Contents:
· General reference & information resources
Notes:
· If you are new to the issue of climate change, the extent of online and published resources can
be overwhelming. Don't worry: it's overwhelming to those who have been in this field for their
entire careers. Just keep in mind that “where to start?” is a very reasonable question.
· EarthWeb.info provides more than 70+ individual pages on varying aspects of climate change,
which are listed at the Climate change hub.
· Here are some very general "about" pages that might be helpful:
· Climate change @ CIESIN
· Climate change @ ICSU
· Climate change @ McKinsey & Company
· Climate change @ UN Dag Hammarskjöld Library
· Climate change @ USEPA
· The UN hosts the following two pages that provide listings of major climate change reports:
· Major Reports (Dag Hammarskjöld Library)
· If you are looking for one single authoritative statement, the go-to resource lies with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), the international body constituted in 1988 by the WMO and UNEP to assess the status of climate change science.
· Since 1990, thousands of scientists working under the IPCC framework have produced a major assessment of climate change
science every 5-7 years.
· The process has become so laborious that it now takes more than one year just to release the complete report.
· The latest IPCC report was finalized in 2023, and includes a 42-page Summary for Policymakers (SPM).
· The SPM represents the core commonly held understanding and assessment of climate change proferred by the
scientific community.
· Be warned that this document bears all the arid hallmarks of being "written by a committee"...which is to say that
each and every word & phrase in this document was carefully and deliberately parsed by scientists and government
officials...with the ultimate result of some infelicitious & opaque (albeit authoritative & reliable) language.
Where to start?
General reference & information resources
Climate Change Resources (CCR)
· This is a well-organized and extensive collection of climate change materials; see the Sitemap
for an overview.
· “We divide our thinking into four principal elements: Truth (what’s happening), Consequences
(what we’re facing because of what’s happening), Mitigation (how we can reduce the damage),
and Adaptation (how we can adjust to a world we are changing). The site aims both to provide
understanding and also to reveal the paths to action.”
· "... an archival database of news, information and documents. The information
compiled here is collected from various sources and is based on more more than
20 years of research and data collection."
Climate Lab Book: Open Climate Science
Climate Science at the National Academies [USA]
· "...a digital science platform for cataloging and mapping the impacts of climate
change. Currently in open-beta release, the platform is designed to identify the
chain of connections between greenhouse gas emissions and individual climate
events."
Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S)
Current Results: Weather & Science facts
IMF → Climate Change Indicators Dashboard
International Climate Change Information Programme (ICCIP)
McKinsey & Co. → Climate Change
Mendeley Climate Change Library
Global Climate Change - Vital Signs of the Planet
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center (ORNL DAAC)
Carbon Monitoring System (CMS)
Our World in Data → Climate change
UN Dag Hammarskjöld Library → Climate change
USAID → ClimateLinks
· "...a global knowledge portal for USAID staff, implementing partners, and the
broader community working at the intersection of climate change and international
development. The portal curates and archives technical guidance and knowledge
related to USAID’s work to help countries mitigate and adapt to climate change."
United States of Climate Change
Two very useful and comprehensive climate change information resources are: