Guest Post from Associate Editor of Nature Climate Change Bronwyn Wake.
Nature Climate Change and Nature Geoscience are joining forces to bring you another NPG journal club. The focus of the discussion will be the recent slowdown in global warming, which will address the physical aspects of climate science and its communication by scientists and the media. In their March issues, the journals have published a collection of articles, original research and opinion pieces.
The slowdown in the increase of global mean surface temperatures, or ‘pause’, has been traced back to a number of influences, such as increasing Pacific trade winds and 21st century volcanic eruptions . The lack of firm scientific understanding of the cause of the slowdown certainly has not helped scientists to communicate it. In addition, there is a tendency for the public to interpret climate change as the rise in global mean surface temperature, even though temperature, especially on global average, is not the only way to look at climate change. Talking about a pause in warming, when warming is the most immediate aspect of climate change in the public’s mind, has led to confusion. These are just some of the topics that we will aim to cover with our discussion panel.
The panel
We have invited three researchers, from the physical and social sciences, to join our editors on the panel.
Lisa Goddard, Director of the Columbia University International Research Institute for Climate and Society, whose research focuses on climate variability and seasonal to decadal prediction. Karen Akerlof, of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, who studies media coverage of climate modelling and public opinion of climate change.
Ed Hawkins, of the University of Reading, who is a keen climate blogger and tweeter. His research interests are climate variability and predictability.
NPG Journal Club: A discussion on the recent slowdown in global warming
Image Credit: Asist RF Arkiv / Alamy.
How to watch
To join us RSVP to the Google+ event page. The video’s URL will be available on the event page and will also be embedded at the end of this blog post.
How to ask a question
If you have a question for the panel, please get in touch. There are a couple of ways to reach us: by posting questions on the Google+ event page or tweeting them to us using the #NPGjclub hashtag. You can submit questions now and throughout the discussion. Also you can post questions below the blog here, but these need to be submitted in advance as we won’t be monitoring the blog during the live discussion.
So get reading! Selected content from the focus is free for the month of March (to registered users, and it’s free to register)
Send us your questions and we hope you can join us on 20 March at 15:00 GMT / 11:00 EDT.