We hope that you will find the information given on this site helpful in understanding the greenhouse effect and its contribution to climate change - one of the major concerns of present times
There are many and varied sources of information and discussion about climate change, some are highly technical and some are over-simplified. We have two main aims. One is the explanation of the greenhouse effect on as simple a level as is possible without being scientifically inaccurate. The second one includes advanced explanations with our 'translations' for general readers. Links to our own publications and to other signally important papers in the scientific literature for the more technically minded will be added.
The major questions that arise in the study of climate change are:
1. Are humans responsible for the increase in carbon dioxide [CO2] in our atmosphere that has occurred since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution?
2. Is this extra CO2 causing the world to warm up, and if so by how much?
3. Are other greenhouse gases such as methane [CH4] and nitrous oxide [dinitrogen monoxide, N2O] important contributors to climate change
4. What other mechanisms could possibly cause climate change?
We hope also to have a section where you may leave questions which we shall attempt to answer or to lead you to the answers by more qualified persons.
The Breaking News page 40 will be updated with recent CO2 data and temperature data for the Northern & Southern Hemispheres from satellite readings and the Hadley Centre as soon as the monthly figures have been released. They now include the April 2010 values. The NOAA and satellite values are included for comparison. The three data sets are clearly measuring the same thing!
Recently the Sensitivity page 25 has been expanded with a description of an empirical approach to the estimation of climate change. More recently a very good essay by Roy Spencer has been added to the same page.
Page 50 is a new consideration of ocean acidification with more details from the Brookhaven Laboratory CO2SYS programme.
Page 51 has a new essay concerning the climate of the last thirty-one years as given by an analysis of the data for the lower troposphere and Earth's surface by the satellite run by the University of Alabama at Huntsville.
Page 52 has the most recent order of the ten warmest years according to the UAH records and those of the Hadley Centre