Robert McLachlan • Apr 18, 2021 •
Every year in April, the trees start changing colour, the clocks go back an hour, and the national greenhouse gas figures are released and promptly forgotten. They take fifteen months to prepare, so by the time they come out it’s very easy for commentators to point out that they are out of date. Even now that the national media are … Read More
Guest Author • Jul 08, 2020 •
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz What was the climate and sea level like at times in Earth’s history when carbon dioxide in the … Read More
Guest Author • Sep 16, 2019 •
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz I heard that carbon dioxide makes up 0.04% of the world’s atmosphere. Not 0.4% or 4%, but 0.04%! … Read More
Guest Author • Feb 28, 2018 •
Ralph Sims, Massey University This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. New Zealand’s new coalition government has committed to introducing zero-carbon legislation that would set the country on a course to be carbon neutral by 2050. At the same time, it is not ruling out new permits for coal … Read More
John Kerr • Sep 19, 2017 •
The global warming limit set at the 2015 Paris Climate Summit is still possible, say scientists, but we need to redouble our efforts if the Earth’s atmosphere is to limbo under the ambitious boundary. In an article published today in Nature Geoscience an international team of climate scientists reports a re-assessment of complex Earth System Models. Crunching the numbers in light of new … Read More
Guest Author • Nov 19, 2016 •
By Richard Betts, University of Exeter The high ambition of the Paris Agreement, to limit global warming to “well below 2°C”, was driven by concern over long-term sea level rise. A warmer climate inevitably means melting ice – you don’t need a computer model to predict this, it is simple common sense. As temperatures rise, sooner or later … Read More
Guest Author • Dec 11, 2015 •
Andrew Glikson, Australian National University 2015 will likely be the hottest year on record, beating the previous record set only in 2014. It is also likely to be the first year the global average temperature reaches 1℃ above pre-industrial temperatures (measured from 1880 – 1899). Global warming is raising temperatures, and this year’s El Niño … Read More
Bryan Walker • Jan 06, 2015 •
“We can’t make sense of our future until we make sense of our past”, writes Howard Lee in his recent book Your Life as Planet Earth: A new way to understand the story of the Earth, its climate and our origins. The book demonstrates the very considerable sense that science has been able to make […] … Read More
Gareth Renowden • Dec 16, 2013 •
Sometimes the best way to start the week is with a good laugh — an eruptive bellow, in my case. Do not read any further while handling or consuming hot drinks, because it’s that man again: NZ’s favourite astrologer, “moon man” Ken Ring, reinventing science (again) in service of his weird view of the world. […] … Read More
Cindy Baxter • Nov 18, 2013 •
The first week here at the climate talks in Warsaw kicked off with the super typhoon Haiyan hitting the Philippines in a terrible tragedy, brought into the meeting by the country’s lead negotiator Seb Yano, whose fast has been joined by many from civil society. The plight of his people has been a rallying call […] … Read More