Reading all the distorted nonsense that climate contrarians (I prefer that to deniers actually) put up out there, you’d think Climate Data is a dark dirty secret that only a selected cabal is able to access, interpret and publish at their own whim to create a worldwide conspiracy (to what purpose, I’m not entirely sure but anyway…)
Well the data is out there, and with the greatest global conference having opened at Copenhagen yesterday, I thought I’d put out a few links for people to check out and make their own opinions.
The first is a thorough list of data and links put together by the folks at RealClimate, probably one of the best sources for scientific information on the climate: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/
The second is a list of video lectures on climate change put together by David Archer, a professor at the University of Chicago. I must admit to not having found the time to sit and watch those videos yet but I’m looking forward to finding said time. Meanwhile check out: http://geoflop.uchicago.edu/forecast/docs/lectures.html
The third is a really useful tool called Climate Wizard, put together by a collaboration between the University of Washington, the University of Southern Mississippi and the Nature Conservancy. In their own words:
ClimateWizard enables technical and non-technical audiences alike to access leading climate change information and visualize the impacts anywhere on Earth. The first generation of this web-based program allows the user to choose a state or country and both assess how climate has changed over time and to project what future changes are predicted to occur in a given area. ClimateWizard represents the first time ever the full range of climate history and impacts for a landscape have been brought together in a user-friendly format.
And finally, following the progress of the negociations at Copenhagen, the folks at Climate Interactive have put together a widget to monitor the projected effects on global temperatures the decisions are likely to have:
There’s more out there but that’s what caught my eye recently and that should be plenty for people to read or watch for those eager to find out more about the science and the data.
Quick edit: And right on cue, the Met Office publishes a data subset for land temperatures: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/subsets.html