The concept of Climate Shifts originated after reading a blog of a colleague of mine at the University of Queensland, Professor John Quiggin. Since going online on the 10th July, Climate Shifts (“a topical commentary regarding climate change, natural ecosystems, politics and the environment”) has attracted a total of 17,670 readers. Thanks largely to StumbleUpon, our highest traffic was 792 unique visitors in a 24hr period (26/10/07). Geographically, here is what a typical day at Climate Shifts looks like:

From recent keywords (people searching on google, yahoo and others), it seems people are finding Climate Shifts for current events (e.g. “the aims of the climate summit that concluded this week“, “coral reef spawning great barrier reef november 2007“), up to date information on coral reef threats (e.g. “coral dying bleaching co2 in the water“, “what happens when we destroy coral reefs“) and a few words from our climate skeptic friends (e.g. “institute for public affairs oil industry funding” and “piers akerman lies“).

My initial reason for starting the blog was as follows:

1) My concern about our rapidly shifting climate, and its impacts on both natural ecosystems and the people within.

2) To improve how science is communicated – to ensure its wide dissemination while maintaining its neutrality and impartiality.

Expect some large changes to the blog along these lines in 2008: technological advances in the blogging world, active science and ongoing commentary – watch this space! Thanks also to Casper Henderson at Coral Bones, Rick McPherson at Coral notes from the field and Simon Donner and others in the blogosphere.

Finally, although nothing grandiose, i’ve somehow landed on Wikipedia under “Ove Hoegh-Guldberg (biologist)“, which I guess is better than people mistaking me for Ove Høegh-Guldberg, the Danish Prime Minister between 1772-1784!