Greenbang’s weekly Climate Change Index tracks research findings and events directly attributable to global warming. Our aim is to provide a numerical, week-to-week indicator of climate change developments.

Items that qualify for listing in each week’s index include new climate data published in peer-reviewed academic journals and extreme weather incidents or other natural events that are likely directly linked to the global warming trend.

The Climate Change Index for this week, ending 25 Oct. 2009 (details below): 5

19 October: Research published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) reports that data from lake sediment in the Arctic indicates that climatic changes now taking place are unique within the past 200,000 years.

19 October: Blooms of toxic algae in the United States appear to be migrating slowly northward through the country’s ponds and lakes, and along the coast as temperatures creep upward, researchers from Clemson University reported.

21 October: Greenhouse gas emissions from industrialised countries increased in 2007 (pdf), continuing the upward trend of the previous six years, according to the latest data from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

22 October: Preliminary results from space-based monitoring instruments show a clear and unequivocal warming of the Earth’s surface temperature between the early 1990s and today, according to scientists from the University of Leicester and other research organisations.

22 October: The latest update to the Arctic Report Card finds the region has seen drastic changes in the past five years, and that those changes are occurring at rates faster than anticipated.

Tags: global warming