Science21 April 2010
Need to get some pertinent and authoritative climate change science at your finger tips? The links below show you where to find it.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
http://www.ipcc.ch/
This is the authority on climate change. The IPCC reports inform the United Nations discussions on climate change. The authors of the reports review all the climate science from around the world to inform their conclusions. The most recent IPCC reports were produced in 2001 - these were the 3rd Assessment Reports. The 4th Assessment Reports are due in 2007.
The reports are written by three Working Groups - 1) Mitigation, 2) Impacts and 3) Adaptation.
All the reports are available online - be warned though the full text is hundreds of pages long!
For an easier read check out the 'Summaries for Policy Makers' - called SPM on the website.
UK Climate Impacts Programme
http://www.ukcip.org.uk/
The UK Climate Impacts Programme does pretty much what the name suggests - brings together UK climate impacts information. It has produced a report for impacts on each region, as well as issue based reports, such as the impacts of climate change on nature conservation and biodiversity.
The website isn't the most user friendly as you have to register (it's free), and then plough through their publications listings - but do persevere as there are plenty of useful reports there somewhere!
The Royal Society - Science News
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/landing.asp?id=2
The Royal Society is the independent scientific academy of the UK. It provides a useful link between science and policy, and regularly comments on climate change issues, and provides useful timely documents.
For example the site hosts the statement from the national academies of the G8 nations and Brazil, China and India on climate change.
The Hadley Centre
http://www.metoffice.com/research/hadleycentre/
The Hadley Centre is the climate change part of the UK Met Office. The site contains useful information on the basics of climate change and modelling of future climate change. For example, the MET office hosted the Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change conference in 2005.
The Tyndall Centre
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/research.shtml
The Tyndall Centre brings together researchers from many different disciplines to work together to develop responses to climate change.
