COP 26 Diary Part 4

Article 3 of the 2015 Paris Agreement required the 195 signatories to set goals for CO2 emission reductions, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and to revise these every five years. Each five year iteration must represent a 'progression over time' and set with a view to achieving the objectives of that Agreement. The first…

August 2020 Highveld Temperatures

In a number of recent posts we have seen a trend of gradually warmer weather but with that trend more marked as regards night minimum temperatures and less so for afternoon ones. Lower daily ranges result. The explanation for this trend appears to have been more humid weather superimposed on a warming trend. While still…

Highveld Winter 2020 Temperatures

Media comments have described this as the coldest winter for ten years. It didn't feel such nor does the Figure 1 box and whisker chart, below, fully support that for this Benoni, Gauteng (-26.1401, 28.3436) location, even for the previous seven years. Figure 1 [Reminder of the box and whisker chart - the box represents…

Highveld Temperature Trends

There is much talk of global warming and climate change and the occasional quantification of the increase in temperature, particularly the large Arctic increases and in South Africa’s case an increase of double the global average. Without more detail it is easy to imagine a gradual increase over the years, but climate does not work…

Frozen British Pensions – July 2020 Update

In my March 2020 post on this topic I referred to the intention to re-form the UK's All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Frozen Pensions, elect offices etc, as required following all APPGs ceasing to exist on the 6 November 2019 dissolution of the last parliament. The APPG website indicated (and still indicates) that the group…

CO2 Emissions and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Quite surprisingly, given the importance attached to them, CO2 emissions are not reported in anywhere near real time, often being only on an annual basis and then only months or even years, after the end of the reporting period. How then can the effect of the pandemic be measured.  Atmospheric CO2  concentrations are reported almost…

COP 26 diary Part 3: June 2020

A new date of 1 to 12 November 2021 has been set for the Glasgow conference, which gives much longer for the UK government to prepare. African countries are not too happy about this postponement as their own climate summit is due in 2021. Having two summits close together is not ideal as it puts…

Global Warming 2019

NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York publishes a large amount of information on global warming. This includes how 2019 was the second warmest year on record, second only to 2016, and 0.98°C above the 1951 to 1980 benchmark (0.95°C over a 1901 to 2000 base). Compared to the 1880s temperatures are…

COP 26 diary Part 2: April 2020

In Part 1 the Brexit negotiations appeared to be the major distraction to preparations for this meeting now known as the Climate Change Conference which also represents the 16th meeting of the parties for the Kyoto Protocol (CMP16), and the third meeting of the parties for the Paris Agreement (CMA3). Covid-19 has now superseded Brexit as chief disrupter, given…

Highveld Summer Weather 2019/20 and Outlook

By any standards this was a wet summer, based on November through February data. The following graph compares the latest season's rainfall figures with the average of the previous four summers. The previous four seasons themselves were a little above the long term average but the latest one exceeded those by 32%, 762 mm as…