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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
Published July 1988 through June 1999

FROM VOLUME 8, NUMBER 5, MAY 1995

NEWS...
RESEARCH NEWS

Item #d95may106

Hadley Centre modeling report: At the recent climate convention meeting in Berlin, researchers from the Hadley Centre of the U.K. Meteorological Office presented recent results from its climate model. The model includes the effects of sulfate aerosols as well as greenhouse gases, and for the first time has accurately simulated the observed changes in global temperature since 1860. The accuracy of the simulation reportedly convinced John Gummer, Britain's environment minister, of the likelihood of greenhouse warming. A report is available describing the results (See Reports/Climate Modeling; also Nature, p. 487, Apr. 6; New Scientist, p. 4, Apr. 15; Global Environ. Change Rep., p. 5, Apr. 14.)

Item #d95may107

Consensus modeling report: In October 1994, climate researchers met at the Forum on Global Change Modeling, organized in response to requests from the Clinton administration to develop a consensus statement on the credibility of projections of climate change provided by general circulation models. The result (see Reports/Climate Modeling), summarized extensively in Eos, pp. 185, 189-190, May 2, has been used by the General Accounting Office in developing national policy options.

Item #d95may108

Sun's role in warming: A new statistical analysis of instrumental temperature records over the past three centuries concludes that variations in solar output are a minor contribution to the temperature increase of the last century. David Thompson, an expert in time series analysis at AT&T Bell Laboratories, considers this and other results of the analysis as support for the existence of global warming by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. The results attracted media attention when presented at a meeting last December, and have now been published in Science. (See Thompson paper in Prof. Pubs./Gen. Interest/Climate Change Science; research news articles in Science, pp. 28-29, April 7, New Scientist, p. 18, Apr. 22, and Science News, Vol. 147, p. 214; and feature analysis in Global Environ. Change Rep., pp. 1-3, Apr. 28.)

Item #d95may109

Methane developments: Australian CSIRO scientists have developed a non-antibiotic compound that reduces methane emissions from animals up to 100 percent (Chem. & Industry, p. 928, Dec. 5).

Findings from a three-year study at India's National Physical Laboratory show that the country's rice paddies release only a tenth the amount of methane as is assumed in global climate models (Science, p. 1482, Dec. 2).

Item #d95may110

"Rain Moves North in the Global Greenhouse," J. Gribbin, New Scientist, p. 18, Mar. 4. A study by Mike Hulme of the University of East Anglia provides evidence that rising global temperatures are affecting regional patterns of precipitation, and supports the climate model prediction that global warming will make high latitudes wetter. (Hulme discusses the difficulties of analyzing precipitation records in a paper listed in Prof. Pubs./Gen. Interest/Climate Change Science.)

Item #d95may111

"Pacific Warming Unsettles Ecosystems," D.K. Hill, Science, pp. 1911-1912, Mar. 31. An upward trend in ocean temperatures off the California coast seems to have had an impact on the food chain, offering a glimpse of potential impacts of future climate change. (See Roemmich paper, GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE DIGEST, PROF. PUBS./OF GEN. INTEREST/TREND ANALYSIS, April 1995.)