Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest listed oil company, has appointed a climate scientist to its board. Susan Avery, a former director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, will be a director from 1 February. Her appointment comes in the wake of demands from a number of investors that Exxon should appoint a board director with expertise in climate change. It may also show that criticism of Exxon’s stance of climate change is affecting the company — although some critics have attacked it as a PR move, says InsideClimateNews. The Washington Post also covers the news.

The Doomsday Clock, a symbolic instrument set by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, just ticked forward another 30 seconds, with the minute hand now pointing at 2.5 minutes to midnight. The clock is supposed to show earth’s distance from disaster. It is now the closest to midnight that it has been since 1953, the year after the US and Soviet Union conducted competing tests of the hydrogen bomb. This time, the scientists say they have moved the hand closer largely because of climate change, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. “Climate change should not be a partisan issue. The Trump administration needs to clearly and unequivocally state that climate change, caused by human activity, is a reality,” said David Titley, a professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University, quoted in the Atlantic. The story was widely covered, including by the Express, Guardian, Independent, Nature, Bloomberg, the Daily Mail and the BBC.

The Centers for Disease Control may have scrapped their climate change conference in an “apparent act of self-censorship” following the election of Donald Trump, but now a replacement one has been arranged. Former vice president Al Gore and public health experts have teamed up to host a climate change and health meeting in mid-February. The Washington Post also covers the story.

As Donald Trump issued an executive order to build a wall along the Mexican border, several publications looked at the environmental impact of such a project. Bloomberg points out that a concrete wall around 1,000 miles long could produce 1.2m to 19.m tonnes of carbon dioxide. Scientific American and TIME also both examine its environmental and climate impacts, including also the impacts on animals trying to move across the border.

As UK prime minister prepares to visit President Donald Trump, lawmakers have written to May, urging her to challenge Trump’s views on climate change. The talks are expected to focus on trade, but the cross-party Environmental Audit Committee said: “As one of the world’s largest emitters … his approach to reducing emissions could determine whether we, in the UK and people round the world, experience or avoid the worst impacts of climate change.” The Guardian also covers the story. Meanwhile, in the US, employees from several government agencies have gone “rogue”, reports Reuters, setting up Twitter accounts in the name of their agencies designed to challenge Trump’s views, including on climate change.

Coral Davenport has spoken to legal experts find out what Donald Trump has the power to do, when it comes to unravelling Obama’s climate legacy. Some policies, such as limits on mountaintop-removal coal mining, are “low hanging fruit”. Others, such as the Clean Power Plan, could take years to unwind, Davenport reports.

Two of the scientists responsible for deciding to move the Doomsday Clock 30 seconds closer to midnight this year explain their decision, including the role played by climate change. This includes “unsettling” comments from President Donald Trump, they write: “He has expressed disbelief in the scientific consensus on global warming.” The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have warned before that action on climate change is not progressing fast enough. Now, they write: “During the past year, the need for leadership intensified but was met with inaction and brinkmanship.”

The has been a “clear change” in rainfall patterns over southeast Spain in the last two decades, a new study says. The researchers analysed daily rainfall data recorded over the last 75–80  years. Their findings show that annual rainfall has decreased by up to 15%, dry periods have increased in length, and the number of rainy days has decreased.

A new study uses multiple datasets to investigate the slowdown in global surface temperature rise between 2003 and 2013. Both land and sea surface temperatures have increased at a lower rate than in the decades back to 1950, the researchers find. Surface temperature trends show decadal variations that correlate with 11-year trends of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, they add. Finally, using surface temperature and ocean heat content data, the study finds “no evidence of decrease in net radiative forcing in the recent years, but rather an increase compared to the previous decades.”