CSAG Blog

When asked this question at a social function, I am normally a bit hesitant at first to give a response, as the outcomes are generally predictable. When I answer that I am a student studying climatology the responses from people are normally: Oh, so you are going to become a weatherman. By the way, why… Read more »

Stepping gingerly onto the glacier I was relieved to hear the crunch of hard ice under my crampons rather than the boot-swallowing slush we’d battled through yesterday or the brittle crack of the thin sheets we’d traversed earlier. The beam of my head lamp swept across the white expanse, tracing the path we’d planned between… Read more »

Adapting to the intense summer heat of the Sonoran desert, I thought it wise to don shorts, flip flops and a t-shirt on the opening day of the “Climate Adaptation Futures” conference in Tucson, Arizona. I hadn’t anticipated quite how effective the solar powered air conditioning at the University of Arizona would be and, needless… Read more »

In two weeks many of the worlds leading scientists (including a CSAGer) will be descending on northeast Austria to discuss the latest in geosciences research at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) annual meeting. During the lunch break yesterday, I therefore asked colleagues a question which was met with a polite trickle of laughter. “Is there… Read more »

With only 120 days to go until the Olympics, London is making the final preparations for what has been dubbed the first “sustainable games”. The picture below was taken from a viewpoint outside the conference centre and shows the Olympic stadium, the love-it-or-hate-it red ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture and a newly installed wind turbine providing renewable… Read more »

On the third day of the conference, the focus shifted to solutions and how scientists might enable solutions to be enacted. In the morning I attended a session on adaptation dominated by presenters from Australia (which is no bad thing of course). Rohan Hamden gave an interesting talk about regional adaptation plans in south Australia…. Read more »

On another unusually sunny and warm March day in London, the Excel Centre (above) played host to the second day of the Planet Under Pressure conference. The day began with an address by Yvo De Boer (former executive of the UNFCCC) who described that the key challenge for enabling green growth was decoupling human progress… Read more »

In June this year, world leaders and the glitterati of global change sciences will meet in Brazil for the Rio+20 meeting. Twenty years on from the original Earth Summit, the world still faces daunting environmental challenges. In preparation for the Rio+20 meeting, scientists, policy makers, business leaders and the media are in London to discuss… Read more »

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) was established at the World Climate Conference-3 (WCC-3) in Geneva, September 2009, with the joint aim of “better serving society’s need for accurate and timely information on climate” and increasing the number acronyms used in climate change discourse. The High-level Taskforce (HLT) was subsequently… Read more »