Science Media Centre

Warming of the oceans may not be as  terrible an experience for fish in some waters which are already warm — such as the Coral Sea –  according to a leading Australian ecologist,   of the University of Queensland, who says that, personally, he is not worried about an increase of couple of degrees in temperature. [...]

In the early hours of Saturday morning the UN’s climate change body will release a report that has been described in leaked versions as saying extreme weather events such as downpours and storm surges may make parts of the planet “marginal” for inhabitants. Average global temperatures last year were tied with 2005 for the warmest [...]

An article published in the New Zealand Herald highlights the battle between scientists and sceptics, with NASA scientist James Hansen noting that increasing scientific evidence is competing with industry spin. Jim Hansen toured New Zealand earlier this year, singling out lignite mining as an industry New Zealand must abandon if it aims to reach it [...]

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon left no room form confusion over his stance on climate change at the Pacific Islands Forum in Auckland this week. Ban Ki-Moon had already expressed the need for Australia and New Zealand to act on climate change in the days preceding the forum, so it came as no surprise when [...]

Writing in the Dominion Post Weekend paper, Michael Forbes looks at the connections between the recent chilly weather and climate change.  An excerpt (read in full here): NZ can expect more big snowstorms You might have had better luck selling ice to eskimos than peddling global warming theory on the streets of Wellington this week. [...]

Following the Science Media Centre’s briefing with experts yesterday, several media outlets have reported on the connections between rising global temperatures and extreme weather events. The SMC held a briefing with visiting US climatologist Dr Kevin Trenberth and Professors Lionel Carter and Martin Manning from Victoria University. The speakers noted that while increasing global temperatures [...]

How can we gauge the impact on weather of global warming above and beyond natural variation in weather patterns?

As the effects of climate change become more apparent and severe, what steps will we be forced to take to slow global warming? Syndicated columnist Gwynne Dyer looks to the future in an opinion piece published in the Gisborne Herald. An excerpt (read in full here): Moving into risky territory “We are getting into very [...]

Environmental scientist Chris de Freitas writes, in an opinion piece in the New Zealand Herald, about the confusion around global warming and the science behind it. He discusses the viewpoints held by people on both sides of the argument, but agrees with the ‘skeptics’ who are doubtful that dangerous global warming is occurring. An excerpt: [...]

Chris Barton writes in New Zealand Herald about Lord Stern, the author of the 2006′s Stern Review, which looked at the costs of mitigating (or not) climate change. Stern, an economist, has said that an investment of 2% of the world’s GDP now into climate-change related action could mean we avoid costs as large as [...]