Key Studies

Many studies available below, especially those sponsored by governments, are reviews of a much larger literature. Their dozens (or hundreds) of authors (& editors) are expert researchers in their fields. Some reports are organized into chapters on different aspects of climate change. Almost all are in PDF format. More recent studies are listed above earlier studies. Page count is shown if 20 or more. Author(s) are identified, next to the date (mmyy), for studies by only one or a handful of researchers, or by an institutional sponsor.

Many of these overview studies are sponsored by governments and/or their agencies, notably the US, the UN (mostly, IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), and the UK (England - especially the Stern Review). They are based on scores, hundreds, or thousands of studies, by several times that many researchers.

Each graph or map below comes from the document available immediately above it, except RCPs (under National Climate Assessment), which is drawn directly from Wikipedia, indirectly from Moss et al., 2008, and emissions underlying RCPs, drawn from IPCC 5, Tech Summary, further down page.

Topping the list, just below the COP21 Paris climate agreement of December 2015 are 4 studies that I deem key. 3 are about increasing droughts. 1 is about permafrost carbon emissions. Excerpts and summaries are included.

3 to 6 overview studies can be called books. 1st, NIPCC's 865-page compendium of research answers what "skeptics" see as inaccuracies, omissions, biases, and erroneous conclusions by the IPCC. 2nd, Lester Brown's book, Plan B (v. 2.0, 378 pp), reviews climate change and other problems, notably soil loss, groundwater depletion, food production plateaus, deforestation, overpopulation, overconsumption, and poverty. He makes many recommendations. 3rd, Nicholas Stern, former chief economist for the World Bank, with other research staff, prepared the Stern Review (711 pp) in 2006 for the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer. It appears in the Government Overviews sections. This website includes pieces of books: (4) 2014's US National Climate Assessment (> 1,000 pages) and (5-6) four IPCC Assessments over 11 years - but only pieces.

The study below (in PDF and MS Word formats) lays out the analysis of Dr. Fry (who runs this website), in detail, of the 5 major albedo effects triggered by adding GHGs to the air. It was published in December 2020 in Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change.

It also projects the evolution of GHGs and albedo until 2400, using 6 GHG scenarios, for their effects on Earth’s surface temperature. With the increase of GHGs since publication 4+ years ago, projected temperatures for today's CO2 and CH4 levels would be a little higher.

Albedo Changes Drive 4.9 to 9.4°C Global Warming by 2400 - Fry PDF, 15 pages

Albedo Changes Drive 4.9 to 9.4°C Global Warming by 2400 - Fry 1020 Fry - DOCX, 28 pages

A similar forecast of future warming, with more mathematics, but with much less attentiona to the specific factors leading there, is below, by Dr. James Hansen et al.

Global Warming in the Pipeline - Hansen 101523 - PDF, 62 pages

"Equilibrium global warming, including slow feedbacks for today’s human-made greenhouse gas (GHG) climate forcing (4.1 W/sq meter), is 10°C."

Is Climate Change Speeding Up? Here’s What Jim Hansen, Scientists Say. 1223.rtf

Following the sets of overview studies are relatively brief summaries, from the general scientific press, for some of them, as well as for several other reports, whose originals are not included here.

Near the bottom are my comments on the 2013 US draft National Climate Assessment. They point out what I see as some deficiencies and omissions, especially about future carbon emissions from permafrost and lack of attention to lessons from paleoclimate studies. Below those, at the bottom, is my assessment of the climate situation.

Near the middle of the page is a draft of the 2017 US National Climate Assessment. It mostly fixes the problems I identified in the 2013 edition.