In an in-depth interview with Carbon Brief, Prof Dame JuliaSlingo, the Met Office’s chief scientist, talks about thereliability of climate models, El Nino, the UK’s winter flooding in2013/14, the Met Office’s new supercomputer and dealing withpersonal attacks by climate sceptics.

Countries rejected the opportunity to place a globalemissions reduction target on the shipping industry at a meeting ofthe International Maritime Organisation in London this week.Proposed by the Marshall Islands, this would have been the firsttime that a cap was placed on the sector.

A new study suggests a remnant of the so-called Larsen B IceShelf in Antarctica, which partially collapsed in 2002, will likelydisappear completely in the next few years. The news comes justdays afteranother studyfound its sistershelf, Larsen C, is also vulnerable to collapse. TheDaily Mailalso has the story.

The new energy secretary, Amber Rudd, has indicated she willback the expansion of household solar panels. Describing her newresponsibility to “keep the lights on and carbon emissions down”,Rudd said she also wanted to “shout loud about the benefits ofswitching energy tariffs” and to improve home insulation. BorisJohnson, Mayor of London, predicts the new Conservative governmentwill be the “greenest ever”, telling BusinessGreen, “Huskies are go”.

The International Maritime Organisation has shelved calls tointroduce a cap on greenhouse has emissions from shipping.Campaigners have condemned the UN body’s decision not to adopt newregulations – a motion proposed by the low-lying Marshall Islands -as “shameful” for failing in its obligation to tackle climatechange. The meeting’s chair said the IMO would reconsider marineemissions “at an appropriate date”.

US forecasters announced yesterday a 90% chance that the ElNiño brewing in the Pacific will stick around through the NorthernHemisphere summer, though scientists say they are only expecting a”weak to moderate event”. El Niño can cause price spikes incommodities but investors may be hesitant to react just yet afterthe false alarm in 2014, says The Financial Tines. Conditions inSpring last year the imminent arrival of El Niño, butit failedto materialise.

The Mail reports on a new US study suggesting that frackingreleases compounds into the air responsible for breathing problemsand increased cancer risk. Based on the results from 23 airsamplers near active shale gas wells in Maryland, people livingwithin three miles of a fracking site could be exposed tosignificantly higher pollution levels than the EnvironmentalProtection Agency deems safe, the study suggests. Though the riskto an individual will vary with location, extraction technique andexposure time, the researchers note.

As part of its investigationinto globaltemperature data, Lord Lawson’s climate skeptic lobby group, TheGlobal Warming Policy Foundation, says it is particularly concernedabout the difference between ground measurements of temperature andthose taken by satellitesseveral kilometres highin the atmosphere. The latter show a warming trend but don’t show2014 as the hottest year on record. The group says it will bescrutinising the reliability of the ground data but not satellitedata, as that is “beyond the scope of this inquiry”.

The Marshall Islands’ foreign minister, Tony de Brum, hasurged countries to do more to tackle climate change. The smallisland nation, which plans to achieve zero net carbon emissions by2050, has said it will push for a strong deal in Paris later thisyear to keep global warming under 2C. The thought of collectivelygiving up and letting climate change take hold is “repugnant”, DeBrum tells RTCC.

Expectations for forthcoming Papal encyclical on climatechange – due for release this summer – are huge, says Neil Thorns,director of advocacy at the Catholic aid agency Cafod. People arelooking to the Pope to drive momentum and create an atmospherewhere world leaders will act on climate change, looking beyondnational borders and our immediate generation, says Thorns.

The long-term investment industry is poorly equipped to dealwith the economic risks posed by climate change, says Lord Turner,former chairman of the Financial Services Authority. Warning of “amajor set of problems” looming, Turner called for an urgent reviewof the industry to steer economies, banks and businesses away fromprioritising short-term returns over long term risks.

A new study finds evidence of strong warming in the uppertroposphere, known as the ‘tropospheric hotspot’. The researchersused publicly available temperature and wind data for the uppertroposphere extending from 1958 to 2012. The hotspot has been anexpected aspect of human-caused climate change and appears in manyglobal climate models, the researchers say.

The length of the tropical cyclone season is expected to getlonger in the North Pacific Ocean, but shorter in the SouthPacific, a new study finds. Researchers used climate models tocompare the length of cyclone season at the end of the 20th centurywith projections for the end of the 21st. Ultimately, there is notyet an overall global pattern on how season length will change as aresult of human-caused emissions, the researchers conclude.