Global Warming or Climate Change

 The sun sets beyond visitors to Liberty Memorial as the temperature hovers around 100F in Kansas City, Missouri, last month. Photograph: Charlie Riedel/AP Records of temperature that go back far further than 1800s suggest warming of recent decades is out of step with any period over the past millennium The planet is warming at a pace not experienced within the past 1,000 years, at least, making it “very unlikely” that the world will stay within a crucial temperature limit agreed by nations just last year, according to Nasa’s top climate scientist. This year has already seen scorching heat around the world, with the average global temperature  peaking at 1.38C  above levels experienced in the 19th century, perilously close to the 1.5C limit agreed in the landmark  Paris climate accord . July  was the warmest month  since modern record keeping began in 1880, with each month since October 2015 setting a new high mark for heat. But  Nasa  s...

Climate scientist  James Annan  and climate economist  Chris Hope  made a nice sum this year for a bet they made on global warming in 2008. As  Hope tells the story : The record warmth of 2015 just made me £1,334 richer. While the extra cash is a nice bonus, it sadly demonstrates that the atmospheric dice remain loaded towards increasing climate change. So, how did I turn increasing temperatures into cash? About five years ago I was at a conference in Cambridge where most of the participants were sceptical about the influence of humans on the climate. I took the microphone and asked if any of them would care to make a £1,000 bet with me about whether 2015 would be hotter than 2008. Two brave souls, Ian Plimer and Sir Alan Rudge, agreed. Like a good economist, Hope hedged his bets.  Plimer  and Rudge had given him even odds, and Hope found a climate scientist, James Annan, who gave him 4-to-1 odds on the opposite wager: I asked him what ...