People ask where can they go to understand more about how and why the climate is changing, so I thought I’d put together a list of the resources I know about and include a comment. Hopefully you can find something here of use to you. A couple of paragraphs from Skeptical Science seem relevant:
“When you peruse the many arguments of global warming skeptics, a pattern emerges. Skeptic arguments tend to focus on narrow pieces of the puzzle while neglecting the broader picture. For example, focus on Climategate emails neglects the full weight of scientific evidence for man-made global warming. Concentrating on a few growing glaciers ignores the world wide trend of accelerating glacier shrinkage. Claims of global cooling fail to realise the planet as a whole is still accumulating heat. This website presents the broader picture by explaining the peer reviewed scientific literature.
“Often, the reason for disbelieving in man-made global warming seem to be political rather than scientific. [emphasis mine] Eg – “it’s all a liberal plot to spread socialism and destroy capitalism”. As one person put it, “the cheerleaders for doing something about global warming seem to be largely the cheerleaders for many causes of which I disapprove”. However, what is causing global warming is a purely scientific question.”
General sources
- NASA has loads of measured data about the changing climate, which they have expressed in articles, graphs and maps which make it easy to grasp the big picture. Fascinating to watch how the surface temperature (shown on a map with colours) has gradually changed from 1884 – 2019.
- Royal Society – Climate Change: Evidence and Causes (pdf) and Climate Change in 60 Seconds (video) are a helpful starting point.
- National Geographic Society have an article Climate Change First Became News 30 Years Ago. Why Haven’t We Fixed It? It includes a useful video ‘Climate 101 – Causes and Effects’.
- The Meteorological Office has a page of references about how they anticipate the climate in the UK will change during the current century.
- Open University has a FREE course about Climate Change science.
- Skeptical Science is a great source of information focused on the most common arguments you will hear against the reality of climate change. Articles, videos and external references as well, a rich source of data.
- Katherine Heyhoe has a YouTube channel Global Weirding where she explains and illustrates various aspects of the physics involved. Her TED talk is here.
Some details relating to the UK
- Why British weather is bonkers (and always has been)
- Recent changes in the jet stream