uncertainty, although small, becomes important when you consider the amount of warming left between today and the 1.5°C target. Continue reading Uncertainty in warming since pre-industrial times
Spiral birthday
Just over a year ago I received an email from a colleague I had never met. Jan Fuglestvedt asked whether I had ever made a spiral version of my global temperature graphics. He ended by suggesting that this was ‘just a (crazy) thought’.
But, it was a Friday afternoon – what else was I going to do? Continue reading Spiral birthday
Choose colour scales carefully
When designing scientific graphics, one key choice is about which colour scale to use (something discussed in several previous posts). The animated graphic below is a simulation of how an image would look to someone who is colour blind (a few percent of men). Continue reading Choose colour scales carefully
Letter to Lamar Smith
The Committee on Science, Space & Technology of the US House of Representatives conducts regular evidence hearings on various science topics. On Wednesday 29th March, there is a hearing on “Climate science: assumptions, policy implications, and the scientific method”. The following letter, summarising the scientific findings of Fyfe et al. (2016) and Karl et al. (2015), has been submitted as evidence to this hearing.
The broader context is that the Committee Chairman, Mr. Lamar Smith, has previously discussed the findings of Fyfe et al. (of which I was a co-author), claiming: “A new peer-reviewed study, published in the journal Nature, confirms the halt in global warming”. This statement is incorrect, and motivated the clarification on what Fyfe et al. actually says.
Animating global sea ice changes
Scientists can’t do everything by themselves. We need to engage the millions of citizens who are passionate about knowledge to help solve scientific mysteries and improve our understanding of the world around us.
There are many ways that anyone with a computer can help – volunteer to rescue old weather data or loan your computer’s CPU to simulate the climate, for example.
Those with more technical knowledge might also contribute by communicating climate change in novel ways. Recently, Kevin Pluck (a software engineer) created a global sea ice spiral which gained widespread attention on social media – here he tells Climate Lab Book how he did it. Continue reading Animating global sea ice changes