A Country-by-Country Analysis of Past and Future Warming Rates

Most studies of climate change have concentrated on global or sub-continental scales, because of issues of spatial resolution. However, two recent developments that overlap at the University of East Anglia have made it possible to conduct a meaningful examination of climate change at the level of individual countries. The two developments are the construction of observed data sets on a half-degree grid and the fresh impetus given to inter-model comparisons by the setting up of the Data Distribution Centre.

To coincide with the official opening of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research on 9 November 2000 we have released this new study. We have combined the 20th century observations with the 21st century changes from five state-of-the-art climate models, and examined both at the level of UN member states. We also present our results in the wider context of human responses to climate change, by combining them with measures of current carbon emissions and wealth. Thus we are able to provide information for each country for the following indicators:

* Past Warming: the climate change each country has experienced in the recent past;
* Future Warming: the climate change each country may experience in the near future;
* Consumption: the responsibility each country bears for those changes;
* Vulnerability: an index of each country’s capacity to respond to those changes.