Thanks for making me welcome. I'll try and dip in now and then but I'm often away from my desk and other pressing duties generally call, so my participation will be intermittent at best.

Again, I recommend people looking at www.realcimate.org for answers to a lot of the scientific questions. These guys have done a great job at presenting the climate science, and referring to Realclimate will save people a lot of confusion, and the likes of me a lot of repetitive posting. This isn't a "party line" on climate change - there are shades of opinion on the details and impacts within the scientific community, although the overwhelming majority of climate scientists accept that the planet is warming and we are causing it. There are a number facts that underly this field, relating to what we can and can't say about past changes, what the basic underlying physics is, and what models say about future climate evolution. Of course the models are not gospel, and any scientist has to deal with uncertainty, unlike the people who made the recent Channel 4 documentary, whose position is ideological and whose arguments are more like religious revealed truth (or just made up for political convenience) than science. But the evidence really is overwhelming.

A lot of people get very upset because they think scientists are telling them what to do about their lifestyles. Generally we're not - we're trying to use science to develop the best explanations about what is going on. If the human race wants to decide collectively to ignore climate change and invite catastrophe upon itself (not extinction, but widespread social collapse and disruption), fine by me. I'm not telling anyone what to do, just trying to present the scientific understanding, and explain the motivations of some of the people who are deliberately deceiving the public by being anti-science and anti-rational. The rest is up to you lot, and I've never been a big fan of the collective stupidity that passes for "civilisation" at any rate, so wouldn't be too sad to see it suffer a few climate-related body blows!

All the best

Nick