the climate brief Accurate Reporting of Climate Science

The BBC's Today programme has seven million listeners, so how it covers climate science is quite important. This morning's programme saw a report on climate change and recent temperature rise, followed by an interview with the well-known climate scientist Dr James Hansen.

Broadly speaking, the programme did a good job of navigating what has become an entangled web of scientific issues, although it perhaps inevitably lacked clarity on a few points.

BBC environment correspondent Roger Harrabin posed the question "what kind of risk are we taking with the climate?" With greenhouse gases in the atmosphere rising, earth's surface temperature - that's the air over the land and ocean - has risen more slowly over the past decade and a half than in previous decades.

The Today programme report explored why this might be, while Dr Hansen was on hand to explain why despite the recent slow pace of surface warming, the science of climate change isn't really in doubt.

Research suggests  support for climate change action increases if the public is aware of a scientific consensus on the evidence for human causes. But how many scientists really agree? A new  study, out today, shows very few studies reject that climate change is human caused, and hopes to promote this message by encouraging the public to get involved. 

A team of volunteers from climate science blog, Skeptical Science, rated the abstracts of nearly 12,000 peer-reviewed papers based on their level of agreement that climate change is human caused. The new study aims to identify the level of consensus by analysing 20 years of climate change literature.  

From Tuvalu to Alaska, some communities are already feeling the effects of rising sea levels - but knowing just how much melting ice is contributing to sea level rise, and what we can expect in the future is more difficult. A major EU project has just released new projections - and it says sea levels could rise nearly 70 cm by 2100.

Today's media have reported the new projections but seem confused over whether they're better or worse than expected. The Times says the risk from rising seas is "worse than feared", whereas the  New Scientist claims "it's not as bad as we thought".

As it turns out it could be seen as a bit of both - here's why.

Ice2sea

Four years ago, the Ice2sea project launched with the aim of improving scientists' projections of how much melting sea ice will contribute to global sea level rise.

Two years previously, the  IPCC 4th assessment report gave a best estimate of sea level rise of around 40 cm by 2100, but said the biggest uncertainty was the contribution to sea level rise from ice sheets and glaciers.

As ice sheets and glaciers melt, water that was previously held on land is added to the ocean, causing sea levels to rise. Head of the Ice2sea project, Professor David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey, explained at the launch of the project's final report last night: