It’s 50 years since climate change was first seen. Now time is running out

Fifty years ago, the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) delivered a report titled Sources, Abundance, and Fate of Gaseous Atmospheric Polluters to the American Petroleum Institute (API), a trade association for the fossil fuel industry.

 ‘Scientists attribute 15-40% of the epic rain
 of Hurricane Harvey to climate change.’

The report, unearthed by researchers at the Center for International Environmental Law, is one of the earliest attempts by the industry to grapple with the impacts of rising CO2 levels, which Stanford’s researchers warned if left unabated “could bring about climatic changes” like temperature increases, melting of ice caps and sea level rise.

The year was 1968, and the term “global warming” would not appear in a peer-reviewed academic journal until 1975. Famed Nasa scientist James Hansen would not testify before Congress that “global warming has begun” for another 20 years. And the US would not enter into – only to later pull out of – the Paris climate accord for nearly half a century.

Read the climate change opinion piece on The Guardian by Richard Wiles - “It’s 50 years since climate change was first seen. Now time is running out.”

No 'cooking the books': New study confirms global warming hiatus didn't happen

Climate change has showed little sign of
 a slowdown, contrary to debate about
 a warming hiatus.

Evidence the earth experienced a slowdown in global warming over the past couple of decades has been further eroded with a new US study confirming climate change continues unabated.

Eighteen months ago, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric  Administration (NOAA) sparked wide-ranging debate with its report finding recent ocean warming had been underestimated because of a cooling bias contained in the way data was collected, particularly from ships.

Correcting for this bias – largely from the use of less accurate ship-based estimates – NOAA found the oceans had warmed at the rate of 0.12 degrees per decade since 2000, or nearly twice the previous estimate.

The correction brought the period into line with warming over the previous 30 years and undermined claims, particularly from groups sceptical that humans are driving climate change, of a "warming hiatus" despite rising carbon emissions.

Read Peter Hannam’s story in The Sydney Morning Herald - “No 'cooking the books': New study confirms global warming hiatus didn't happen.”