The Changing Climate

Social media is reducing climate change debates to your views on veganism

Guest Author • Oct 04, 2021

• climate change,
• science communication,
• Social media

Taha Yasseri, University College Dublin and Mary Sanford, University of Oxford   Ten years ago, when we ranked the most controversial articles on Wikipedia, George W. Bush was at the top of the list with global warming at number five. The article on global warming has now been re-titled as climate change, but this remains among the … Read More

Marine heatwaves during winter could have dire impacts on New Zealand fisheries and herald more summer storms

Guest Author • Oct 01, 2021

• climate change,
• marine heatwaves,
• New Zealand stories

João Marcos Azevedo Correia de Souza, MetService — Te Ratonga Tirorangi; Amandine Schaeffer, UNSW; Jonathan Gardner, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington, and Robert Smith   The ocean around New Zealand is getting warmer, and extreme warming events have become more frequent over the past years. These marine heatwaves can have devastating impacts on ocean ecosystems. When they … Read More

Pinpointing the role of climate change in every storm is impossible – and a luxury most countries can’t afford

Guest Author • Sep 23, 2021

• climate change,
• Environment,
• event attribution,
• hurricanes

Friederike Otto, University of Oxford and Luke Harrington, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington   Tropical Storm Ida recently left a path of devastation across the US, capping a summer beset by wildfires, heatwaves and floods which broke records around the world. The inevitable question after each of these extreme weather events is the same: to what extent … Read More

New research reveals animals are changing their body shapes to cope with climate change

Guest Author • Sep 08, 2021

• climate change,
• conservation,
• evolution

Sara Ryding, Deakin University and Matthew Symonds, Deakin University   Global warming is a big challenge for warm-blooded animals, which must maintain a constant internal body temperature. As anyone who’s experienced heatstroke can tell you, our bodies become severely stressed when we overheat. Animals are dealing with global warming in various ways. Some move to cooler areas, such as … Read More

Climate change is an infrastructure problem – map of electric vehicle chargers shows one reason why

Guest Author • Aug 26, 2021

• climate change,
• electric vehicles,
• infrastructure,
• Pollution

Paul N. Edwards, Stanford University   Most of America’s 107,000 gas stations can fill several cars every five or 10 minutes at multiple pumps. Not so for electric vehicle chargers – at least not yet. Today the U.S. has around 43,000 public EV charging stations, with about 106,000 outlets. Each outlet can charge only one vehicle at a … Read More

To get New Zealanders out of their cars we’ll need to start charging the true cost of driving

Guest Author • Aug 17, 2021

• climate change,
• New Zealand stories,
• Pollution,
• transportation

Timothy Welch, University of Auckland   In light of last week’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report confirming human activity is “unequivocally” driving global warming, here’s a striking statistic: in Auckland, road transport modes are responsible for 35% of the city’s climate-altering emissions. Overall, road transport accounts for nearly 43% of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, an increase … Read More

Apocalyptic films have lulled us into a false sense of security about climate change

Guest Author • Aug 13, 2021

• apocalypse,
• climate change,
• films

Doug Specht, University of Westminster and Silvia Angeli, University of Westminster   The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)‘s sobering “code red for humanity” report comes on the heels of months of devastating weather events around the world. Our front pages have been dominated by photos that look as if they’ve come from a film – images of … Read More

Fossil fuel misinformation may sideline one of the most important climate change reports ever released

Guest Author • Aug 12, 2021

• climate change,
• Fossil Fuels,
• IPCC,
• misinformation

Christian Downie, Australian National University   This week’s landmark report on the state of the climate paints a sobering picture. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that, without deep and immediate cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, the world is very likely headed for climate catastrophe. In November, world leaders will gather in Glasgow for the latest round … Read More

Rising seas and melting glaciers: these changes are now irreversible, but we have to act to slow them down

Guest Author • Aug 10, 2021

• climate change,
• IPCC,
• New Zealand stories

Nick Golledge, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington   After three years of writing and two weeks of virtual negotiations to approve the final wording, the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms that changes are happening in Earth’s climate across every continent and every ocean. My contribution was as … Read More

The global water cycle has become more intense, and that makes New Zealand’s wet regions wetter, and dry ones drier

Guest Author • Aug 10, 2021

• climate change,
• IPCC,
• New Zealand stories,
• water cycle

James Renwick, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington   The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has delivered a sobering update on how much the Earth has warmed and how the climate system is responding. The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) is the most comprehensive yet. It shows Earth is now 1.09℃ warmer than it was … Read More