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Climate change resources

The RSS has launched a series of explainers on the statistics and data underpinning our understanding of climate change, led by the RSS Climate Change and Net Zero Task Force. The task force was established in 2023 by then-President Andrew Garrett to bring together collective RSS expertise on climate change and environmental issues.

Explainers: 

  • The 1.5°C global mean warming target: the first set of explainers focuses on the 1.5°C global mean warming target, answering questions such as: how is 1.5°C warming defined? What are the sources of uncertainty? What are the local implications of a 1.5°C increase? 
  • Extreme weather: the second set of explainers focusses on extreme events, answering questions including: what is an extreme weather or climate event? Why is there so much concern over them? This set of explainers uses real-world data from Heathrow (London, UK), to illustrate why extremes are so sensitive to (seemingly small) changes in global warming, and to demonstrate how global warming impacts the ‘1 in 100 year event’. 
  • Climate change attribution of extreme events and trends: this set of explainers sheds light on how we can determine the extent to which human activities and natural factors contribute to weather events and climate trends.
  • How local warming is related to global warming – pattern scaling: this set of explainers explores how warming differs in different locations across the globe; which locations warm more or less than the global average; and how pattern scaling be used to project future temperature increases for specific locations.
  • When and how should climate data be adjusted over time: this set of explainers looks at when climate data needs to be adjusted, and how it is done; it delves into what is a climate data record, the variability of the data and if further adjustments will be required.
  • Artificial Intelligence in weather forecasting: this explainer looks at the use and reliability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in weather forecasting. 
  • Did the Paris Climate Agreement work? This explainer looks at the 2015 Paris Agreement and how we can judge whether the agreement worked.

The CCTF has also produced a guide to UK official statistics on climate change. This provides information on the various sources of UK climate change statistics, as well as global climate statistics and data gaps.  

Please get in touch with policy@rss.org.uk if you have any questions or comments on this work.