Margaret "Peggy" LeMone, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, today begins a one-year term as president of the American Meteorological Society.

A growing body of research now confirms that the Montreal agreement averted at least one catastrophic form of climate change, even if others still loom. "The Montreal Protocol is a major success story," says William Randel.

Clearly, the end of the Copenhagen conference isn’t the end of work on climate change—though, with regards to Winston Churchill, it might be the end of the beginning.