Trenberth

Stormy weather: we’re making it worse, and there’s more on the way

by Gareth November 20, 2011

The IPCC released the summary for policymakers of its Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) in Kampala, Uganda, on Friday (SPM, SREX site, launch presentation slides). The report concludes that globally there has been a significant decrease in cold days and nights and an [...]

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Current extreme weather events part of climate change

by Bryan Walker September 20, 2011

Al Gore didn’t hesitate to dwell on extreme weather events as evidence of the reality of climate change in his closing address for the 24-hour Climate Reality Project last week. There has certainly been no lack of them in the past year or so. Was he pushing the boundaries of the science? It wouldn’t worry [...]

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Things to do in Wellington and Dargaville

by Gareth July 13, 2011

Late notice, for which I apologise, but climate scientist Kevin Trenberth is giving a public lecture in Wellington on Friday (July 15th) on The Russian heatwave and other recent climate extremes. Trenberth’s talk is being organised by the NZ Climate Change Research Institute and will be at the Old Government Buildings Lecture Theatre 2, from [...]

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Riders on the storms

by Bryan Walker March 6, 2011

I listened with interest to Kevin Trenberth on the latest Climate Show describing how the increased water vapour in the atmosphere resulting from human-caused global warming is leading to greater extremes in weather events. It sent me back to take another look at the section in James Hansen’s book Storms of My Grandchildren where he [...]

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The Climate Show #8: Kevin Trenberth and our shaky future

by Gareth March 3, 2011

The Climate Show returns with a packed show, featuring one of the world’s best known climate scientists, NZ-born, Colorado-based Dr Kevin Trenberth — star of the Climategate “where’s the missing heat” emails. He’s been in New Zealand to visit family (experiencing the Christchurch quake in the process) and to attend a conference, and his comments [...]

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Shaken and stirred: Christchurch earthquake Feb 2011

by Gareth February 23, 2011

It’s a grim day in Canterbury. 75 people are confirmed dead and 300 are missing following the magnitude 6.3 earthquake which struck at 12-51pm yesterday. As I write, teams of urban search and rescue specialists from NZ and Australia (soon to be joined by teams from all over the world) are crawling over collapsed buildings [...]

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Fire and rain

by Gareth August 12, 2010

The last few weeks have seen some extraordinary weather events around the world: relentless extreme heat in Russia, biblical flooding in Pakistan and devastating landslides in China. Tens of millions of people have had their lives disrupted and thousands have died, and — beyond reasonable doubt — global warming is playing a part in creating [...]

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We call upon the author…

by Gareth June 29, 2010

I must have been asleep last week when the IPCC announced its selection of authors for the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), due in 2013/14. As usual, NZ scientists are making a significant contribution: Tim Naish is a lead author for Working Group 1 (The Physical Science Basis) chapter 5, Information from Paleoclimate Archives. Jim Renwick [...]

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When the rain comes…

by Gareth June 22, 2010

The extreme weather flavour of the moment is without doubt heavy rain and flooding. As I write, severe flooding has caused 132 deaths in southern China and 19 in Burma. The Var region in southern France is recovering from spectacular flash flooding that killed 25 people (watch the BBC video), Tennessee’s recovering from a 1000 [...]

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Oops, he did it again

by Gareth January 8, 2010

It pays to beware of leaving hostages to fortune: saying or doing something that might cause you some embarrassment in the future. There’s a very fine example in this recent blog post by Ian Wishart, titled “Top 10 global warming myths exposed“. It takes the form of a piece Wishart has submitted to the Coromandel [...]

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