President's Column - December 2009
Wed, Dec 2 2009

The United Nations Climate Change Conference will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark from the 7th to the 18th of December 2009. The conference includes the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 5th Meeting of the Parties (COP/MOP5) to the Kyoto Protocol. A framework for climate change mitigation beyond 2012 is to be agreed there. Last month a report titled Copenhagen Diagnosis authored by 26 scientists from around the world was released. The report is draws on peer-reviewed literature published since the IPCC 2007 Working Group 1 report and it has been sent to every one of the COP15 negotiating teams throughout the world. The report is sobering reading – for example, as the media release states “Global ice-sheets are melting at an increased rate; Arctic sea-ice is disappearing much faster than recently projected, and future sea-level rise is now expected to be much higher than previously forecast.” I would like to make note of the fact that 7 of the 26 authors of the report are members of AMOS. Further information regarding the science of climate and climate change from AMOS can be obtained by contacting me, the AMOS President, or the Vice-President Neville Nicholls who, in 2007, was a Lead Author of Chapter 9 (Understanding and attributing climate change") of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment, a Lead Author of the Summary for Policymakers and Technical Summary for the IPCC Working Group 1 assessment, and a member of the writing team for the IPCC Synthesis Report. Our contact details are below. Perhaps discussion of the conference could be the way to kick start the forums section of the website. We have created a discussion thread, so feel free to make a post. Finally, I would like to wish everybody a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Regards, Richard Wardle. Contact details: Dr. Richard Wardle AMOS President +61 3 9905 4411 Prof. Neville Nicholls AMOS Vice-President +61 3 9902 0111