Global temperature for 2016 to be the highest since 1891

The annual anomaly of the global average surface temperature for the year 2016 (i.e. the combined average of the near-surface air temperature over land and the sea surface temperature) is estimated at +0.46°C (note that this is preliminary result) above the 1981-2010 average, likely to become the warmest record for the 126-year period since 1891
In 2016, the monthly average air temperatures for January, February, March, April, June and July, and the seasonal average air temperatures for the boreal winter, spring, and summer were also the highest recorded since 1891.
Detail report can be download here: https://goo.gl/vYkGtO  

(From: Tokyo Climate Centre - TCC/ JMA)

Fig 1: Annual mean temperature anomaly in 2016

March 2017 was second-warmest March on record

Global map of the March 2017 LOTI (land-ocean temperature index) anomaly shows that Europe and all of Russia (especially north central Siberia) were again much warmer than the 1951-1980 base period. Much of the United States was also relatively warm, but Alaska was instead cool

March 2017 was the second warmest March in 137 years of modern record-keeping, according to a monthly analysis of global temperatures by scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

Last month was 1.12 degrees Celsius warmer than the mean March temperature from 1951-1980. The two top March temperature anomalies have occurred during the past two years.

March 2016 was the hottest on record, at 1.27 degrees Celsius warmer than the March mean temperature. March 2017's temperature was 0.15 degrees Celsius cooler than March 2016, but 0.2 degrees Celsius warmer than any previous March.

The GISTEMP monthly temperature anomalies superimposed on a 1980-2015 mean seasonal cycle.

The monthly analysis by the GISS team is assembled from publicly available data acquired by about 6,300 meteorological stations around the world, ship- and buoy-based instruments measuring sea surface temperature, and Antarctic research stations.

The modern global temperature record begins around 1880 because previous observations didn't cover enough of the planet. Monthly analyses are sometimes updated when additional data becomes available, and the results are subject to change.

Climate change in Vietnam

Increasing atmospheric concentrations of green house gases (GHGs) result from emission GHGs of human activities has raised much serious concern and attention of the world recently. Climate change impacts on the ecological environment, threats to our daily lives and routine industrial activities.

Beyond to these danger and challenges, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) sets the general framework for international efforts to address climate change. The UNFCCC was opened for signature in 1992 and entered into force in 1994. The ultimate objective of the UNFCCC is to achieve stabilization of atmosphere concentrations of greenhouse gases at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

Forecasting for Catastrophes: How Investment in Weather Services Can Save Lives and Grow Economies

In fact, for the past decade, the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) have been working with assorted partners to increase awareness of, and investment in, the hydromet sector. GFDRR’s Hydromet team and the World Bank have partnered with leading national meteorological services across the globe – including agencies from Austria, China, Finland, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States – and work closely with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).


“There’s been a recognition of the need to improve hydromet service delivery in vulnerable countries – a recognition that modernized hydromet systems can provide benefits and avert the loss of human life,” explains Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General of the WMO. “So, although much more remains to be done, there’s been a significant increase of investment in the sector.”

IPCC aims for clarity and relevance in new report

 Thomas Stocker argued local climate models have not been user-friendly

Providing information that policymakers can use is key to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as work begins on its next global assessment.

The report, known as AR5, will focus on factors that materially affect people's lives, such as the Asian monsoon.

It will also look at what aspects of climate change might be irreversible.
Leaders of the IPCC's scientific assessment were speaking to BBC News during a conference in South Korea aimed at modernising the organisation.
They indicated that procedures used in compiling AR5 will reflect some criticisms made in the wake of errors uncovered in its previous assessment, in 2007.
The recent review of the IPCC's procedures, conducted by the InterAcademy Council (IAC), an umbrella body for the world's science academies, said that some assertions about the likelihood of severe impacts were based on little research.
"Authors reported high confidence in statements for which there is little evidence, such as the widely-quoted statement that agricultural yields in Africa might decline by up to 50 percent by 2020," it noted.
The IAC recommended that the next assessment must deal much more carefully and consistently with uncertainties - and Chris Field, co-chair of the IPCC working group on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, indicated the message had been taken on board.
"The fact of the matter is that climate change impacts are very poorly known," he told BBC News.
"We only have mature scientific studies for a small number of topics and a small number of places, so we need to recognise that and figure out how, in an environment where the information is limited, we can still provide valuable information.

Continue reading the main story

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"What I expect us to do is to use the uncertainty guidance very carefully so we can avoid problems where we seem to be asserting more confidence than the data will allow; but also provide value to a discussion where the confidence isn't necessarily very high.

"After all, most people spend their lives making decisions under uncertainty, and that's what dealing effectively with climate change demands - the same kind of decisions you make when you decide to buckle your seatbelt, or buy insurance for your house or invest in the financial markets."
Natural changes Increasingly, computer models of climate change are projecting impacts on a region-by-region basis, rather than globally.
This is widely acknowledged as vital for policymaking. But previous IPCC reports have not necessarily produced regional assessments in the most user-friendly or relevant way, suggested Thomas Stocker from the University of Bern in Switzerland, co-chair of the climate science working group for AR5.
"We will start from the processes that are necessary to characterise regional climate change, such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation, monsoon systems around the world," he said.
"The new approach is that we first assess our physical understanding of these fundamental processes: what are the elements that change them, how do they respond to a background change in albedo or temperature or shift in rain bands ?
"Once we've assessed that, we then ask how does this knowledge inform us for projecting the monsoon in India, for example, or Southeast Asia? What does it tell about El Nino projections? And so forth."
The belief is that this process will make it easier for governments - and people - to assess how their lives may be affected by climate change, and so make better-informed policy choices.
Another issue that AR5 will grapple with in much more detail than previously is the influence of natural cycles on climate, particularly in the near-term.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

It's been really difficult to figure out what's the climate part vs the societal part”

End Quote Chris Field IPCC working group co-chair

Within the last few years, the world has seen the cooling influence of La Nina restrain the rise in global temperatures, before a switch to El Nino conditions put 2010 on course to be one of the warmest few years - perhaps the warmest of all - in recent times.

Researchers attempting to project temperatures for the next decade or so have to factor in numerous natural cycles as well as greenhouse warming, and Dr Stocker admitted that it is a confusing picture.
"It is an emerging field, the uncertainties are large. You can find studies with a cooling over the next 10 years, and others showing an enhanced warming - so the variety of simulation studies seems confusing," he said.
"So what we want to present is a good assessment of the issue of predictability; we probably won't provide a solution [to why the near term is hard to predict], but we will provide the scientific basis to explain it."
Active areas of research that are vital for understanding climate change - including the interactions of clouds and dust particles in the atmosphere, and sea-level rise - will receive their own detailed chapters.
Also for the first time, AR5 will take a detailed look at whether some aspects of climate change will lead to transformations of the Earth's land, air and oceans that are irreversible on human timescales.
Impactful agenda With greenhouse gas emissions set to continue their rise as the global recession eases, there is growing acknowledgement that research on living with climate impacts - adaptation - is equally as important as studying ways of curbing emissions.
Developing countries - particularly those experiencing what they believe to be climate impacts now - are especially adamant that adaptation must secure equal status to mitigation.
Chris Field, who is based at the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University in California, said that AR5 will take this concept on board.

Climate models are aiming for more "granular" local projections

In order to improve its analyses, the IPCC is adopting a new set of "scenarios" - projections of how the future may unfold, in terms of economic growth, the size of the world's population, policy choices on energy, and so on, all of which affect emissions.
Known as Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), the aim is to better integrate data and forecasts on different aspects of the future.
They are also designed to allow for more wide-ranging analyses of policy choices.
"The RCPs... allow us to explore many issues - not only in understanding policy implications, but also how those ramify into things that are as diverse as impacts on distributional equity, questions of justice, or migration," said Dr Field.
"[This is] a wide range of issues where it's been really difficult to figure out what's the climate part vs the societal part."
Interactions between the physical manifestations of climate change and societal issues will be expanded in the third part of AR5, on options for mitigation - a segment that will also include evaluation of what various policy choices mean economically.
"Since the release of AR4, there's been a vast amount of literature on socio-economic aspects of climate change," said IPCC vice-chairman Hoesung Lee.
"And the fifth assessment report will particularly look into this growing literature."
AR5 is due for publication in 2013-4, in four consecutive parts - science, impacts, mitigation and a synthesis - as in previous assessments.
But the procedures and timings have been adjusted with the aim of facilitating co-ordination between groups working on the various aspects - in particular, so that the most recent scientific projections can underpin the analysis of impacts.
The coming months will see the first meetings of lead authors for the first three segments, where they will plot out in more detail how to analyse the vastly increased amount of material on all aspects of climate change.
The Korea conference - the IPCC's annual plenary - ended with the partial adoption of reform measures recommended in the IAC review.
Most of the recommendations, however, are to be discussed by committees over the coming months, with the aim of tying up all the oustanding issues in May

First organizations of "Sea and Islands week"

There will be more practical activities this week: Exhibition of photos "area, shore and coastal communities," night music exchange "Sea and Island in my country" ... 
Response on world oceans, Vietnam held "Sea Island week" for the first time from 1 - 8June.

For the world oceans day(8 / 6) with subject: "We only have one ocean, an atmosphere and a future", it aims to help the public understand the responsibility for the sea and oceans, which reserve potential resource of food, energy and mineral ... For sustainable managing, exploiting, it requires the cooperation of responsible people, scientists, management agencies and the whole society, especially the coastal residents. 

Bonn Climate Change Talks - March 2009

Seventh session of the AWG-KP and fifth session of the AWG-LCA
The Seventh session of the AWG-KP and fifth session of the AWG-LCA took place from Sunday 29 March to Wednesday 8 April 2009 in Maritim, Bonn. It was the first of five planned negotiating sessions before COP 15 in Copenhagen in December.

Seventh session of the AWG-KP

In 2009 the Group will focus on agreeing on further commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol. Such an agreement will emerge as the Group develops: A text for any proposed amendments pursuant to Article 3.9 of the Kyoto Protocol, and a text on the issues outlined in paragraph 49 of document FCCC/KP/AWG/2008/8. At its seventh session, the AWG-KP discussed issues identified in paragraph 49 of document FCCC/KP/AWG/2008/8. It also considered four notes prepared by the Chair with a view to advancing work on the aforementioned texts. The seventh session of the AWG-KP was preceded by a number of preparatory events (160 kB) to allow Parties to focus in on detailed issues in preparation for the negotiations during the seventh session. One in-session workshop and one pre-sessional workshop were held.

More on AWG-KP Fifth session of the AWG-LCA

The AWG-LCA had before it a document prepared to further focus the negotiating process on the fulfilment of the Bali Action Plan and on the components of the agreed outcome to be adopted at COP 15. The document describes areas of convergence in the ideas and proposals of Parties, explores options for dealing with areas of divergence, and identifies any gaps that might need to be filled in reaching an agreed outcome. This document builds upon the ideas and proposals of Parties and document FCCC/AWGLCA/2008/16/Rev.1 and takes account of further submissions received from Parties by 6 February 2009
You can get more detail here

Climate Change partnership

During Obama’s recent trip to Mexico climate change was one of the top issues discussed and after the meeting a press release announced a new cooperation between the countries on clean energy, green jobs, carbon financing mechanisms and low-carbon technology development. Obama also announced his support for Mexico’s bid to arrange the UN climate change summit next year.

The reason why Mexico is heard a lot these days in the climate change discussions is a financing proposal put forward by the Mexican government in the UNFCCC process. One of my professors is traveling down to Mexico next week to discuss this with president Calderon, I can’t wait to hear about what was said. There is a consensus today that rich countries will have to put up substantial support for developing nations to finance green development but how to practically do this is the million dollar question. Mexico’s proposal is a step forward.

Bonn Climate Change Talks - Todd Stern talk

Todd Stern, the US special envoy for Climate Change, presented a new US approach to the international UNFCCC negotiations during the Bonn Climate Change Talks by stating that the US is back and ready to make up for lost time. Ever since Bush senior closed the door by saying that the American way of life was not negotiable, the global response to climate change has been missing it’s perhaps most important piece. Hopefully not any more, this is awesome news!

President Obama has also invited 16 major world economies to Washington later in April to a climate change summit where the necessary political leadership is supposed to be generated in preparation for the December talks in Copenhagen - talks that has been called the most important gathering since the second world war. Now let’s hope that a constructive cooperation between the US-EU-China can be forged.

The Bonn Climate Change Talks, June 2008

The twenty-eighth sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is taking place from 4-13 June 2008 in Bonn, Germany.

The second session of the Ad hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) and the second part of the fifth session of the Ad hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) is taking place from 2-12 June 2008.

More than 2,400 participants, including government delegates from 172 countries and representatives from business and industry, environmental organizations and research institutions are attending the two-week meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. A central part of the Bonn talks is work on a strengthened and effective international climate change deal, to be clinched in Copenhagen by the end of next year. On the one hand, the Bonn talks are taking forward the negotiation process on strengthened international action against climate change, as agreed in Bali last December. This stream of negotiations in Bonn includes special focus on adaptation, finance and technology. On the other hand, talks on further commitments for Parties to the Kyoto Protocol include considering the possible tools available to industrialized countries to achieve future emission reductions. AWG-LCA is undertaking substantive work on the main elements to enable the full, effective and sustained implementation of the Convention through long-term cooperative action, including: mitigation and adaptation of climate change, technology development and transfer, provision of financial resources and investment. AWG-KP continues on the analysis of means that may be available to Annex I Parties to reach their emission reduction targets and the identification of ways to enhance their effectiveness and contribution to sustainable development. These means include: Emissions trading and the project-based mechanisms; land use, land-use change and forestry; greenhouse gases sectors and source categories... The third session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA 3) and the first part of the sixth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP 6, part I) will be held from 21 August to 27 August 2008 in Accra, Ghana.